I was able to attend the world’s largest doujinshi fair, Comiket 94, and I give mad props to anyone who went for all three days. I only went for two days, Friday and Sunday. The crowds were enormous, while I was taking the rail to Tokyo Big Sight you could see the crazy amount of dedicated fans. The best thing about taking the train is if you have fast hands you can get an image of the crowd with the building.
This is my poor attempt at getting the building and the crowd.
When I was in line waiting to get inside, it was around 45-47c and the heat was killing me.
Here is how the inside looked when once I got inside, it was packed.
For me the biggest issue was probably just the weather, it was too hot and humid. People are trying not to touch each other because everyone is full of sweat, everywhere was pretty much crowded, no AC running in most of the building. It really felt like we were herds just trying to get somewhere, somehow. Other than that, the lines weren’t that long. Only long ones were usually for the bigger booths that were selling bags of limited merchandise. The funniest thing that happened to me was, there was a kid looking at me and he could visibly see the sweat on my arms and head. He asked his dad if it was raining outside. That was pretty hilarious.
One thing I didn’t realize while going to Comiket was each day had a theme to it. I still don’t know the theme but the third day I heard from a colleague of mine that it was supposedly adult doujinshi. With that being said, it came to my surprise that one of my favorite eroge doujinshi, Tourou no Ono by Nakamura Regura, was created by a female! I was able to talk to her and tell her that I love her work.
Here’s a look at some of the goodies I bought during Comiket.
As someone who travels a lot to different conventions between the U.S. and now Japan, I really like Comiket’s atmosphere. It may be packed and full of fans but the authors and artists really do take their time to talk to fans, whether it’s just a quick casual talk, or just talking about the author’s/ artist’s works. Lines were big, but never a long wait which caught me by surprise. The staff on duty are really well organized and very patient with everyone. I was hoping for a surprise guest or something but it didn’t happen.
The cosplay at Comiket 94 was as always, stunning! Not many talks about it but the majority of the staff at Comiket94 were in full cosplay too. Ladybeard was there but I got there at the time he was leaving so I couldn’t get any pictures of him. My overall experience was fantastic. If you did miss Summer Comiket 94, don’t worry! There’s a Winter Comiket94 you can attend in December! I personally will not be attending Summer Comiket anymore, it’s just way too hot and humid.
Here are some of my personal favorite cosplays!
