So today I went to comiket. Sadly bdawk senpai couldn't make it due to a hang over. First of all, there were a lot of people. More than you'd be able to imagine, the amount of people was really difficult to fully appreciate.
When I took the train this morning towards Tokyo Big Sight the train was full from the moment I got in, and I had to stay in for another 14 stops. Along the way it just got fuller, to the point where it was incredibly hot (even though it's cold outside) and it was actually difficult to breathe. This is as crowded as trains can physically get. When I got out at the station I intended to go (even if I didn't want to go there, I'd just be swept away by the strong currents of otaku), I was immediately welcomed by police that set up rope lines and were shouting with megaphones directing traffic. Every inch of wall in the station was covered with anime related advertisements, there were huge banners too.
Some five minutes walking from the station was Tokyo Big Sight, the iconic building biannually hosting comiket among other things. The time was about 11 o' clock, approximately one hour after opening time. Contrary to my expectations, there was no queue whatsoever getting in. A lot of people though, a freaking lot of people. Following the largest stream of people I ended up in the east wing of the building, a few hundred meters (!) from the main entrance. There were two halls here, and I entered the one on the left.
The hall was easily over two hundred meters in length and at least 50 meters in depth. This place is large, and that's only half of the east wing. It was kinda hard to move around, and you would be pushed around quite roughly by every single person around you. In contrary to the organized pedestrian highways I encountered when traveling through the main building to the east wing, this place was complete utter chaos. It was war. Many people ran around with floor maps with detailed markings trying to get to all the stands they want to go to in time.
Some stands had queues, very long ones at that. The last person in line would hold a make-shift piece of cardboard saying something along the lines of e.g. 'start of queue for stand モ-C32'. The more famous circles (maybe pros?) would have a stand along the walls of the hall, often with their backs facing outside. Some had queues of a couple hundred patient fans. Me being far from as passionate as those people there, I decided to just visit stands without queues save for two or three stands with queues less than 10 people.
I checked out quite a few stands, obviously not all of them. One thing I must say is that the with most works the printing looked very professional, and many works had phenomenal art. Hard to believe almost all of these people are amateurs, the bar was quite high. I personally bought three full color art books, I don't think any of them pertains to a particular anime. I feel sad I don't understand Japanese that well, since some story oriented manga seemed quite interesting. Then again most of it was quite expensive at about 500 yen for around 20 pages of manga. Some had entire volumes published though, usually for around the same price surprisingly.
Anyway as I strolled around I obviously marveled at the amount of pr0n sold. A lot of yayoi, loli and futa. Especially loli, I think about half of it was loli in this hall, and given that about half of the hall was dedicated to the erotic arts, that's quite the amount of jail bait. Didn't buy any of it though, all of it seemed a little expensive, and in contrary to the SFW stuff they sold, the quality seemed much lower. Maybe I'm just too picky when it comes to the subject.
After that I went to the other East wing hall, grabbing some doner kebab along the way. In there they only had pr0n (even animated) and music albums. Didn't listen to any of the music, but I sorta regret that. I immediately assumed the music wouldn't be of my taste, which may be true, but still it wouldn't have hurt to see on what kinda level these people were producing.
On to the West hall. Going there was a pleasant experience. The people walked quickly, and pedestrian traffic was excellently controlled. It goes to show that Japanese people are really good at this; they are masters at queuing and at organizing pedestrian traffic in any situation. The west hall was divided into two parts, each slightly smaller than the enormous east halls. Interesting thing here were travel diaries, photography books and even books on whisky, beer and sake. I looked at some, and they gave very detailed accounts. Unfortunately my Japanese is not good enough to appreciate the contents. Some of them were enormously specific, one was about a single German beer brewery of which I'd never heard, and another was about the sake produced in the Kyoto prefecture with hand drawn images of the sights near the brewery. There was also a book about a whisky distillery in Taiwan (didn't even realize they had one).
At this point I was already really tired and ready to go home. I had spent about 2.5 hours being pushed around by hordes of otaku, which turns out to be very tiresome. Can't imagine people going three days from 10 to 4, queuing up first to get inside. Then I saw huge hordes of people waling up the same stairs. I decided to check out where they were going and found myself amid hundreds of cosplayers and a good factor five more people taking photographs of these cosplayers. There were many different cosplays, some of which very detailed, and others funny. Some people were acting stupid and having a good laugh about it. The atmosphere was quite nice, and all the cosplayers gladly posed in front of the many cameras pointed at them. In then end I don't really have a big interest in cosplays, so I left relatively soon.
My feet were hurting and I wanted to take a breath. I hopped onto the nearest train and got off at the final station. Took me half an hour, and the train was packed, but I had no choice since the only transfers to other lines was at the final stop. Had to stand all the way, but at least I could get a good look at the Tokyo sky line. After some traveling by subway I reached Shibuya where I had a nice bowl of gyuudon with cheese on top. I subsequently walked to Ebisu intending to go to the Ebisu beer museum. Got lost along the way since the battery of my phone was dead. Ended up walking in a big circle, taking at least a 6km detour. I ended up walking non stop for almost 2 hours before finally getting to where I wanted to. The museum turned out to be closed this week (as do all museums in Japan, I quickly realized). I ate some ramen and made my way home.
My feet hurt. -_-
