A very geeky weekend

Last weekend my friend Michael and I took an 11 hour bus ride to Tokyo to have ourselves a geek vacation, Japanese style. We went to コミケ 82, or Comiket (short for Comic Market) 82.

Twice a year, summer and winter, Tokyo hosts Comiket, a huge convention that's only purpose is to sell manga and anime related gear to masses of fans. It started as a market to sell doujinshi, or fan made comics (not published stuff) and had grown to involve a commercial market room and cosplay as well. It's main purpose is still to sell doujinshi though. Most of the convention space is in the East and West halls, where there's tons of tables set up, each with people selling their own fan made stuff, as well as original stuff. It's free to get into Comiket, but all there is to do there is take pictures of cosplayers, and spend money on stuff, so that makes sense. You don't pay money to go into a mall, right?  Most of the things for sale are limited edition things you can only get at Comiket, so many items sell out fast, and there can be long lines for stores. The Japanese Post office has a room where you can mail your purchases back home so you don't have to lug tons of manga around. I saw people packing boxes with hundreds of books. The amount of money spent at comiket must be staggering.

If you want to cosplay, and you know I do, you can't come/leave in your costume. You have to change at the convention center in their special changing rooms, which they'll charge you 800 yen to use a day. Better than causing huge bathroom lines I guess.

Comiket is held in the Tokyo Bight Sight convention center, which is just off Tokyo Bay.

Welcome to Comiket!

Michael and I took the metro to get there all 3 days. All 3 days the trains and stations around the convention center were packed! I think they did a really good job managing the crowds and getting them to keep moving. They had trains running every 5 minutes or so. Despite the sheer number of people, we were never waiting long for a train, though we had some very cramped train rides.

We checked it out to see how it all worked on Friday afternoon, then returned Saturday to huge crowds, and Sunday was even busier. Apparently, 560,000 people attended comiket this year. O.O I got stepped on, bumped into, and pushed a bunch of times. I also kept losing Michael.

One of the hallways leading to the west halls. The convention center is huge, and everywhere in the building it was packed like this.

Going up the stairs to the commercial merchandise.

On Saturday, I took my new costume I made to wear. When we arrived, we followed the signs to the girl's changing area. There I had to stand in line for about 10 minutes waiting to get to the changing room. I paid my 800 yen, and got a little book with a sticker for Saturday, saying I could use the room. It also had a map of convention center and little mangas illustrating the rules of the convention.

After paying, we were lead in a group of about 20 girls into one of the big ballrooms of the convention center. There were no tables, instead the room was broken into sections with tape and orange cones. All around, sitting on their knees in lines were girls changing, putting on make up, wigs, costumes, etc. It was crazy. I wish I had pictures since it was just so organized and Japanese, but obviously, no pictures of girls changing. As girls finished and left, the staff would lead new people over to sit in their places. There were no mirrors or counters, any thing you might need, you had to bring with you. You literally got a small square of carpet to sit and change in, in a sea of girls doing the same thing. No wonder all these girls brought huge wheely suitcases with them. It was pretty cool.

After changing, Michael and I went to one of the cosplay areas. The Comiket staff is very strict about taking pictures of cosplayers. You can only do it in the cosplay areas, and only if you ask first. Of course, if you're in cosplay in the cosplay area, it's kind of a given it's okay to take your picture, I think. They do this so there's not hall clogging, traffic stopping photoshoots in the convention center. Too many people for that.

In the cosplay area, for the most part, cosplayers find a free place to stand on the edges of the area and around the fountains, statues, etc. Then they just stand there until someone comes up and asks to take a picture. They pose, pictures are taken, thanks is given, and they return to just standing until someone comes up and asks again. Much like in America, if people see someone taking a picture, they'll jump in and join, but they often don't want to be the person to initially ask. The cosplay area was outside and really really hot and packed with people. Lots of guys with huge cameras. I got my picture taken (I think I was making the Christenson squinty face that dad makes because of the sun. Not particularly attractive... >.<) and I was interviewed for the Japanese TV channel Zip! for their morning show. Super terrifying, I'm sure my Japanese was just awesome. I feel bad for whoever has to edit that...

I cosplayed Tomoe Mami from Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

It was really really HOT!!!!

So walking around Tokyo for 3 days and cosplaying really hurt after a while. I sprained my ankle, popped my knee out again, and my hip was bothering me Friday night. I was hobbling around like a little old lady. Ridiculous!

Other awesome things we did in Tokyo include:

Going to the Tokyo Evangelion Store

Seeing the new Tokyo Sky Tree

Seeing a huge Gundam!

We also visited my favorite cat cafe, Wendy's, and saw the new Pixar movie Brave since they don't have it subtitled in Shimane movie theaters, only dubbed. We met up with Mara, who I went to high school with, and took purikura with her and her boyfriend Kenji.

It was a great weekend, but rather geeky. Just the way I like it!