crowd
Comiket 85 - Winter 2013
The 85th Comiket (short for “Comic Market”) is currently being held in Tokyo, until tomorrow December 31st. Like the summer Comiket that I attended in August, it takes place at Tokyo Big Sight, on the island of Ariake. There are 3 parts to the Comiket: The main event is the Doujinshi fair (which I didn’t visit this time, since it seems to mostly consist of rows after rows of stands selling amateur homo-erotic manga) but there are also mutiple areas for cosplay, as well as a hall for professional companies to sell their products. The weather was great and the venue was really crowded.
Nezu Shrine Festival
I attended a matsuri (Japanese festival) at the Nezu Shrine last week-end. It featured stalls with greasy food and games for children but the main event was the presentation of the mikoshi, a portable shinto shrine that looks like a miniature building.
Comiket 84 - Summer 2013
The 84th Comiket (contraction of “Comic Market”) was held a few days ago at Tokyo Big Sight in Ariake, Tokyo. It is the world’s largest fair for self-published manga (a style of publishing known as dojinshi in Japan) but is also the occasion for cosplay and sales of products by established companies. It takes place twice a year, in summer and winter. About 500,000 attend the summer Comiket. It was indeed massive!