Day 2 in Japan: Comiket 77 Day 2 Battle Report

Woke up bright and early at 6:00am to do battle.

But first, some last minute preparations. The hostel didn’t have a printer I could use at the last minute, so I went to nearby 7-11 that I remember had a printing service. Loaded up my camera’s SD card with the map and circle list today and printed it right there.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a photo print. As in photo-size.

Small Map is Small

Eh, it’s readable if you squint a bit, so it was actually surprisingly useful.

So we took the trains over to the Kokusaitenjijo-seimon station and were greeted with… loads of people. Metric shit tons of people.

Following, the signs, we got to the back of the line… and waited.

In Line at Comiket

Yep, that’s all people in the horizon. I took this shot facing the back of the line an hour or so into the wait. Sharp-eyed readers will see the line curving to the left and continuing.

Lots of cell phone, DS, and PSP-playing while in line. I, myself, got lots of Gundam vs Gundam Next PLUS time in.

So we had actually gotten to Big Sight around 8am and around 10am, everybody starting clapping suddenly. Apparently, Comiket actually opened its doors. From there, the line… didn’t move all that much. It kept going though, and eventually we even got onto the steps of Big Sight!

Line to Big Sight

Around 11am, we finally got into Big Sight and I made my way into the East Halls to start hunting for Touhou doujinshi.

After shoving my way across the hall, I finally found one of my target Circles: GP-Kids and then was directed into yet another line that extended outside.

Line to Buy Doujinshi

To be fair, there’s actually a bunch of different lines pictured above.

How the system works is like this: popular Circles are situated at the edge of the hall. The trick then is not to find their table but to find the nearby line which is probably stretching outside. More specifically, look for the guy holding the sign saying: “Circle ____, End of Line”. Then he’ll hand you the sign if you’re waiting in line.

Eventually, you’ll make your way towards the front of the line in sections, then your section will eventually be directed to the Circle’s table itself. Then you can buy their stuff.

I repeated this process a few times for happy flame time, Creation of Haniwa, and a few other Circles. Unfortunately, I’m fairly sad about missing a few like Dioxin and One Night Stand. Went up to their booths and saw a nice “Sold Out” sign.

Went around afterwards and just looked around and bought a bunch more Touhou doujinshi. Basically anything that appealed to me and stood up to a quick glance through got my approval.

Comiket Loot

Comiket Loot 2

Here’s a sample of what I bought, I’d show more, but I’m staying at a youth hostel right now and don’t really have the time nor space (nor privacy!) to show everything.

Wandered out of the Touhou half of the East Halls after a while (after I realized that I had already plunked down 15000yen!) and looked around.

Went to the Computer section, with lots of interesting stuff. People selling kits on how to make different goods involving stuff like microcontrollers, FPGAs, and LEDs and fun stuff. Lots of doujin software, too. I plunked down some more money and got Fuguriya’s new entry in the Sono Hanabira yuri game series.

Wandering over to the West Hall, I stumbled across this section with things like cute pictures of cats and puppies on various things like postcards and photobooks. My sister later told me that all her purchases were made there.

In preparation for tomorrow, I bought a large Comiket-themed bag to carry elongated stuff and the epic, textbook-sized Comiket 77 catalog to flip through while I’m waiting to get in, since I didn’t have much time beforehand to do things like look carefully for Circles I’m interested in. Thing also comes with a full-sized map of the East and West Halls which should prove useful.

Comiket 77 Catalog

Even though I didn’t visit the main cosplay area, I saw a bunch of cosplay today. Unfortunately, around the Touhou area, a disconcertingly large number of them were cross-dressing cosplayers (crossplayers? traplayers?). Though, some of the girls working the tables had some nice outfits, kinda wish I was allowed to take pictures.

Around 2pm, we left Comiket in search of food, having not eaten anything since 8am.

Happened across a Kohikan Cafe around the Toyosu station. We both had what they called the “Cafe Symphony” parfait, consisting of lots of coffee jelly, chocolate cream, vanilla ice cream, more coffee jelly, and more vanilla ice cream. Not a meal, but pretty darn good.

Cafe Symphony

We went back to our hostel, stopping by to eat Tonkatsu at this place called Katsuya. Too hungry to remember to take pictures.

Katsuya

After resting a bit, we set out again for dinner and a huge 100yen store, only to find…

Firetrucks… Lots of Firetrucks

…a whole bunch of firetrucks in Edo Street, the main street near our hostel. Apparently, a nearby building caught on fire and around 15 or so firetrucks and ambulances (no joke! those vehicles literally filled the street in front of the burning building) were on the scene.

Firefighting in Action

I’ve never actually seen live firefighting, it was pretty epic. A bunch of people were gawking on the nearby sidewalk like we were, covering their mouths with flu masks or sleeves due to the smoke.

After gawking a bit, we took the JR line over to the Arcakit Kinshicho Department Store by the Kinshicho station. Our goal was the Daiso 100yen store inside, which took up an entire floor!

Kinshicho Department Store

Daiso 100yen Store

Place had everything: tools, snacks, pharmacy stuff, clothes to even things like VHS tapes and planting pots.

Got a bunch of random stuff like toe socks, a handkerchief, scotch tape, and a bunch of file cases for my Comiket loot.

We went to the 10th floor after buying our random stuff to look for something to eat. After looking around the food court, we went with a pasta place. I got a carbonara with bacon and egg and my sister got a meat sauce spaghetti.

Carbonara

Spaghetti

Not bad, kinda simple, but pretty good and reasonably priced at about 1900yen total (for Japan, anyway).

Since I’ve still got the last day of Comiket tomorrow, after buying some more supplies like a bottle of water and some more marked-down bread at the bakery, I’m in the process of getting ready to do battle tomorrow.