Wings of Yuri

shijima December 29th, 2009 2:25 am

I know there are a lot of sites out there that talk about Comiket, but I guess I might as well add one that focuses on what sorts of yuri doujin one might be able to pick up as a first time attendee.

Here are some good links for how to prepare and what’s it like:
Guide to Comiket - Ticktank
Guide to Comiket - Heisei Democracy (NSFW)
C76 impressions - A Foreigner’s Tale in Japan/a>
Comiket Impressions - Okazu
List of yuri circles

---

I’ve been having a series of unfortunate circumstances such as cracking my laptop screen and losing my wallet at Comiket…
But fortunately, I still have enough cash to complete my trip. =)

I’ll name Day 1 - Saki day since that’s about all the doujin I picked up, besides the Touhou Calendar they were selling at the Toranoana booth. Not surprisingly, Yuyuko and Youmu are March, complete with cherry blossoms.
It’s too bad the GirlsLove game by Clover Girls wasn’t for sale yet, though they had a postcard.

Thanks to jetlag, I was up at 3 in the morning so I thought I might as well take the first train from Shimbashi to Big Site.
Like others have said, though you’re not supposed to stay overnight, there were hundreds of people there already. :p

• 6:00 am - took Yurikamome to Big Site
• 6:30 am - ended up in line near the new Sunroute Ariake - 5 min. walk away from the actual area.
  Note: If you want reservations there, I did secure some by reserving 6 months in advance but I cancelled them once common sense sunk in that they were charging double during Comiket. (13500 yen a night) :p
• 6:30 ~ 9:30 - line is not moving, so sat on backpack and read a book. Other people bought tiny stools (a good idea), and ate food, chatted with each other, or played DS/PSP.
  Comiket Staff give warnings to be back in your place by a certain time.
• 9:30 - line starts to move
• 9:45 - Ended up inside near the East Halls. There were signs indicating where you wanted to go: East Hall, West Hall (doujin), West Hall (commercial booths).
• 10:00 - announcement that Comiket is starting. Everyone claps. Doors eventually open
• 10:15(?) - headed for first stop - (三振) Sanshin/(薄荷屋) Hakkaya.
  I was inspired by this post at Ichigo Yuri.
  No wonder it’s an booth on the wall (edge). The line is already snaking outside the door.
  I didn’t get that exact doujin, but did get some new releases.
• 11:30 (?) - I think I finally got the doujin around this time.
  The special poster was already unavailable when I was halfway through the line…
  Asked for one of everything and there went 6000 yen… (I didn’t think it’s be that much!)
• 11:30 ~ 1:00 - wander around the halls. By the time I finished the first booth, some of the other smaller Saki booths had already sold out of their new doujin.
  Note: It would probably have been better to have picked those up first and then wait in that monster line.
  Well, some lines were even worse. I’d never heard of the circle next to the one I lined up at which was named Magical Private Eye (NSFW) - but that one was so long it had the awful “This is not the end of the line” sign.
• 1:00 ~ 1:30 - see some cosplay.
  There is a LOT of trap-Touhou. I saw a male Ran, MariAli, Yuyuko…
  I did see a nice Lambda and Bern and Persona 3. (Where’s the female protagonist? :D)

Other thoughts:

• Trains coming and going at least on the Yurikamome are not as crowded as I thought they would be.
  It doesn’t even compare to buses in Hakone or trains in Kyoto during koyo season.
• It would be nice to have a chair while waiting.
• Lines for corner booths are worse than I thought they’d be.
• Lines at booths inside are normally not bad at all. I only waited in line at an inside booth once.
• You really do need friends to pick up everything you want, especially from popular booths. However, even if you don’t get all your first choices, there’s so many interesting things, it can really be a money pit if you don’t watch out.
• Doujin are not expensive. 300-500 yen.
  Sets with special bags/gifts are expensive.
• Industry Booths like Sega, Frontier Works, Pixiv are scary long. The lines go down the stairs…
• Comiket seems pretty tough to navigate for those that don’t speak Japanese. Seems I also need more studying since I didn’t understand all the stuff they were yelling out either…
• I still feel like it’s something everything should experience at least once though.
  Fortunately, it wasn’t too cold after the sun started coming up.
  Not sure if I could survive summer Comiket though.

And here’s the haul for the first day.

Looking ahead, it’s no surprise that Atelier Miyabi is a wall booth and is selling a very nice calendar.
Sapuri, GP-KIDS, and AngelType from Touhou are also wall booths… <sigh>

• comiket , info