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INTEREST: Is Comiket Still Fun Without All the People?




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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2264
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:19 pm Reply with quote
I'm not normally one to do this, but this is such a clickbaity headline. Many fan cons in America are lucky to get 90,000 turns of the stile in a weekend, let alone one day, so effective calling Comiket "empty" is quite a stretch.

Though I will corroborate about boating being A Thing. You will definitely know when Dynamite Boat Race season is upon you.
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PipimiOden



Joined: 26 Mar 2022
Posts: 179
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 5:40 pm Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:
I'm not normally one to do this, but this is such a clickbaity headline. Many fan cons in America are lucky to get 90,000 turns of the stile in a weekend, let alone one day, so effective calling Comiket "empty" is quite a stretch.

It's empty in terms of comiket standards, but that's about it
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Greboruri



Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 378
Location: QBN, NSW, Australia
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 6:23 pm Reply with quote
I think the question posed in the article is a bit silly considering the amount of issues with Comic Market prior to the to the pandemic; extreme overcrowding, issues with people fainting and being dehydrated in summer, apparent hyperthermia in winter, people staying overnight in get in, the occasional stampede, the mobile phone network not working at all and being overwhelmed in the Odaiba region, huge public transportation logistical issues etc. I note that Japanese Wikipedia a long entry with a list of issues with Comiket that is a separate page to the entry on Comiket itself.

I went in summer 2018 for the first two days and it was hellish to be honest. The connecting passageway from the entrance to the east and west halls was like a sauna and I was just drenched in sweat the entire time and quite conscious of not getting dehydrated and fainting. The west halls were not too bad, but the east halls were the worst. Extremely hard to get to the tables you wanted to, virtually impossible to get to the area where the cosplay circles were selling their books and CD-ROMS. Sure, I did meet a couple of artists I was following on twitter and got their books, but I'm certainly not doing it again, especially when I can buy the books I want online.

I think pre-pandemic it was already becoming very unmanageable. It just felt like barely controlled chaos the entire time I was there. It's probably a good thing that the pandemic became a circuit breaker and the committee made it a ticket only event rather than a free for all. I enjoyed Wonder Festival which I went to two weeks prior, far, far more than Comiket.
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Swissman



Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 768
Location: Switzerland
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:10 pm Reply with quote
Greboruri wrote:
I went in summer 2018 for the first two days and it was hellish to be honest. The connecting passageway from the entrance to the east and west halls was like a sauna and I was just drenched in sweat the entire time and quite conscious of not getting dehydrated and fainting.

I visited Comiket in summer 2001. I had already trouble with the number of visitors back then. With 480'000 visitors it was overcrowded and I had a hard time to get from one doujinshi booth to another, you basically had to move with the flow of the mass in order to reach any of the tables.
I cannot imagine how Comiket 2018 must have been with 50'000 more visitors. Must have been hell.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4586
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:51 pm Reply with quote
I mean an anime convention without any anime fans there sounds pretty ideal to me personally...
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catone2



Joined: 10 Aug 2021
Posts: 218
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:19 pm Reply with quote
For me, the people and lots of them with the buzz and atmosphere make the convention what it is, so I'd say otherwise. But this is only by Comiket's standards. That said, its peak amount of visitors is the most fun, so I hope it hits that again. Not something to miss.
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3672
PostPosted: Mon Jan 02, 2023 12:17 am Reply with quote
Sounds a bit better and more manageable tbh
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