Sunday, December 28 - Aoyagi Ritsuka

I woke at 7:30am to meet other people from the cosplay site at 10am. After breakfast of onigiri, I dressed in my Ritsuka ep. 10 outfit minus the ears, chains and bandages. (I forgot and wore my usual shoes rather then my sneakers too but no one noticed obviously. More for my own cosplay perfectionist pride then anything else. ^^;) Getting there was easy enough, changing trains twice and got to the location (statue of a girl in front of McDonald's, just ahead and right to the Rinkai station) half an hour early. I breakfasted again on fish filet meal before meeting up with others.

just a bit about Comiket

I won't go into how comiket works since there are TONS of guides online that will be able to tell you more and much better then any of my explanations. But I'll state this much, it's a convention that is centered on doujinshi booths (aka. Artist Alley,) industry booths and cosplay area. That's it. And it's HUGE. Professional mangaka also do doujinshi...because it's fun. And they appear here! For more popular circles, their booths are usually at the walls because there are lines of people (that circle outside) waiting to buy their doujinshi. My purpose at this Comiket? To get autographs by my fav mangaka!

Two wings. East and West. We waited on the East wing line first. Huge line, TONS of people and we got in within an hour. O.O Efficiency? Japan knows it!

fan dream come true

I first went to Circle Kozuya, the doujinshi group by Eiki Eiki-sensei and Tsuda Mikiyo-sensei. I've been wanting to meet them since Yaoi Jamboree so it's suffice to state that they're my first target. They have a new Code Geass doujinshi out as well as a Haruhi doujin. I waited on line and asked for the senseix2...only to find that they went shopping. (Mangaka love to shop for doujins too. ^.^) The people manning their tables stated that they'll be back in half hour so I decided to stick around the booth. They were my main goal for the day and I didn't want to miss them. Eiki Eiki-sensei came back first but I didn't approach the booth until I saw Tsuda-sensei. (I've seen more pics of Tsuda-sensei so I wasn't really sure it was Eiki Eiki-sensei until I approached them. ^^;) I asked for their autographs in Japanese (I've been practicing this line in Japanese over and over to sound as clear as possible) and they signed my manga! Eiki Eiki-sensei signed my Dear Myself and World's End manga and Tsuda-sensei signed my Princess Princess vol. 5 manga. O.O

Just a tiny secret: I started tearing up when I saw Eiki Eiki-sensei since I love her manga so much, one of my first BL and such a beautiful story. I was in tears by the time she was done and I thanked her profusively. My first time crying in front of a mangaka. ^^; Kyaaaa... *hides*

BTW, we can't take pics inside the building, only in the cosplay area. For that reason, I found myself on a bridge outside of the building and caught this picture. Eiki Eiki-sensei is the one with the glasses in the upper left corner. The lower shot is of the convention hall: People....

Code Geass cosplay: going strong

After getting my manga signed, I wandered around the room some more before deciding to head to the cosplay area. There were tons of different cosplays and suffice to say, I didn't know everything that was there. (Got alot of catching up to do!) I had my pictures taken a few times, but my main purpose was to capture the beauty of other cosplayers with my camera. Code Geass cosplays were everywhere. (Not as much as the Naruto hordes in the States, but they dominated the cosplay scene.) Code Geass must be pretty amazing since for an anime that ended, it stil had alot of pull from cosplayers. There weren't mediocre cosplays either. If there are any 'bad cosplayers' in Japan, they didn't show up there. There were alot of guys crossplaying, but they look good too. (Some I think were doing it for humor, but they look pretty good as well.) Unfortunately, I couldn't capture any good shots of male crossplays. Got shots of everyone else though. ^.^

I left the cosplay area around 3pm, nearing the end of the first day of comiket.

Tuesday, December 30

Humbled by the amazing cosplays, I decided not to cosplay on the last day of Comiket. I still woke early at 8am to meet the some of the same people from Sunday at 10am. Got there within reasonable meeting time and we headed to the west wing line. We waited a bit longer then sunday, but got in within an hour as well. I went to circle MECCA where Minami Haruka-sensei is. There are some doujins from her Voyeur series as well two new ones. (I think one of them was Love Kitchen but I don't remember...I was distracted by the yummy boys on the cover. ^.^) Minami-sensei signed my manga Saihate no Kimi e and I was able to say 'I love your manga.' to her. ^.^ I headed to Higuri You-sensei's booth next but was told that she was not at the booth. I bought two Gakuen Heaven postcards set of Nakajima and Tetsuya and was given another set for the new game that Higuri-sensei drew, 12 Tender Killers. Sugoi! I decided to browse about a bit with the guys and return in half an hour. In half an hour, we returned to the booth and I found Higuri-sensei with a pad of paper...about to draw. O.O I got my autograph for the manga Gakuen Heaven: Calling You and left the area.

testosterone level: high

I headed with the guys down to the east wing since that is where all the hentai is right now. Honestly, I was one of the few girls in that room. For every 100 guys there was probably only 1 girl if even that many...not counting some of the girls (in bunny cosplays) selling cosplay porn dvds and doujins. ^.^ There was alot of boobs, bums...and cum shots. We browsed for awhile, the guys picking up their goods. I even got a free Gundam Seed poster calendar. Yay! ^.^ Afterwards, we headed outside and noted the HIGH prices of food there. (700 yen for a box of takoyaki. 700 yen for yakisoba. o.O) While resting, I started reading (or looking at pictures) of one of their doujinshi and couldn't help but blurt out 'cum bun!' when one of the guys in the first page ejaculated on a bun and was handing it to a girl.... X.x lol We decided to head to the cosplay area for awhile before leaving for food.

cosplay round two

I didn't spend that long at the cosplay area this time but still got some good shots. I even found some caucasians (Americans maybe?) cosplaying. There were three girls, sounded quite young as Ghibli characters. Of course they were a hit with the Japanese photographers. ^.^ Kawaii! After awhile we headed back out to the McDonald's that we met at and ate lunch outside. It wasn't that cold and I had a fish filet meal again. Yummy.... Then came the train ride home....