--COMIC MARKET 59--

1/11/01

On December 29 and 30, I made my fourth consecutive pilgrimage to Comic Market, Japan's largest doujinshi (amateur comics) event.

Day One was the main event for me: Shounen Aniparo Day. This was the day when they had most of the doujinshi based on boys' shows like One Piece, Inu Yasha, and, of course, Trigun.

The area reserved for circles selling their Trigun books was considerably smaller than it was last summer (down to just 111 spaces from 272 last time), but I still managed to spend all my time and money there, thanks to the sudden proliferation of Midvalley books. The "normal-coupling" circles were also still going strong, and I was able to add Zazie/Meryl, Elendira/Meryl, and two Knives/Meryl books to my collection of obscure couplings. I even found myself buying quite a bit of Wolfwood/Vash yaoi.

I did a quick swing through the teeny-tiny Cowboy Bebop section, and practically sprinted up and down the massive One Piece aisles looking for cute stationery, but by and large, it was all Trigun for me.

On the second day, I took it easy and just tagged along with my friends, who had plans to hit the big Original-June circles that are run by professional yaoi manga-ka (including Kodaka Kazuma, Nitta Youka, Higuri Yuu, and many others). My friends, both of whom were on a strict budget, stuck to very specific shopping lists, so we finished pretty early and went out to the Cosplay Square.

I have no idea how many Trigun cosplayers I missed on the first day (hopefully my friend Tina will be able to fill me in later when she gets her film developed), but I managed to snag a couple of photos on the second:

One of the coolest Vashes I've seen in a while. Note the nice buckle work on the arms and legs. The otaku-type guy on the left is wanted for $$45,000.	The costume seems cartoonishly simple, but the expression on this guy's face is really cute, like he's just been distracted by a flying donut. Note Rabi-En-Rose strolling by in the background.

It's sort of weird to have a two-shot of Vash and Legato, of all people, but these two guys were walking around together. I'm surprised that all the Trigun cosplayers I photographed that day were male--I usually see mostly women.	Since the Trigun ML has been mulling over Legato costume-construction lately, here's a low-res blowup of the spiky side of Legato. His spikes appear to be made from foil-covered cardboard and possibly, pencils. Or chopsticks.

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