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It always begins with an early morning. Especially when you're on a mission to buy that ever-elusive Kyou Kara Maou doujinshi. And so, even though we had been drinking like dehydrated fish the night before (all the fault of that Korean guy I tell you- people should just never give me free beer) and singing karaoke until 3am, there we were at the doors just after opening. We followed the ushers sheep-like and bleary through the massive arch-way structure that stands before Tokyo Big Site. It was then up the stairs, pausing only briefly to purchase our catalogues, then following the flow of people through the doors and into the West Hall. Having no initial time to look through the catalogues properly we decided to raid the Kyou kara Maou section. And it was small. Just 3 tables. We got what we could then sat down to trawl through the books. Finding specific circles is not an easy task. The circle index seems to have no logic at all and the mixture of "English", Katakana and Kanji names makes it all the more brain-taxing. But at least things are organised (usually) in such a way that shows are grouped together. So the three of us, manic doujinshi buyers all, split up in search of our preferred series.
Cienna works hard to find both her favourite circles and requests.
It was in this way that I found myself in the Saiyuki section. After much perusing I picked up an excellent Gojyo/ Sanzo book on the advice of friend Lebateleur. There was a distinct lack of good Hakkai/ Gojyo or my pairing of choice, Sanzo/ Goku but I endured because right next to this section was the one thing I could not leave without seeing, my Mecca and ultimate joy- the GetBackers section! "I won't be long- oh look! TaifuClub are here! Shit their website said they weren't..." Lebateleur valiently attempted to restrain me but alas, nothing comes between me and Ban/ Ginji porn so I sent her away ("I'll just look quickly then come downstairs..." I lied) and troll for quite some time. I think I must have looked at almost every book. I really am sad. I did however aquire a whole lot of great new stuff and was given a Ginji sticker by one particularly friendly person at an Akabane/ Ginji table. Now a strange thing happened whilst I was admiring a particularly angsty GB doujin (Ginji died in it! I couldn't bring myself to buy it). For some reason, some music came on over the speakers and everyone started laughing. Very odd. I was clearly not privvy to why the music was so funny. Anyway, eventually Cienna found me and saved me from myself. And so we set off for the Full Metal Alchemist section. Now at Comiket, FMA had not so much been a "section" as the main event, but things were not so excessive this time. Suffice it to say we browsed this section for a while looking at specific circles and spotting some very cute block stamps of the charatcers. Then it was time for another group break-up as I ran down to the DeathNote section.
A random picture of a random section in a random hall.
Time was running late and circles were starting to sell out so I moved quickly, stopping briefly to find that one of the best Hughes/ Roy circles was sold out (I would have wept but there was no time to lose!) And so I remainend in the DeathNote section until we all met up again and sat in a corner of the room for the last 45 minutes of the event looking at our new goodies and watching as the tables packed up for the day. When the market was at an end we went out of the halls into the foyer area where there was an exhibition of original pages from various circles. It was really interesting to see how they were created. Then, after a brief look at the merchandise and art supplies stalls (I wanted a sketching pen) we left the building tired and weary and weighed down by vast amounts of doujinshi. Porn carrying bags suitably affixed it was off back to central Tokyo for celebratory ramen and a well-earned rest for our tired little feet.
The DeathNote section close to the end of the day. A new popular choice.
TingTing 05/11/04
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