May 12th 2024, Intex Osaka
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Kansai Comitia 70 ran from 11:00 - 3:00, I intended to get there before it opened to line up and applaud (something I actually managed at the first Comitia I went to, back in those halcyon days when you could go to Melonbooks and get the catalogue ahead of time), but of course I couldn't get up on time. My decision to go full time at my former part-time job (the one that did me out of Oricomi10, and kept on pulling me in to do evening covers after my main job) was a terrible one. Maybe even life-ruining, if my previous company doesn't want me back. But that's a worry for another day. Today, we buy comics! May is usually lovely in Japan, but, as there was an event on, of course it was going to rain. Also when I had to take about 3 paces outside between stations at Morniomiya, of course pigshit-thick tourists had to stop right in front of me and ponderously turn around to ask their spouses some inane question. Actually the weather wasn't that bad, luckily. The worst of it came on Monday. Instead of the usual walk from Cosmosquare Subway to the venue, I decided to go on the "New Tram" (a self-driving DLR-type thing) to the Asia Trade Centre, and then take various covered walkways from there to (almost!) the venue.
The bridge from the ATC Centre, through a nearby skyscraper (at the top of which I proposed to my girlfriend in 2019, incedentally - always a happy memory to come back here) and onto the covered walkways is on the second floor. So, are the stairways in this large building, which frequently hosts big conferences of foreigners, and which is right on the coast, plentiful, logical and clearly-marked? Are they fuck, eh? Are they FUCK. A tsunami warning in this place might end up being more deadly than an actual tsunami. Anyway, having finally found my way up to the bridge, I was able to pass through the deserted skyscraper (this whole area is one of those "redeveloped, clean and nice, but in the middle of nowhere" type places) and get to the coverered walkways to the event.
By this time it was about 12:40, and I was worried there wouldn't be any catalogues left, but luckily there was still plenty. I paid me sen and went in, ending up at row J. Row J was about halfway down the con, and pretty much the end of the comics section (half the con is comics, the other half is illustration books, hobby guides, cookbooks etc). Some guy immediately accosted me in English and tried to get me to buy his tour guides... in Japanese. I got one for southern Nara, just because my girlfriend is from there (I once wanted us to ride a romantic train to a mountain resort, turns out the train's destination is about 5 minutes from her town!). A nearby table had some beautiful night photography books of old buildings, framed in such as a way as to eliminate as much modernity as possible and look like they did in past times. After that, I started working my way back down through to row A, looking at which comics I fancied and FOMO-picking some that looked super cool / were further along in a series I recognised. One girl had only one comic on her table, a first-time conventioneer. Anyway, turned out I was buying her last copy! Somebody on the next table applauded her XD. At the far end of row A, the woman there had a newly-released bilingual comic in both Japanese and English, because she'd lived in Washington State in the USA. So of course I... bought one of her Japanese-only ones. The cover looked cooler. By now I had around ¥7000 left in the buyin' budget, which I thought was plenty, so I started working my way back down through row A, buying some of the "maybes". By the end of that I had ¥3000! Oh dear. I picked up just a couple more, and checked out two others that I fancied, but I had no change left. I thought the event ended at 4:00, and didn't want to raid the tills of the one nearby konbini, or the few food stands on the grounds, by buying something cheap with a ¥10,000 note, so I walked over the ATC Centre to get some change there. I ate Sukiya, but by then it was 2:50, and I found out the event actually ends at 3:00, so I just went home. Via a stop at the giant Daiso there to see if I could find a ¥400 long stapler like they used to sell, but they didn't have any. I guess those have gone the way of Daiso minidiscs. A quick run home, and check-through of the haul, then I slept for 2 hours. I set out to see if any otaku bars were open where I could chat about the haul. Good old Anna was!
It turned out there was also some other otakuish event during the day, where they closed the main road in Den Den Town and had outside stalls and that. Anna got "packed" (read: 8 people were there), so it was a fun time. A manga artist turned up (never found out which manga!), and also I met Kazuya Konomoto again. He wanted to see a furry ("Kemono") doujin I'd bought. I tried to introduce him to Erma Felna, but couldn't explain it that well XD. Anyway, as Anna was extremely busy with 8 people in it (we did an oddly-rare overflow-into-the-corridor that Japanese bars in these multi-bar buildings never seem to do, for some reason), it took ages to get served / get my payment taken. I had to run like crazy for the last train and not say goodbye properly. Never mind, decent Comitia haul, all the same.
(Still, I'm 40 next month, and it's suddenly been sprung on me that when you reach 40 in Japan you have to start paying some other sky-high medical insurance. So this may be the last of the big pay-like-crazy Comitia visits, too.) |
