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Spring has sprung! The birds are shining, the sun is singing (is that right? -ed) and Kansai Comitia is back again! THIS TIME, I made the effort to get up early enough that I could be there for when the doors opened, and everybody applauded the staff. That was the expectation, anyway. The reality was I boarded the subway 6 minutes after doors. Oh well, there's always next time. Though, as that's in Kyoto, it'll take some doing...
Chargin' mah gear... I never used the steadycam in the end. Also, just before leaving, I got an Instagram notification that my favourite (well, the only one I like) pro wrestler is wrasslin' in Osaka today. Timely as ever, Insta. They notified me about a Misono Universe memorial event I'd have loved to have gone to... the day after it ended. I walked over to the subway and got on, standing near a boy who was holding his shirt over his nose and complaining about "K'sa" (stinky). At least kids are blunt! Once I got to Cosmosquare I detoured to 7-11 for some deoderant, that stuff rarely known at comic cons...
Nah Japan's are usually alright. Also Comitia tends to attract a "better class" of reader than the porn-heavy fanbook cons. I hear bad things about Comiket, though I'm yet to go to one. In fact, despite 10 years of living in Japan, I went to Cambridge more recently than Tokyo.
Some Cosmosquare. Yesterday. With that applied, I carried on to Intex, just as I was waiting to cross the road, a load of simpering gaijin, with transatlantic middle cl-arse accents rolled up. There was another event on at the Intex that day, I hoped they were going to that.
Anyway, I paid me sen for Tia's Magazine, and went in. There was a huge line for table E57, with somebody at the end holding up an "end of the line" sign. I've never seen that at a Comitia before! I thought it was more of a Comiket thing (it's not even that common at Comic City, and the other Akaboo events... which are, of course, being boycotted). It was time to wander the hall and see what I fancied, and this time, I took notes, so my comic con report can actually report on stuff, imagine that, eh? Row A had some cool stuff, one stand had many stickers, I want to grab loads of stickers for the background of my Youtubin' setup, and why not pump up some indie comics (and cool Osaka bars) while I'm at it?
One day, I might even make some videos! Row B had a gaijin selling a single copy-bon, so I made a note to go back there. Several stands down here had stickers, too. Row C didn't have much that looked interesting, but one book had a big "BL" label on it. Row D had more BL, including a couple of tables selling Bara that are always there. Plus there was another gaijin selling something. Row E was half full of "info doujin", one seems to be about the flags of fictional alt-history countries. The other half was porn. The cutie lesbians weren't there again :(
Random ephemera I got handed at the con. Links & QR codes are unvetted! In keeping with most porn manga, the birds all had massive tits, or it was lolicon. Or BL. Why can nobody draw normal-sized tits? Also somebody was flogging a DVD, and somebody else a card game, a third was a regular guy, who has a couple of vinyl records I'll buy one day (when I reassemble my hi-fi!). I saw the table the massive queue was going to, it didn't look all that. Row F had the ever-popular travelouge doujins, and the rest of the porn, plus some normal stuff. Still no cutie lesbians... I guess I'll have to scour Suragaya for the rest of their stuff.
One day I'll get moar... Row G had normal comics, plus more travelogues. A couple of tables had shy people with one book, so I made a note to get back to them. One guy had a big book about Expo 2025, it looked like it was about 300 pages, the table was absolutely creaking with a massive stack of them. Row H was more traveloges, cooking and more info-doujin, about vending machines, military equipment and so on. The long-running Aa Daru was among them. I got one of their books back at K-Comitia 74, but it was more like a character guide and series bible type thing... is it actually an ongoing info-doujin about a sentai series on TV?
Row I had a wide walkway in between it and J. I saw a few series I recognise, from previous Comitias, like Ghost Eater. I guess they had a wide walkway in anticipation of bigger crowds buying the new books. The side of row J facing the wide walkway also had several always-there series. The other side of row J was the beginning of the blurred border between comics and illustration books. I did spot a couple of one-book first-timer looking tables to check out, though. Row K had the cute witches that are a staple of Yonkoma Komachi (which I missed this year :(), and a couple more shy-person-with-one-copy-bon tables. One guy was selling one, but had no change. Row L had some gag-manga looking stuff, including more yonkoma, as well as crafts like badges and that.
Random ephemera I got handed at the con. Links & QR codes are unvetted! Row M was more crafts and yonkoma, as well as some more shy people. There was also some more info manga, these ones about coding, history and so on. Row N was mostly the start of the true illustration books section (which runs across the rest of the hall to row U), but there were a few more comics on the side facing another wide walkway. This was cut in the middle by another big qeue, going to some table in the illustrations area. A few more crafts were here, one table had big sticker sets so you could change the clothes of a character... or leave her in underwear.
Random ephemera I got handed at the con. Links & QR codes are unvetted! With the investigating walk done (also, it seemed like there was no reading area this year?), it was time to down a mini Starbucks bottle coffee, and get buyin! On row A, I bought a cute berry comic. It was made by a couple, and the husband was a Kiwi, so that's a third tablin' gaijin! I also bought a sticker for the setup. They had some crafts and other items of the characters from the comic. The wife even had a handbag that looked like one of their characters; commitment to the bit! I also bought a book about catgirls in a fantasy world, with a cat king. It's called "Alice is Wanderer" (I think), and has good art. I got another big one for a sen, called Hitohen - Another one. From a distance I thought it looked hëävy mëtäl, but she actually has a lute. Another character has "plague mask", but only a little one. I also saw a table where a guy had a robot arm set up "drawing" illustration cards to sell. Several of the tables with loads of stickers only had illustration books, not comics, which was a bit disappointing.
On row B, a couple of funny girls had a fantasy story called Sarusuberi (Sarusu Berry?), nabbed that, they were very happy! It has some great interiors, I hope they sold a lot. I got the gaijin guy's copy-bon too, it's about a mermaid and a sailor on a desert island (or is it?). We used only Japanese for the whole transaction, even with my feeble level. I got another book about mermaids on this row, with a yellow and blue cover. It features them being either evil, or just plain chaotic, pretty funny.
The people who had loads of stickers were off buying their own hauls, so I had to give them a miss. One woman was holding up her illustration book, so I took a look. Bought it because it comes with stickers!. I also got a ¥100 copy-bon from a shy girl... which is also just illustrations, no comics. Is this just an illustration book con now?
My spending was already a bit ahead of where I intended it to be, onto row C with a much more conservative hold on the wallet... I got a comic called something like Shamrock Maid, set in early-Victorian-looking times. The bloke also did a strawberry-themed superhero book I got a long time ago. He also had an illustration book of all his female characters with their tits out, like ya do. I also bought another book called Rugievit from a single-seller, about a guy and his dog fighting a monster bear. It looks pretty good. Another girl with just one book had a cover that made me think it was BL, but in this case, it means BasketbalL. The book is called Namima-no-Futari, which I could almost read. Go me. The art style kinda reminds me of BmB, somehow. If you don't know what BmB is... why are you here? Go and read that!
Row D had the proper stuff; R18 BLs! One is called Close the Distance, it's about some guys in a nice big holiday home, "trying out" the bed. The interiors are printed with blue ink, and there's some nicely-rendered muscles. Like in BmB, actually. They gave me an umbrella charm, too.
The other is called "Riaru" (Real). It's about a couple of office workers who hang out in a bar and steer their conversation towards anal sex. Then a drunk guy pukes on one in the street, so they go to a love hotel to change his clothes. Then bang. Well, rude not to, really. The top is a looker. Some people were beginning to pack their tables up at 13:30 :(, is this an Akaboo con now? I nabbed another BL, about Yakuza or whatever guys sucking cock in an alley. Got a sticker of that one, too! I Checked out the gaijin's table, she had a very Franco-Belgian style BL (lots of romaji sound effects), but it was ¥1800, so I had to miss that gay shit with me budget..., er, my budget. I did buy one called "I Said Interested But...", which was just ¥700, with a free sticker set. One of the guys has chin-length raven-black hair and glasses... yes please!
Row E had some maybe-loli flat chested girl porn, so I had to give that a miss, but I did find one called Black Lacquer (subtitle: The Curced Bondage) about a normal-sized-boobed girl in a super-tight bodysuit, who gets extremely sweaty while being banged. Something for everyone, eh? Also it seems like in the end she just dreamed it, anyway.
On row F a young, chubby girl was selling a hentai about a slim, small-boobed demon GILF. Really does take all sorts. I also got a non-porn one about a boy and girl wearing female swimsuits... in order to play in a band! Your guess is as good as mine, but it's cute.
Just wish I could pull that off... and had musical talent. On row G, I got a large-format one about a ghost, called Ghost Hal, for a sen. It has some great hatching on the interiors. The bloke with huge stacks of books about the expo had sold about half. I also got Tareman (arch-nemesis Shioman?), which looks like a black and white DisintegrationStreet. I got book 4, because it seemed to be the best balance of pages to cost, so I could sample the series. The seller has active social media, but looked like a 5th grade elementary school boy... I looked up that social media and he's... a 6th grade elementary school boy! Well, I was nearly right. Apparently he's been at a bunch of cons around Kansai, selling these comics. I guess he was usually also with his parents, so I just assumed they were the creators, when I saw them before. Mind you, back at the Thing 2007 there was an 11 year old boy selling a comic called Eezy... I need to look up what he's up to, these days. THANK YOU FOR RECEIVING 14 MONKEYS
On row J I got one from another single-book girl; two guys are hunting in a post-apocalypse, while their dog is taken over by an alien parasite... Also it seems like the guys themselves are mutating, too. I need to take a closer look... perhaps for a video on WCR, hint-to-self.
I also bought a cute-looking copy-bon called Daydream from two women, it seems to be about forbidden, but youthfully-innocent cross-class romance in old-time France... then jumps to the same characters, but living in modern times. One guy on his own had "Coffee time break", a slice of life, so I nabbed it for ¥300.
Is this the freckles row? Row L had a guy selling one copybon, called Angel Sheep. It looked like something I remember buying at a previous Comitia. I asked him if it's "atarashii?", but apparently in Japanese "new" doesn't mean "new". Anyway, it's cool. I also found a table selling good-looking "wide yonkoma", I wanted to buy just one, but got cajoled into buying a set of two. It came with three toothpicks in a triangle of folded paper, they said it was "grandmother". I've seen a similar craft thing elsewhere before, maybe even made it, but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is now. Only thing I want to use a set of toothpicks for is picking up mushy-pea-covered chips, while sitting on the seafront at Great Yarmouth.
On row M, I got an anthology called "Iron Manga". I also checked out a girl's single book, but it was a novel, too many muzukashii kanjiii. I got accosted by the guy next to her, who asked if I could speak Japanese. I said "a little", so he immediately starts gabbling off some spiel I can barely follow, it was something to do with a Marvel Comics-based novel. He was selling a mostly-text book with an English title that was something like "Osaka Literary Society", with illustrations of schoolgirls in. I assumed this was a book about girls in a school making a Marvel doujinshi, like a Genshiken sort of story. I assumed VERY wrongly. May 12th 2026 was actually my 10th "J-birthday". Nigh a quarter of my life in this miserable fucking country, jesus.... At row N, I Looked at some girls' full-colour porn comic about a girl getting banged in an alley, which also had a bunch of hot illustrations. But it was ¥800, and I was getting hungry. They were the ones with the changing-outfit sticker sets, too. I Did nab one more ¥300 copy-bon. I also Went back for the "Marvel" book but the bloke wasn't there...
I left the hall, but realised I hadn't got the poster for the next Comitia, so popped back in for that. This time the Marvel bloke was there, I said "go on, always Google Lens 'ent there"... I go to pick up what I assume is the book, and he's fucking handing me an envelope full of un-numbered pages of handwriting, four tiny paintings and an "eyeball" soft rubber character thing. What the fuck? I was just stood there in stunned, slack-jawed incomprehension, as he's gabbling away and piling more and more stuff into my hands. And it was a sen for that little lot. Should have bought that full-colour porn book, after all.
So yeah, I skimmed it through camera-translate as soon I got home. It has CUNT ALL to do with Marvel... except it's about a drug that rejuvenates people, which I guess is kinda like the super-soldier serum off Captain America... a bit? So that was my con over, time for food and home. I decided to finally try out the Intex Cafe, but they wanted ¥1100 for a normal-sized Katsu Curry. Bugger that, I'm off to Denden Town for a double-cutlet huge curry for, only ¥900.
At least I got to try out the curving escalators...
And there was some eye candy from one of the bridges. Checked if there was a boot sale in the ATC skyscraper first, there wasn't. This is a proper liminal space, a skyscraper should be full of workers, this is just gloomy and deserted. Mind you, it is Sunday...
Also passed the Immigration department, I'll be back there tomorrow to get my renewed visa.
If I was filthy stinkin' rich, and single, I'd live up there! I eventually reached Denden town, and after waiting ages to piss in Joshin, I got to the curry. And of course it's cunt closed for an hour, 'ent it? Of fucking course. I wandered through Denden town, turns out there's some cosplay event today so it's packed full of goons, and security guards bellowing through megaphones any time a scooter comes with 100ft of somebody. Alright, me arm's twisted, I'll waste thousands on Shake Shack
(If I'd ate the ¥1100 katsu curry I'd be at home already) - 16:58, 17th May 2026 Decided to walk off the 'orrible fatty feeling in my guts, why do I eat those? The little grey eyeball got somewhat squashed, and it's "tail" dropped off and fuckin' DISAPPEARED. I fingertip-searched the whole area of paving where I saw it drop, and it was just fuckin' GONE.
No longer in the best of nick... Yeah, if one thing sums up gaijin living in Japan more than any other, it's the "cherry on top". Things can't just fuck up normally, there's always that one little extra fuckup on top of that, just to make it that little bit worse. Also I passed the Misono on my walk back... they still haven't really started to demolish the main building yet, no idea what's going on there. As for what they've done with the site of the little building that was next to it... go on, have a wild guess...
Told ya so |
