DoujinshiJo

Next up, find your circle. I wanted to visit NEGRO MANIA who was due to be at table 30b. Here they are. Although it doesn’t specifically say “a” or “b”, you can see there are 2 entries with the number “30″ - as you can guess, since NEGRO MANIA is the second of the two, they will be at side b (right side) of the table.

Next, to find them on the map. The brochure maps are the only ones printed on pink paper, and they’re perforated so you can rip them out. Here’s the シ row.

And that’s where table 30 is! It’s right at the back of the room, and way over on the far side from where we came in between halls 7 & 8 (that’s where the queue was). Draw a circle around it so you can find it easily later. Rinse and repeat for any other circles you’re interested in, and then rip out the map for easy reference on the move.

Now, you may be wondering why we’ve spent all this time checking the circle’s information in the brochure when we’ve already got the details written down from their Pixiv / Twitter as outlined in part #2. Good question. Honestly, it’s not essential for you to go through the rigmarole of looking them up in the circle list each time - you can skip straight to the map to mark them if you’re confident enough in your note-taking and cross-referencing. Me, I personally liked sense-checking my research against the image/name of the circle in the list, just so I know for sure I’m headed for the right place. Plus I had a couple of hours to kill in the queue so...

As I previously mentioned, halls 1-3 are all in the same massive room and there are no physical dividers separating them. Here’s a map of TBS to give you a better idea:

(You can see here how far apart the East and West wings are. It takes maybe 10 mins to walk between them on that zig-zaggy raised walkway in the middle).

On the map,  東3, 東2 and  東1 look like 3 separate rooms next to each other. They aren’t. They are 1 big, big room. Keep an eye out for signs high up on the walls showing you roughly where each “hall” begins and ends.

How to find your circle in the hall (assuming you’ve been good and highlighted them on your map):

Check which part of the hall you’re in. There are massive numbered signs high up on the wall showing which part of the hall you’re in - check this against your map.

Check the row number. The first table in the row (whichever end you approach from) has an A4 sign stuck to the edge of it showing which row it is. You may need to peek through participants to see it. Note that there can be a single table stuck on the end of each row - this table may not have the sign, so if you can’t see it check the next one along. Your map will show the order the rows come in so you know how far you have to go.

Check the table number. This will be on a small sign on the edge of every table, so again you may have to peer through people to find it. Many circles also have a pop-up banner behind the table with their artwork and name on it, which is handy. If there is a massive queue in front of the table you think you want, check and see if they have a queue marker (scroll down for more about these).

Now for the last leg of this post series - event etiquette. There’s a bunch of stuff that I realised as I was going along that I wish I had known before I went, and although no-one was mean about it I felt bad not knowing what I should be doing - so I really do recommend spending a bit of time learning how to work best with your fellow participants to get the most out of your day.

Probably the best thing you can do is to read Akaboo’s site (translate it using Google or something) before you go to learn about what is and isn’t acceptable. If you find yourself in the queue having forgotten to do this, there’s a pretty simple comic in the brochure which explains how you should behave. It’s pretty obvious stuff; in a nutshell, being a nuisance (including distracting the circles/doujinkas, asking them to sign things, getting in the way/blocking access, not having small value notes/coins etc) is not cool. Neither is running or pushing/line-cutting, buying R18 doujins when underage (”young people” - I guess as in children/highschoolers - are not allowed in the event, period), any photography outside of the cosplay room, bringing large / bulky luggage or bags, and bringing pets.

On the topic of cosplay; it can be tempting to want to come along dressed up as your favourite character. Be aware that some events do not allow cosplay because it disrupts the flow of the event - think people with big props blocking the narrow space between rows of tables and you get the idea. Check on Akaboo’s site that cosplay is permitted before dressing up, and that there are no other rules to follow. Also, anything that’s going to make you uncomfortable during the queue or walking around the halls (heels etc), or fill up your hands, just isn’t worth it. There is a cloakroom where you can stash your stuff (and presumably change), but I have no experience of that so I can’t really tell you anymore.

Let me talk a little bit about queuing - I know, I know, sounds boring, right? Bear with me as this is actually pretty cool! 

Many of the smaller circles don’t have much of a queue (or at least, they didn’t when I turned up at opening time), so you can immediately buy the books you want. Just check first to make sure you’re not accidentally queue-jumping - making eye contact with the doujinka is usually a good way to tell! 

More popular circles though (you can usually tell as they will be on the outsides of the room rather than in the long rows, to make space for queuing customers) will often have a queuing route marked out on the floor. It will be cleverly designed to create spaces for people to get past without going through the queue. Arrows show you which direction the queue should go in; a straight line shows where to stop to create a through-fare gap. A long queue may be divided into several blocks along a designated route. Also, they will have a queue marker - aka a small, handheld sign showing where the back of the queue is. You can see it in the picture below:

See the girl at the back holding the “ あ-18″ sign? That’s the queue marker. It’s held by the last person in the queue, and they have to display it so people can see where to join the line (or where other people in separate blocks of the same queue need to go next). When someone else joins the queue they take it off the original person, and so on - in other words, the marker is always right at the back. As it can be hard to tell which queue is for which table (particularly if two circles are sharing and the lines are long), this is a neat concept. If a queue is particularly long and divided up into different blocks there will be more than one queue marker, so you can tell which queues are part of yours and which aren’t.

If you join a queue in which someone is holding the marker: politely get the attention of the person holding it (”sumimasen?”), hold out your hand for the sign, and then hold it up above your head (making sure it’s facing the right way so people can read it!). Chances are you won’t have it long! Make sure you say thank you (”arigatougozaimasu”) when someone takes it off you - good manners cost nothing, after all.

Finally, in places where there is a long queue you will usually line up in pairs, so make sure you don’t disrupt the structure of the line by creating a single-file line - other participants may be reluctant to appear to be pushing in front of you by filling in the gaps, and it will cause an uncomfortable situation. All I did was follow the lead of everyone around me and it was a breeze.

So, how did I find the event? I loved every second of it. The order, the efficiency of how it all worked…I got in just after the 10am opening time (the huge queue flowed in in a matter of minutes) and left just before 11.30am with every book on my list. Seriously, I couldn’t have been happier. The process of pointing out the books/quantities I wanted, handing over the cash (all the books have a price label clearly visible so you can add it all up as you’re waiting, and most are around 400-500JPY each), sliding them into my trusty tote and then scurrying to the next table…it was all so seamless and speedy. If you’re the kind of person that likes to browse more leisurely at relaxed pace I kind of suspect that you’re going to enjoy yourself quite as much, as those local doujin fans know what they want and there’s no messing around. The beauty of an event like this is that you can plan ahead and get in and out with minimum of stress - window-shopping doesn’t really fit into that concept. That being said, there’s no reason why you can’t do it - just be aware of other participants who might be on a personal mission to buy a stack of doujins and who won’t appreciate your getting in the way for no good reason.

The longest queues I stood in were for LEGO! and Abaraya - even those were no more than 10-15 minutes each. I think I must have been lucky as there were some circles with queues that must have been 20+ minutes long…but even so it wasn’t even a fraction of the pain I thought I would have to endure.

(Incidentally, the latest LEGO! book is absolutely magnificent - the closest a doujin has ever brought me to tears. Buy it. Buy it now.)

And, of course, here’s a pic of what I got:

The beauty of attending the event is that you can meet your doujin heroines - plus you can pick up exclusive free “papers”, freebies like badges and postcards, and non-consigned books. See that white doujin with Present Mic on the right (”Closet”)? That’s not going to be sold at stores. Go me!

Would I do it again? Hell yes. Whether or not I would brave the half-million attendees of an event like Comiket is another question, but I would certainly do CCS again in a heartbeat.

buy it in advance from an approved store. Most big anime/manga chains like Animate, Melonbooks etc are stockists, but you can check a list of confirmed stores on Akaboo’s site. It’s worth noting that this is both more expensive than buying it on the day (1,900JPY compared to 1,600JPY on the day) and subject to selling out pretty quickly. I wasn’t able to get one this way, but then I didn’t actually ask until the day before the event so…yeah.

buy it on the day at the event entry tents. The brochures are issued one per person, so you can’t buy one for you and your mate - they must buy it themselves separately. A word of warning - you can NOT use a single banknote higher than 1,000JPY to buy it. Make sure you have change.

I believe you can buy a separate entry ticket without brochure for 1,400JPY - but I'm not 100% sure that’s the case, and at any rate your brochure is your backup in case your online prep doesn’t cut it (particularly because it contains detailed maps which you can detach from the book itself). Plus, it’s an awesome souvenir.

The day before the event: This is your last chance to make sure you have everything you need for the big day. I prepared this handy dandy checklist of everything I brought and found useful:

Why a flat, shoulder-carried tote? Very simply - you will be buying doujins in very cramped quarters (there’s just about enough room for a 2-person-deep queue on each side of the row and a narrow lane of traffic to pass by in the middle) and at high speed to keep queues moving. A flat tote is easy to open and slide a book in, and will keep them flat. It also means you don’t need to take a backpack off your back, open it, put the book in, close it and put it back on…trust me, when you’re surrounded by people in a rush to get past you you will be grateful that you optimised your stashing speed. You also need your hands free to prepare money, pick up books, hold queue markers if necessary…so a simple flat tote will be your best friend.

Now, when I went to this event, my plan was to show up very early to get a good place in the queue. I got into the queue at 8am (opening time 10am) and there were a couple of hundred people in front of me. If you’re planning to show up late in the afternoon once the crowds have subsided you may not need items like snacks etc. Water though is always a good idea, particularly if it’s hot out as the halls can get warm and you may be standing/queuing for a while for popular circles.

Check your mode of transport. Akaboo ask that visitors do not come by car - instead, you should use public transport (which is adapted according to the demands of the event - Comiket influences the entire infrastructure of the area, including mobile phone services, when it’s on!). The closest station is Kokusai-Tenjijo which is about 7 minutes walk away and on a direct line (JR Saikyo line, which changes to the Rinkai line without leaving the train) from Shinjuku station. It takes about 35 mins from Shinjuku JR station. Note though that trains don’t run this full route as often as other JR trains, and part of the journey isn’t covered by the JRPass so will cost you an extra 330JPY one way. You can find more on Tokyo Big Sight’s website.

Finally, Akaboo recommend getting a good night’s sleep and to avoid attending if you’re sick.

The day of the event: Check the weather. If it’s sunny, make sure you bring something to cover your head/neck from the sun if you’re planning to queue early, and apply sunscreen. If it’s raining, bring an umbrella, for there is no cover in the queue area. You may also want to bring something to sit on as you will be perched on the tarmac until opening time - some of the more hardcore participants had mini folding stools. If you’re happy to sit straight on the ground (I was), that’s cool.

Wear flat shoes. Please don’t be tempted to make a statement in any kind of heels or fancy footwear - it’s not worth it if you will be hurrying about and queuing, plus there is literally nowhere to sit inside the halls.

Leave early to catch your train. Follow the crowds to TBS - you can’t miss it. Check the signs - there will should be signposts for the East halls (東) or West halls (西). Note it’s quite a long walk - maybe 10 minutes or more - to get to the East Hall queuing area from the station-end of the site, and you’ll end up walking all around the building feeling like you’ve been sent off to the middle of nowhere…trust me, it will all make sense when you get there. 

If you get stuck you can try asking the staff directing the crowds, but be aware that not many speak English as this is not really considered a tourist attraction. I used very broken Japanese - “Kippu kaimas (literally “ticket buy” - hey, all I had was my English-Japanese dictionary)” - to find where to queue if you didn’t already have a ticket, but I think people actually queue in the same place regardless so you can just ask where to go for East Hall 1, West Hall 3 etc (or, if you looked up which “Event category” your circles are in e.g. Splash!, RTS!! etc using Navio, you can point this out on the checklist carried by staff). The staff I spoke to all recognised the names of the halls in English perfectly, and certainly helped as much as they could by pointing me in the right direction. 

When you get to the start of the queuing area you will see the ticket tents. There are a couple of queue options which are clearly marked - 1,400JPY for (I believe) ticket only, or 1,600JPY for brochure entry (recommended). As I mentioned before, do not attempt to use any 5,000JPY or higher notes or - heaven forbid - credit cards to pay; you will be sent to a separate queue to get change first, and there are no facilities to accept credit card. Anywhere. Inside or out.

Next, if you’re queuing in the East area, you will be divided into queuing groups depending on which halls you want to go into. This is where your online prep pays off; head for the sign for your chosen hall. I wanted to prioritise East 1 as about 5 of my favourite circles were in there, so I headed to the sign marked  “東 1.2.3″. We were asked to sit in lines of 4 wide and about 40-50 long. Once the line was full, the next block of 4 wide would be started alongside. When the queue moves to the entrance you’ll be moved in your original block of 4 wide, so there’s no chance of you losing your spot to someone that arrived later than you. It also doesn’t matter if your friend queues beside or behind you as you will move together regardless (my partner sat behind me, but most people sat next to their friends).

And all that’s left to do is sit down and wait until the staff move you to the entrance area about 20-30 minutes before the door opens. There are (a very small number of) toilets that you can use, and you can stand up and stretch etc but that’s pretty much it. The beauty of queuing in Japan is that everyone respects the queue, so you can leave your stuff in your space and go stretch your legs briefly and will still be able to return without hassle - just make sure you remember where you were sat, as there are no landmarks to navigate by and it’s very easy to lose your bearings in a sea of visitors! Also, Akaboo warn that the queue can be moved at any moment if necessary, in which case you could lose your place. Try not to leave if you can.

This is a great time (provided you arrived early enough and everyone is settled) to go through your brochure maps and circle the tables you want to visit. Since this is quite a picture-heavy post I’m going to dedicate part #4 to it - so for more on looking up circles, please check it out!

When times comes to move, all instructions will be in Japanese so just follow the lead of the people around you. The queue remains remarkably well structured as they lead you to the doorway, so don’t try to push ahead or change lanes - stay in your original group of 4 wide and follow the person in front, and you will be fine. As I already mentioned, queues in Japan work very well so you don’t need to defend your spot from people pushing in (unlike London) - just keep up with the person in front.

Just before the doors open there was an announcement, after which everyone applauded. A few minutes later the door opened and the queue started filing in. At this point there had to be between a around 150-250 people in front of me in the queue, and we still got in in a few minutes - everyone moves quickly but in a controller manner, so there is zero reason to panic or push. Go with the flow til you get through the door - then it’s all hands on deck!

Akaboo post updates in the months and weeks running up to the event on both their website and Twitter feed. You can read all about the ticketing system (more on that later), rules for attendance etc, so it’s well worth checking all of this out before you go. I didn’t do this and got in trouble for taking a photo in the hall. Whoops!

The other useful thing you can do on their site is access Navio. Navio is basically an electronic brochure that shows all of the doujinshi circles that will be attending the event and where they will be located on the day so you can plan where you need to go. This information is crucial, because if you don’t know where your circles will be sat you will waste a lot of time trying to find them…and may not even find them at all thanks to the crowds. Plus Tokyo Big Sight is huge. If you do nothing else before you go into the hall, make sure you find out where the books you want will be - either using Navio or your event brochure, which I will talk a bit more about in part #3 and #4.

First, Navio. In the past Navio used to be a subscription-only service; for the last few years it’s been made available to use for free via Akaboo, though it retains a lot of premium features like searching by circle name, pairing etc. You can still do a few things with it though, such as browse circles related to your fandoms to find new ones of interest, directly access individual circle Pixiv/SM pages and view maps of the hall layout. This is kind of useful, so worth looking at in a bit more detail.

First, select the event you’re attending.

Type in the ID and password as it appears on the page into the log in fields. You don’t need to enter any other information like email address etc - everything you need is literally on the page.

Now, unless you have a premium login, you won’t be able to use a lot of the functionality of this page. If you were to search, say, by a particular pairing, the site will teasingly tell you how many circles representing that pairing will be there…but it won’t let you view the results. What you can do: 

browse through the “Event” types which group circles by common fandom themes (RTS!! contains sports fandoms like Haikyuu!!, Splash! contains Free! fandom circles etc)

scroll through all 18,000 attending circles manually

check out PDF maps of the venue / table layouts.

You’re probably thinking - “That’s rubbish! How the hell do I find the circle I love?!”. I get it. This is where the next step of your prep comes in - checking your circles’ Pixiv and Twitter pages. In the days running up to the event circles will normally publish their event locations everywhere, which makes life much easier.

Here’s an example of one of my favourite circles, NEGRO MANIA / 霧雨Jack. They published this promo poster prior to the event showing the “menu” (i.e. what they will be selling on the day), and where they will be located:

東1ホール シ30b i.e. East (東) Hall 1 -  シ 30b.

You’ll notice there’s a second location on the poster - シ30a. Because so many circles attend Comic City Spark some of them end up sharing tables - in this case, NEGRO MANIA were sharing table 30 with FooLooP (which makes sense as they do a lot of collaborative work).

Now then, there are a few things you need to make a note of when you’re compiling a list of the circles you want to visit:

Which wing they’re in - East (東) or West (西). Without this you’re gonna fall at the first hurdle when you show up at TBS as you won’t know where to queue (the East and West wings are quite far apart so have separate queues).

Which hall they’re in. East halls are numbered 1-8, and West from 1-4 (only 3 & 4 were used for CCS12). East Halls 1-3 and 4-6 are all actually grouped in 2 massive rooms, so don’t expect separate rooms / walls dividing them (my mistake!) - there are numbers on the wall to show which part of the hall you’re in. Same goes for West 3-4.

Which row they’re in. This will either be a kana character (e.g. ア, カ etc) if they’re in the East wing, or a Latin character (e.g. a, b, c etc) if they’re in the West wing. 

Finally, their table number. This will comprise a number and possibly a letter if they’re sharing a table with someone else.

Before you go to the event, check the Pixiv and Twitter pages for all the circles you’re planning on buying from and write down this information. I’d recommend making a list of everyone that it’s in East Hall 1, everyone in East Hall 2 etc so you can hit them all up together and minimise moving back and forth between halls, making best use of your time and energy.

Ok - so now you know where your circles are going to be. Remember those maps on Navio? You can now download the one for the hall(s) that you want to visit and find your circles’ tables. Score! Because I hadn’t cracked Navio by the time I went to CCS12 I used my event brochure maps instead...so I’m going to go into more detail on how to look up a circle’s table in part #3 & #4 using the brochure as an example rather than Navio. The principle's the same, so if you choose to use Navio and get stuck, make sure you check out my next post.

Comic City events are run by a company called Akaboo, and there’s loads of useful information on their website (all in Japanese naturally, so good all page translation is your friend). Their events take place all over Japan. Spark is one of the larger yearly events - almost 18,000 circles attended to sell doujins, and tens of thousands visitors came to buy - but even so it pales in comparison to the 500,000 attendees that hit up Comiket. The vast majority of attendees to Spark are women, and the doujins are almost exclusively BL/yaoi. 

I watched a few videos of comic events online before I left for Japan and I have to admit - the thought of fighting through the masses to try and grab a copy of a doujin filled me with apprehension. I don’t mind queuing, and to be fair you won’t find a more respectful queue to stand in than one in Japan...but even so, I was nervous. Would I regret standing around for hours waiting? Would I be crushed to find all of my favourite circles had sold out of books? Would I be confused and lost in the crowds, unable to read or communicate with anyone?

Let me reassure you right now - you will be absolutely fine. If you’re a doujin nut, you will have an amazing time, particularly if you take a bit of time to prepare yourself beforehand and are mindful of your fellow “participants”.

Since this is the one and only doujin event I’ve attended I can in no way say that I’m an expert on getting the best out of the experience. However, I had an absolute blast of a time, and if this post inspires you to attend an event or helps you enjoy an event more I will be absolutely stoked!