Wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be here!
Comiket 106, held earlier in August (just a couple weeks ago at the time of writing this intro) marked my first Summer Comiket 「夏コミ」 I had the privilege of attending. It was pure happenstance that I found myself in Tokyo during Comiket weekend, and after a quick stop at Akihabara Animate, I managed to get my mitts on a pair of PM Entry tickets for the venerable doujin market.
If you’re reading this, I trust you already understand the significance of Comiket for the indie/doujin scene, both in Japan and abroad. The practical essentials of attending Comiket today are as follows:
- A two-day event (Saturday and Sunday), held twice annually in summer and winter
- Formerly free, now ticketed to manage capacity
- Draws hundreds of thousands of attendees from around the world each year
- Hosted at Tokyo Big Sight, spanning multiple massive halls
- Expect hours of queuing, whether in the summer heat or winter cold
- Lines
- More lines
- Can you believe it? Even more lines
With that, let's dive into a casual retrospective on the experience.
Out of the freezer...
Comiket 106 was my second Comiket, following Winter Comiket 103 at the end of 2023--and my very first time braving the sweltering summer half of this semiannual event.
Back in 2023, I survived the three-day marathon of Denki-Guy Matsuri 「電気外祭り」--the self-proclaimed unofficial “day zero”--followed by two full days of Comiket. With that experience, I figured I could squeeze in this impromptu 夏コミ trip between actual business commitments, no problem.
That turned out to be a slight miscalculation.
and into the fire and flames
For me, Comiket Saturday begins late, around 11 AM. It's a hot day, literally steaming, at Ginza Station with sporadic rain. The bus to Tokyo Big Sight is crammed full from the first stop, making for a roughly half-hour marathon session of start-and-stop in Tokyo traffic, punctuated occasionally by brief pauses at bus stations, only to show those waiting there that the bus was already way, way full.
Arrival at Tokyo Big Sight is not the end of the journey--it's just the beginning. Next you must step with purpose and swiftness past the dazzled first-timers to find the queue for your type of admission ticket. Unlike last time, where I had to exchange an e-ticket for a wristband onsite, today I already have my wristband ready to go.
All good on paper. But the moment I step out of the bus into the thick, superheated Ariake air, I realize that even the simple mission of getting into the venue would be a hot and sweaty ordeal.
I’ll spare you the theatrics of describing the miserable hour-plus shuffle under the open sun, packed into tight crowds, and straining to catch the staggeringly important megaphone announcements--one of the few safeguards between calculated chaos and the regular, much less palatable, uncalculated kind of chaos.
And then, at last, the fateful fork in the road that marks every Comiket pilgrimage’s true beginning: East or West?
journey to the West
My first stop is the West halls, home to TYPE-MOON, Kantai Collection, Blue Archive, and my personal objective: Uma Musume.
The relief upon entering Tokyo Big Sight's massive high-roofed dome halls--made all the more expansive with the dividers opened up--is thankfully more palpable than the distractingly stuffy afternoon heat. With thousands of booths lined up ahead, I begin what now feels like my tradition: spotting a franchise I like and roaming the aisles, booth by booth.
Here is a basic map of one of the Comiket halls. For those who have not yet attended, Comiket is not your run-of-the-mill anime convention with a programming schedule, panels, and meet-and-greets. No, Comiket takes its name, a shortening of "Comic Market," quite literally: it is just thousands upon thousands of booths organized into neat rows and aisles across as much space as Tokyo Big Sight will allow.
To that end, the mission today is simple: browse and buy.
Uma Musume
As I walk through the Uma Musume Designation Zone, I'm hit with that familiar pang of feeling out of the loop, the same feeling I get micro-doses of every time I check up on my favorite artists on Twitter or Pixiv. I played the game right from the original Japanese release back in the day, but therein lies the trouble--played, past tense.
There's an ironic sting to how lost I feel wandering among works featuring Orfevre, Stay Gold, Still in Love, and other characters introduced long after I’d stopped playing Uma Musume on what used to be a daily basis.
Thankfully, plenty of doujin circles were happy to cater to my out-of-date, OG-only sensibilities. There were still the classics: Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka rivalry pieces, Manhattan Cafe doing her spooky coffee bit, and of course Gold Ship being silly in all sorts of fourth-wall-breaking ways. I left kibihimi's booth with a bagful of fresh C106 souvenirs--including a neat Haru Urara acrylic keychain I used as “proof of 2025” in a photo with my Super Mario 64 cart.
To my eyes, at least, the Uma Musume fanworks at Comiket 106 leaned into the intersection of historical horse racing and the fun anime-isms of the series. Booths offer books chock-full of fun facts, retellings of real-world races, and niche references to the horses and jockeys behind the franchise’s vibrant lore.
By this point, the mission had distilled into a single word: browse. Walking the rows with a touch of familiarity from C103 was enough to carry me through the throbbing leg pain and summer fatigue. Little boosts of recognition--“hey, I follow that artist”--are almost constant, and always welcome. And even though my bag space was too limited for a truly monumental haul, just seeing these artists and circles, some of whom I’ve followed quietly for years, is its own special joy.
journey further West
Before I knew it, I had woven my way through the bulk of the Uma Musume area and wandered into Blue Archive Land. I transition from "oh, I recognize that artist!" to "uh, I vaguely recognize that character, I think." My scanning of the BA booths becomes swifter, more general browsing than a targeted search I was on before.
Comiket booths for derivative works, 「二次創作」(niji sousaku), are not only organized by franchise, but often by specific work, character, or even pairing. In this case, you could visit a cluster of booths dedicated to Blue Archive character Asuna, which is nestled in a larger section for the in-game group "C&C" (I think; I've never played the game myself).
What this means is that even if you don't have an itinerary figured out down to the individual booth, you can still navigate starting with your favorite franchise, then further drill-down into your favorite niche within said franchise with little difficulty.
Anyway, Blue Archive is part of the "new hotness" in mobile gaming alongside Gakumas, Star Rail, and ZZZ, so their immense presence at today's event is no surprise.
I wander from Blue Archive to Kancolle, a franchise I have much more experience with. Although at this point, I'm rather exhausted. I can do little more than give an approving nod as I pass by booths, wishing I had more space in my backpack that's already filled with work gear.
compass change
I make a brief detour to the South halls, home of idol franchise giants Love Live! and The iDOLM@STER. (Which makes me realize how long it's been since I've actually written out "iDOLM@STER" rather than the shortened "iM@S" or 「アイマス」.) From there, I set out for the East Halls.
Now, normally, Tokyo Big Sight's East halls are where the bulk of the action is. East 1 through 3 are combined into one giant space, as are East 3-6--resulting in two massive wings to explore. East 7 and 8 are reserved for cosplay and circles with works on smaller, one-off works. But during Comiket 106, East 1-3 are completely closed. Meaning one of the two "wings" of the East expanse just wasn't there.
Perhaps that was why the venue felt so congested, despite actual attendance being lower than the last few Comikets prior. Which is a segue into yet another hour-plus hell of heat and packed crowds as I simply try to cross from the West/South Halls to the East Halls.
Note to self: never, ever attempt to make that crossing outdoors. What was supposed to be a simple "I'll go see the other half of the event now" move ended up devouring about one-third of my total available at Comiket. By the time I reached it to the East Halls, I was almost glad to have less ground to cover. Almost.
things that aren't books
As any avid tabletop gamer or handcrafts fiend knows, Comiket isn't exclusively just for manga. Doujin as a whole is the name of the game, and the indie spirit expresses itself across all hobbies. A good example are the rows of specialized books on local gourmet, themed recipes, retro game development, hobby electronics, and trainspotting that I see on my leisurely stroll towards the area for TCGs and tabletop games.
Here, there are original TTRPG rulebooks, custom scenarios, and a slew of brand-new trinkets and art to bring pieces of these new worlds into your hands--perfect for an adventurous DM looking for something new. I vaguely remember a sci-fi themed expansion (or perhaps conversion?) of what appeared to be Pathfinder. Next, I pass by the fancy DM triptychs and walk towards the vices of the cardboard variety.
I take a moment to appreciate the custom card games that appear to be built from scratch. Some have a TCG flair to their art, while others look like a physically-printed version of could easily have been a deckbuilder video game.
countdown to 4
Honestly, my memory of my time spent in the East Halls is a muddled near-heatstroke-blurred mess. Somewhere in the haze I recall Girls und Panzer, Azur Lane, a lot of Gundam, and maybe some Hoyoverse stuff was there, I dunno.
Now's a good opportunity to explain how ta Comiket Day 1 wraps up. Today's schedule formally ends all doujin circle halls at 4 PM, with the corporate booth halls remaining open for an extra hour, until 5 PM. These times are enforced strictly, with event attendees getting (politely) kicked out of the halls right at 4:00, and firmly guided out of the Tokyo Big Sight venue as a whole once 5:00 comes around.
That said, there is flexibility in the opposite direction, with doujin circles oftentimes closing up shop long ahead of 4 PM--sometimes multiple hours earlier. The most common reason for this is simply sending out of goods, accompanied by the dreaded 「売り切れ」 sign. This is the hidden value of early entry tickets, and why they command such a significantly higher fee than their general admission and PM entry counterparts. They let you queue up early for the most popular circles and purchase the some of the extremely limited exclusive goods for yourself.
So, it's around 3:45 and nearly half of the booth spaces in the East Halls are in some form of teardown. About a quarter of the tables are completely empty.
This is my cue to leave the East Halls for the day and make the trek back to West/South to visit the corporate booths.
encore
Comiket is, and hopefully always will be, about doujin. Indie is its roots and lifeblood. But a not-insignificant portion of the event is now dedicated to the companies: typically IP holders of the anime, games, and multimedia franchises that serve as the upstream, official inspiration of all those derivative works you can find filling the halls on Comiket Day 1 (with day 2 focusing more on originals).
Now, I personally have some mixed feelings towards the very idea of corporate presence at a foundationally indie event such as Comiket (arguably the foundationally indie event, in my book), but for now I set those feelings aside and venture back to West/South. I'm on a mission to sate my curiosity as to what C106's corporate area looks like this time around.
I am now older and wiser than I was an hour ago. On this return trip, I queue for the long elevators to the upper level of the East Halls, making a detour that’s farther in distance but quicker in time. A quick step across the concourse connecting East and West/South lets me literally walk over the outdoor queues I suffered earlier, forging a path to Comiket’s perhaps unintuitively corporate side.
official polish
The first thing you'll notice about the corporate booths here at Comiket? How starkly different the space feels compared to the doujin side. Giant booths, wide walkways, and blasting AC. Thank goodness for that last one.
Walking into the corporate area feels like walking into an entirely different event: one where there's room for excess. There's the massive, now-familiar Taimanin booth with its celebratory ondo chanting audible from afar, while character-goods sellers like Chara-ON! and GEE!STORE sport giant overhead signage that advertises their wares.
The big names are all here: Kadokawa, Aniplex, Good Smile Company. But I give them only a passing glance. There'd be plenty of opportunity to see these giant brands represented in Akihabara or any number of local bookstores and media stops.
Instead, I hunt for booths I'm not used to seeing with such large, dedicated spaces: Symphogear, Entergram, Kamitsubaki Studio. And I can't resist peeking at the HONEY∞PARADE GAMES booth to see what they're up to this year.
I appreciate the extra "overtime" hour after the doujin halls close, but by now I'm ill-equipped to recall much more than a merch-flavored epilogue to a full day of overstimulation. It's all just pin badges, acrylic stands, and tote bags that blur into a monolithic city of key-visuals with a cheeky "®" printed in the corner.
There's nothing else I want to see here--my cue to catch a bus back home.
the wrap-up
Fitting in a day of Comiket in between appointments was doable, but only just barely.
The next day I stay home. As much as I wanted to return to Tokyo Big Sight for Day 2, I had no fuel left in the tank for it. My Day 2 wristband sits pristine on my countertop, and I curse the summer sun and my own schedule--the combined forces of which have locked me into the wise but boring path of rest. I'd braved the three-day Winter gauntlet before, but this summer I had hit my limit.
Altogether, I'm incredibly grateful to have been able to participate in the semiannual chaos that is Comiket once again. It's more abridged of an experience than I'd hoped, but avoiding heatstroke is the better part of valor--or however the saying goes.
And at least I have Haru Urara and Almond Eye to keep me company now.
