gaijinph's photo blog: Cosplayers at Comiket88 (Summer 2015, part 1)

Monday, August 17, 2015

Cosplayers at Comiket88 (Summer 2015, part 1)

At Comiket, the largest bi-annual gathering of manga fans, publishers and media companies in the world, you can never get around at all places by yourself. Specially with this year's record shattering 650,000 participants and attendees for the 3 day event.

The constant moving crowd, paired with the hot Tokyo summer, can make things very difficult as I found out.

On the previous Comiket, I just browsed around with a friend inside the Comiket area, wasting 4 or more hours, ending up with nothing (well, I didn't get the publisher list...so I didn't get to plan my purchases).

So this time, I planned to go for the cosplayers.

A very daunting task, given the size of the event and the crowd, the violently changing weather, hot summer temperature, and the distance in between the outdoor cosplay areas.

One factor is the very hot sun...pounding down on the outdoor cosplay areas and passageways like a bulb to a chicken egg. It makes things uncomfortable, burning my unprepared skin, and making me almost succumb to heat exhaustion. The various drink stands offer a small degree of help...but the shaved mango ice stand, which I had my eye one since that morning, wall always full.

Well, I can always go back to my almost cold, Houcha drink.

But the smiles of the cute cosplayers, seeing some of the characters I am familiar with to life was encouraging.

Both cosplayers and photographers were very courteous. Forming lines, never hogging a certain model, and for the popular cosplayers, group shooting sessions are held to maximize the time. And if a photographer before you takes up a little more time, he turns to you, bows, and gives his sincere apologies to the people behind him. Well, its hard not to get in the zone here with all the models and photo opportunities that surrounded us that day.