Comiket 73 Catalog

The exhibition center is divided in East Exhibition Wing, West Exhibition Wing, and Conference Tower. The doujinshi circles (publishing groups) are housed in East Halls 1-6 and West Halls 1-2. The cosplay and corporate booths are located in the 4^th floor of the West Wing. Naruto Cosplay takes place here.

Open Hours – Doujinshis circles are operating  from 10 am to 4 pm, and corporate booths are open from 10 am to 5 pm (except last day of Comiket).

It is especially crowded in the mornings when tens of thousands of eager participants are standing in lines blocking traffic. The committee puts a lot of efforts into organizing these lines and guiding them in open spaces and nearby parks.

To cope with increased traffic most public transportation services in Tokyo change their schedule, it includes Yurkamome elevated train line, the Rinkaisen Train Line, Tokyo Metropolitan Bus Lines.

There is no entrance fee in the Comiket, yet you are strongly encouraged to buy the official catalog.

Each doujinshi circle gets half a desk (90 x 45 cm), a couple of chairs, and some little space for storing inventory. The cost of participation as a doujinshi circle is 7500 yen, or 65 USD per single space. The total number of circles who apply for space is 46 500, and a lottery is held, so that only 80 percent of those actually get a place in the Comiket.

Popular circles attract many people, so they are placed separately in such a way that lines could be extended out into the truck yards. These circles sell thousands of books in a single session of Comiket.

Corporate booths are located on the fourth floor of West Wing. There are about 150 booths housing 130 corporations. The corporations fall into following categories: PC game software manufacturers, comic book publishers, music content publishers, TV and radio stations, as well as retailers that specialize in novelty goods and other items.

There are many activities going on here like rock contests, lotteries, autograph signing with celebrities, and handshaking sessions.

Cosplay Appearances

Many attendees put clothes of their favorite personalities, including manga, anime and/or game characters. There is a special dressing room for cosplay that is setup at the 4^th floor, and the cost of registration is about 800 yen (7 USD). There are many restrictions and regulations regarding cosplay due to congestion. Naruto Cosplay appearances take place here.

For each male cosplay persons there are 4 or 5 females.

Doujinshi Circles Demographics

Usually it is believed that doujinshi are male dominated, yet statistics show that among participants of doujinshi there are 71 percent women, and only 29 percent are men. The average age of a circle organizer is 28 years, both for male and female.

For general attendees the demographics are different – 57 percent women, and 43 percent men.

The breakdown of circles’ genres is as such – 41 percent manga, 9 percent anime (since manga titles only gain fame following its adaptation into the animated medium, the manga genre is really larger), 30 percent games, and 20 percent other. Breakdown of other genres: 40 percent history, literature, novels, 35% music, celebrity related, sports, 18 percent live action monsters, science fiction, mechanics related, military related, trains and travel, 7 percent critiques and various information booklets.

The Comic Market Preparation Committee and Comiket Ideals

The total staff includes 2400 people, all volunteers. The Committee is a volunteer based organization that has no legal entity status. The Committee was incorporated in 1985, and changed to its present form in 1996.

There are no “customers” in the Comiket. It is operated, maintained and comprised by those who take part in the event.

All participants are treated equally, and the Comiket must always be a place where freedom of expression is maintained. So the Committee must make all possible effort toward securing as much freedom as possible.

So every side supports and ads to a concept of comic market as an open space. Participating circles provide works and concepts, general attendees are readers and supporters of the creative efforts, and staff participants provide the space. So in order to remain a space with the greatest freedoms possible, self-reliance of the participants is important, but the event cannot operate properly without individual moral awareness, mindfulness of manners, and invested interests toward up-keeping this space.

Naruto is the primary hero, protagoist of the series. He has main traits of shonen characters, especially Son Goku. His ambition is to become a Hokage, the most powerful ninja of Konohagakure village. He was ostracized by other villagers due to the misfortune of him being the host of nine-tailed demon fox. His boisterous and cheerful personality gave him the ability to befriend many of ninjas. He is the main hero for Naruto Cosplay performances.

Sasuke Uchiha is a member of Team 7, too. He is a cool genius and a rival to Naruto, an integral part of the main plot. He is one of two members of his family, along with Itachi who killed all the rest. So Sasuke wants only the revenge, to kill his brother. Thus he develops a cold and withdrawn personality. He is not successful in their first encounter, so he decides to leave his village in search for more power.

Sakura Haruno is the only girl in the Team. She was taunted by other children due to her large forehead, and only Ino Yamanaka was able to comfort her. Their friendship started to diminish when they both felt affection for Sasuke Uchiha, though. After Sasuke leaves, she began training with Tsunade, and gained many highly developed skills.

Kakashi Hatake is the leader and sensei of Team 7. He is a kind of easygoing personality. He treats his leading position with detachment, and is always late for meetings. He witnessed a death of his teammates, and acquired some great qualities along with disadvantages of tardiness. Thus he gained a Sharingan eye and a reputation of a skilled ninja.

Orochimary is one of the primary antagonists. He appears pasty and sickly, and is clearly distinguished from the protagonists. He is a former ninja of Konohagapure and a student of the Third Hokage. He wants to obtain immortality, and to destroy his former home. He has an ability to transfer consciousness between different host bodies, and desires to host Sasuke. This is one of the main driving motivations throughout the series.

Akatsuki is an organisation of mischievous ninjas who want nothing less than world domination.

Masashi likes to speak about his plant that died due to poor feeding in his office. Many of his plants did not survive.

Kishimoto tried to make his heroes as unique as possible. Thus he studied a lot of other shonen mangas. He quotes Dragon Ball as one of them to look at, and notes that Son Goku was a key character to influence Naruto Uzumaki, due to his energy and mischief. To make tension and intrigue, he had to create a rival, a “cool genius”, as an archetypal rival character. Thus Sasuke Uchiha was born, with all the necessary qualities.

For main heroine Masashi eventually created Sakura Haruno, with emphasis on her energy and flirtatious spirit. Despite difficulty in depicting her appearance, Sasuke became his favorite character to draw.

When drawing his animation characters, Masashi uses a five-step process: concept and rough sketch, then drafting, inking, shading and in the end – coloring. Sometimes he used an airbrush but afterwards decided that it requires too much cleanup, and abandoned it.

Kishimoto was very particular on designs for the village of Konohagakure, the main initial setting for the series. He tells that initially it was created spontaneously, without much thought, but admits that he took a lot from his home in Okayama prefecture. The village does not belong to any time or place, it is “just a place in (his) head”. He included some modern elements such as convenience stores but neither projectile weapons nor vehicles.

He conducts his own research into Japanese culture a lot for better details and reference material for his “Japanese fantasy world”, as he needs to “set certain rules systematically” to convey the story in a logical way.  He also wanted to draw in Chinese zodiac tradition which has a long presence in his country.

He said that Naruto would not have any firearms.  He may make use of automobiles or air craft, and some simple computers, like “eight-bit computers, but definitely not sixteen-bit”.