welcome datacomp

After some twitter back-and-forths, I’ve decided to try to do a few posts where I introduce some of the stuff I picked up last Comic Market (C77), mostly just to prove to people that you can spend over $500 on interesting doujinshi and have basically none of it be pornographic. (Nozomu Tamaki pushed his ero book on me and who am I to deny that man a sale?)

Of course, to start off this series of posts, I’m going to basically mess up my entire theme by starting with a professionally published book from 2007. I did, however, purchase this book at C77, and it’s the closest one to my laptop, so I’m going to start with the first volume of Manga Ronso Boppatsu (マンガ論争勃発, “Manga Debate Eruption”, alternatively “The Manga Criticism War Erupts!”), authored and edited by Kaoru Nagayama, author of Eromanga Studies　(East Press), and the journalist Takashi Hiruma.

Manga Ronso Boppatsu is a collection of nearly fifty short (2-6 page) articles on a variety of topics, most of which center around a single expert or critic’s thoughts on the topic at hand. The authors of the book state that the idea behind the book is to listen to various positions on each of these hot topics, such as the globalization of manga, creators’ rights, and the limiting of free expression in manga, so that constructive discussion can start taking place rather than the mindless, polarized shouting matches that’re all too easy to fall into when debating these issues.

I ended up getting this book (and its sequel) thanks to a tip from Vertical’s Ed Chavez, who sent me off in the direction of the far-left corner of the Big Sight’s East-3 hall, where I found a rather large table staffed by just one guy, who I assume was one of the authors of the book. The placement of their booth was a bit odd to me, as it was down in one of the doujinshi-selling halls (as opposed to the upstairs industry hall), but up against the wall where non-doujinshi products like markers and corn dogs are sold.

This was actually a rather appropriate place to stick these guys, as while their book is released by a professional publisher (Micro Magazine), the subjects covered in the volume either deal directly with doujinshi events like Comiket, or are extremely relevant to the ideals embodied by these events themselves: Spreading manga culture and providing a space where individuals can distribute works of free expression. I’m not just making this stuff up, either–the Comic Market Preparation Committee and the National Doujinshi Event Liaison Group are both prominently given credit for cooperation right next to the authors.

I mentioned that Manga Ronso Boppatsu is the closest book to my laptop, and there’s actually a reason for that; it’s basically the only thing I’ve been turning to as of late when I feel like educating myself on manga. While I’m still working through it, the articles I’ve read so far are all very informative and provide thoughtful views on whatever topic is at hand. Of course, there is a trade-off to gathering the breadth of experts that the book jams into a little over 200 pages, and that is that a relative lack of depth in any given article. However, the articles are all excellent primers on their respective topics given by some of the most respected individuals in their fields. Since it’d be nearly impossible to give my thoughts on each individual article, I’m simply going to spend the rest of this post below the cut translating each article’s title and the primary individual consulted or interviewed (when applicable), and strongly suggest the volume (available for purchase at Amazon and bk1.jp, among other places) to anyone with an interest in a mix of solid journalism and on-the-ground, current commentary on the state of manga and doujinshi.

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While it’s not quite as good as the Jumbo Suika from RTS6, the margins on this recently concluded auction for the compilation CD of the first 5 PC-98 Touhou games blows it away. The auction seller was kind enough to even throw in a Seirensen demo disc, if you wanted it. Touhou fans, you so crazy. Seriously, you could buy like 35 circle tickets with that kind of cash!

(editors note: if i ever catch one of you buying a circle ticket i will punch you in the dick)

As many of you may know, Reitaisai moved from the West-4 hall at Tokyo Big Sight last year, where from all reports the event was crowded and ridiculous and chaotic beyond anyone’s imagination, to the larger East 4/5/6 halls this year.

What was not announced was that the Reitaisai organizers also rented the East 3 hall, for the purpose of line control. Yes, they rented a 3.5 million yen/day hall for the purpose of making the event less of a living hell by lining up the first x thousand people to show up inside the event hall. Upon discovering this hall, I felt a little less bad about having to spend $19 on an only-event catalog. I took it somewhat easy, getting up at around 6 and arriving at the hall at a little past 7, and just barely made it in the nice climate controlled room where many thousands of other Touhou fans were, many of whom probably were hanging around the Big Sight all night.

As at all doujin events, there is a page in the Reitaisai catalog and all related materials that states that you SHOULD NOT line up overnight, or even get there really early in the morning, suggesting that you instead arrive at an hour when normal people will be awake, in other words, when you won’t bother them. Of course, a lot of people don’t actually follow this rule, creating tensions between the rule-breaking overnighters (徹夜組), the on-the-fence first trainers (始発組), and the rest of us plebes who more or less follow the rules and wish grave harm upon the first group and mild harm to the second.

Most conventions state that there will be some sort of vague penalties for showing up early. I’m fairly sure Comiket isn’t actually able to follow through with this threat, and they’re already pretty well equipped to deal with the crowd. Reitaisai last year, on the other hand, didn’t hand out any penalties, and the event was pretty chaotic. Sunshine Creation was fairly well known for actually dealing these out, moving some people to the back of the line, or I believe in one case making the overnight folks shovel snow if they wanted to keep their place in line. Of course, this can always backfire, as apparently at last Comic1, the 100 or so nerds who were cordoned off as a penalty by 5 staff members decided that their collective inertia could not be stopped by these 5 staff members if they all moved together, and basically just plowed into the event hall. tsk tsk.

Back to Retaisai, though. Like I said, I just barely made it in east-3, and I could hear people around me mumuring about penalties and whatnot, some calling the building we were in a ペナルティほいほい, “Penalty Hoihoi”, a play on the Japanese for “roach motel”, “Gokiburi hoihoi.”

Well, it turns out they were right! At 9:45, 15 minutes before the event started, the periodic announcement by the cheerful female announcer reminding us to please buy a catalog if we hadn’t yet was replaced by another announcer, this one male, and much less cheerful. He informed us folks in the hall that we all probably knew that lining up early was expressly forbidden. In classic Japanese chewing-out style, he let us know how much of an annoyance we must have been, partying outside all night when there’s a hospital with a giant cancer ward just next door, and that we should probably feel bad about ourselves. Oh, and there would be some changes made to the line.

Without even a “have a nice day”, the PA clicked, and everyone went from being dead silent to excitedly talking to their friends. The guys around me seemed half-scared but half-thrilled, because we sort of followed the rules by showing up after the first train, and even if we did get hit by a penalty, we had already showed up late enough that it wouldn’t reaaally make much of a difference.

At 9:55, our line, 6 wide and 90 deep, and only our line, started to move. We all started freaking out, wondering if we actually were going to be the first regular attendees in. They lined us up right in front of the entryway to the event, and held us there for a little bit, telling us that we shouldn’t run under any circumstances, that we should have our catalogs out, and that we should have our shoelaces tied. When 10 came around, everyone started clapping, as you normally do at these events.

Oh, except for the people who had stayed overnight at the Big Sight. Apparently they weren’t too thrilled about the entry order to the event of East 3 being completely reversed.

as they say on 2ch, 徹夜ざまあ wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Anyway, I ought to go now. Need to install my Seirensen demo!

Higurashi’s character designs were always a little weird — exactly what kind of dress is Rena supposed to be wearing? — but I’ve just started Umineko on some guy’s recommendation and it’s getting way far out there. Kyrie on the right there is wearing some kind of goth tie, a trenchcoat, and a tie clip. I’m pretty sure I met her at DragonCon once. Well, at least the men just have strangely colored suits.

The Rena clone/moe girl Maria’s design is so weird I assume he’s going to explain it – she seems to carry around a huge purse all day and she’s wearing a black crown(????) at a jaunty angle – but she’s also suffering from a new kind of anime age, where she’s claimed to be 9 but is actually written as a retarded 5 year old. She’s only said one complete sentence so far, and it was repeating someone else.

Well, at least the story seems interesting, though it also looks like it’s going to get unhealthily meta later on. And he only repeats everything twice, which I think puts him near the top of visual novel writing.

edit: And he thinks absinthe is bad for you or something? I thought everyone had gotten over that in the 90s?

Saw these this week and thought they were interesting:

• Pulp’s guide to Manga Hell, some of which you might be familiar with if you listened to AWO enough. Also proves that Jason Thompson has read so many manga he’s incapable of writing in anything other than list form, like me.
• Japanese video blogger Akibatsuu interviews ZUN, who is drunk, and famed Touhou doujin artist Randou, who is a white guy(!!!). It’s kind of surprising since a lot of people seem to think ZUN is a racist for some reason, even before that one other blog was popular.
• Billionaires, a boy’s-love-style biography of the founders of Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle, and how Gates-chan is so moe~
• Yoshii-san is apparently a character in Battlefield: Bad Company.
• Takarazuka Revue Phoenix Wright rehearsal
  Yeah.

Very minor news since I have a bit of spare time: As of this Monday, doujin chain Melonbooks has changed from their old and busted paper + stamp point card to a much fancier solid plastic card with barcode. Instead of 500y/point, 20 points for 500y off, it’s 500y/25 points, 1000 points for 1000y off. If you can’t crunch those numbers in your head, that just means the numbers got bigger now that they don’t have to stamp each point manually. Honestly, I’m normally not much of a Melonbooks kind of guy, but it’s really the only choice for new doujin goods I have here in Kyoto. Also, this post would be totally non-notable, but I heard reports from one guy that they kind of sprung this on him, and that they didn’t transfer his old points to his new card, so if you’re going and you aren’t super proactive about getting Japanese store clerks to actually speak to you instead of mumbling under their breath because they don’t think you speak The Language, have your old point cards and some form of ID with your age on it ready. (apparently, the new cards are also used to check if you’re of age, not that they ever actually do that in Japan for anything. except for taspo :argh:) You also get 25 points if you register by 3/31, and you get 50 points whenever your birthday rolls around. You have until 1/31 of next year to transfer points at a store, and after that you have until 1/31 of 2011 to contact support and transfer points that way.

Minor other notes that will probably affect exactly no one reading this blog: if you have online points and want to get a point transfer certificate, you have until the end of the month to order them. Starting 4/1, you’ll be able to transfer online points to the new card system. Also, handing over your personal information is optional, but all they seem to jot down is your birthday for age checking+point bonus, it’s not like they’re making photocopies of your gaijin card or something.

So apparently a few people on that 2ch site are kind of angry at doujin circle Hachimitsu Kuma-san over a recent job posting on the circle’s site as well as on their mixi.

In essence, they are looking for someone to do odd jobs for them, basically filling in whatever need they have at the moment. A few more details:
*Must live within an hour of Omiya city in Chiba prefecture.
*Must be able to be on call even after midnight on days off.
*Will work for free. (this part is only mentioned on the mixi posting.)

Sounds like a dream job, right?

Well, apparently those nay-sayers at 2ch don’t think so. What a bunch of negative nancies! They’ve even gone so far as to post a lot of copy/pastes making some pretty harsh allegations about Hachikuma-san’s business practices, but you can find those on your own, or I’m sure some other blogger will post them as The Absolute Truth, cause 2ch kopipe is never wrong. Anyway, any of you folks out there thinking of applying?!

(via katoyu–)

Mito city, 3/21/2010. Let’s reviving city with comic and good spirit!

In other news, Kodansha needs to stop pricing light novels in the BOX line at 1600 yen if they expect their customers to buy their books and still manage to eat on a daily basis.

also, while this post is still (relatively) fresh, Nichijo vol 4 is coming out on the 26th! Hopefully it’ll be more like volume 3 than volume 2!

Day 3 was pretty tame, all things considered: got up early but not too early, stood in line behind East hall, got in at around 10:10 and bought things until I couldn’t buy no more. I spent a good chunk of money, but somehow didn’t purchase any pornography for dudes on what is normally known as the pornography for dudes day. I did get hit some bigger-name circles (ABe, KEI, etc), but they’re not terribly interesting and I’m sure those are all on share or PD or the bittorrent or whatever. Here are some of the mildly interesting and less common things I bought!

Akiba ni Sumu

Akibakurashi wo Tanoshimu Hon

A couple of circles were selling books about Akiba, which I could not help but buy.

Akiba ni Sumu is a very data-driven book, with detailed information on Akiba’s bus stops, zoning laws, history, when the last train you can take from basically anywhere in Tokyo to get back to Akiba is, you name it. Haven’t gotten around to fully reading it yet, but it looks to be a treasure trove of information. Samples of issues are available on the site here.

Akibakurashi wo Tanoshimu takes a different approach, with a lot more pictures and fewer obsessive details. The booth was being run by a middle-aged couple, if I recall correctly, and this reads more like a nice neighborhood guide more than anything, with reviews of restaurants in the area, a small diary of goings-on around the area (festivals, notable store openings), and a small section with floor plans and prices of apartments in the district. A boy can dream, right? They were selling their back issues (1-5, they had a new issue 6 out as well) as a set for I believe 1500 yen, which was quite a deal considering these are 50 pages and well-printed.

Temjin-14, Te-vap 15

Now since I’m studying in the Kansai region at the moment, all this information on Akiba won’t do me a whole lot of good during the school year. Thankfully, Bashi Denden-Kumi, who have apparently been doing this since at least the year 2000, put out a biannual book on the stores of the Nippombashi area. I picked up their summer offering as well as their free winter supplement. The summer book even has a nice fold-out map. I’m sure there are websites that do this, but there’s something really nice about being able to hand 400 yen to the folks that really know and love the area in exchange for a physical volume.

Tsurukawa Bunko - Osama-san 6 (nida), Holy Warriors Taliban 3

Apparently this guy’s books are kind of famous if you’ve been around the internet long enough, but this is like the third time I’ve bought from him and every time it feels like he’s giving me one of those Japanese death glares even though I’m 99% sure it’s all in my head. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Holy Warriors Taliban is about Osama and Saddam fighting off the US trying to steal all their oil, with the cover blurb of “Martyrs for Independence, Defeat America!” Also, Condolezza Rice is a Planet of the Apes figure. Also, Osama is Optimus prime, complete with transforming action. Also, DBZ parodies such as Obama playing Vegeta to Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill’s Napa. (“Maybe you won’t be such a disappointment… IN THE NEXT DIMENSION!!!”)

I hope I don’t get arrested for these at customs.

Doriyasu Koujou - Shikaban Kannagi, Hidamari Sketch

Prolific Gegege no Kitaro crossover circle Driyasfabrik’s C74 and C75 offerings. They’re basically everything you think they’d be. Case in point:

it's a catchphrase

C2 ARCHITECTURE - Index of BAKERY

I have to admit, I’m a total sucker for glossy, well laid-out full-color doujins, even if they’re about girls sitting on Nordic furniture (not my fetish, i swear), or in this case, girls eating bread. This is C2 ARCHITECTURE’s first Comiket offering, and it’s all reviews of smaller Tokyo, particularly Shibuya-based bakeries, and illustrations of girls eating bread from these bakeries. Simple, unique, effective, they manage to actually use the “lets sell everything with moe” boom for good, not evil. Looking forward to their “Diorama Novel” this year.

Inside samples here, aniblogs are OFP-unfriendly enough as-is

OTAKU_BOOKS's OTA-PICTO Project, Otaku to Design's Otaku x Design 3

More things found in the criticism/information block of day 3. The OTA-PICTO book, by OTAKU_BOOKS starts with a brief discussion of the usage of pictograms and signs in otaku culture, then goes on to propose its own set of pictograms with which to label goods sold. I really wish I made it in time to get some of his other books, it looks like he had one on SHAFTxShinbo shows!

Otaku x Design is much longer and much more wordy, and again I haven’t gotten through the whole thing. It looks very interesting though, and the main article basically asks “when did otaku start paying attention to design?” from the jumping-off point of Toranoana. Smaller articles like interviews included as well. Overall, another very slick production.

Well, I had some words here about one last thing, Comic Mavo, but wordpress apparently hates long posts and makes the entire post go away if I type that many words. Maybe some other time! I’m going to sleep.

This will hopefully be a shorter post than my day 1 report, since fewer interesting things happened. It was still kind of a trainwreck though.

I didn’t have very many clear goals for the day, since most of the Touhou stuff I like is either by guys that didn’t show up or the official games, and everything else is roughly a neat distraction. I did want to get the Maikaze set though, since their supply plans are still fairly unknown. I headed out to get on the first monorail from Toyosu, but wasn’t enough of an expert to know exactly which train car to be on, which meant that I got to the platform right as the first monorail filled up, which meant that I’d be delayed by about 10 minutes. (in other words, like 7500 people.)

The line was the same as always, I ate some convenience store bread while crouching in my 4 sqft of ground space from about 5 until we were herded into the event at around 10:15. Well, they tried to herd us into the event but the line to get down the escalators into west hall was already to the door by the time I got to the event entrance. Went straight to Maikaze to discover that they had been moved to a corner booth, with a very large line outside. Then I noticed that they had an even larger line a few meters away that fed into that line. I stood in this sub-line for about an hour, until they announced that they had sold out, and the line dispersed. I almost left at this point, since it was almost noon and basically anything that would be hard to find/expensive after the event sells out at noon, but decided to grab some stuff here and there before setting out. Here is what I managed:

most of the day 2 haul

notable purchases from here:

• Mesopota’s Touhou Roudoshou, a collaborative flash cd with dudes like Mi~ya working on the video with a bunch of big names doing music (IOSYS, COOL&CREATE, dBu, Silver Forest, etc)
• VISIONNERZ’s new book. Didn’t make it in line in time for the bag, though :(
• A couple of books by this guy who does really accurate Fist of the North Star parody doujin about rules to follow when shopping at comiket.

I also picked up something very terrifying on the advice of a friend:

WM's set

Circle-WM put out a very nice set of really terrifying things, most of which I believe involve either them naked or you dating wotaken. If you’re still confused, I suggest you watch this video to get a better idea.

I also picked up the Blasterhead vs Hardcore TANO*C vinyl, but I’d rather not post an image of it here.

I went back to Akiba to mess around with friends more, but didn’t go in any of the doujin stores since they were all ridiculously crowded. After getting home at around dusk, I checked Maikaze’s site on a whim, only to discover that they had distributed limited edition boxsets of their anime to various doujin stores, causing me to run back to Akiba and grab a copy. All that lining up for naught.

comiket :argh: