Comic Market 49
Yoshitaka Ishigami
Greetings! Happy New Year all!
Akemashite Omedetou!
We I have been burnt out because of the busy schedules in December
in my business and hobby, and sorry not be able to attend here for
a long time. It has been getting difficult to find time to catch
up the increasing messages in this section of the forum. I would
like to update the affairs happened in these few weeks.
I think I mentioned about the arrival of Jeff Siegel and his visit
to Japan to donate the charity auction profit to give to the Kobe
Red Cross. I invited him and let him watch some of my anime video
collections. Among them he seemed hooked with some of garage videos
which were made by fans. One of the bests was titiled 'Aikoku Sentai
Dainippon' (Patriot Combat Team Great Japan) made by Daicon staff.
It was widely known to the foreign fans about their filmography
that they made Daicon opening animation in their amateur days. But
they were also famous because of their live action SpFX films. 'Aikoku
Sentai Dainippon' was a palody of 'Combat Team' type of show introduced
to the United States as 'Power Rangers'. It was also a palody of
the right wings of Japanese politics. It was made when Soviet Union
was still an enemy of US and Japan, and the story was such that
young paroliotic soldiers fought againt the attacks of demonish
empire named 'Red Bare'. It was a terrific show but too dangerous
to open to the public (g).
After the weekend when Jeff went back to the US, I was called by
Dragon Cotterill, a forum member from UK. He is a representative of
London Anime Club and this was his first visit to Japan (not only
Japan, but his first visit to outside the UK!). He came to Japan
to meet with his girlfriend's parents as well as to visit to our
Comic Market! He visied here Osaka for the sightseeing tour to
Kansai area including Kyoto. He seemed quite excited by the sights
of Japan. He mentioned Japan as 'busy place' (g).
After he called to me, I had received messages from Mary Kennard,
a liasition of Fusion Product, a publisher of 'Pafu' magazine,
Hitoshi Doi, now has been one of the most famous Japanese in the
world, Ernest Kim who came over last summer Komiketto wished
to come back again, Matt Thorn who has been writing articles
in Animerica magazine and Mr. Kato from Anime FX (Anime UK).
It seemed that every gaijins wished to gather at Comic Market,
a last Harumi Komiketto.
Comic Market 49, the annual Comic Market held at Harumi International
Trade Fair Center was it's last because of the move of convention
center to Ariake manmade island, Big Sight. Harumi center was already
old and everytime we were suffered by the breakdowns of instruments,
but this center was very special to us Comic Market people because
during 20 years' history of Komiket, we spent 14 years, most of its
history here. It was held on 29th and 30th, the end of the year and
also this was its 20 years' anniversary. Back to 20 years ago, tiny
Comic Market was held in only several hundred of attendees. Now we
have changed the manga and anime so greatly, but it's fontier spirits
have been unchanged until now.
Flowers cerebrating 20 years were decorated along with the main street
of the convention center. This was a tiny trick from staffers to
cerebrations. First day (29th) was a day of girls as usual. This time,
Gundam Wing supposed to be a main topic to the girls' circle but
as previosuly estimated, Shin Seiki Evangelion has been a very big
move like a shooting star, and many doujinshi organizers published
Evangelion doujinshis despite that they mentioned to publish Gundam
Wing in the catalogue. (Note that catalogue deadline was at the end
of last August so Evangelion was not started yet then). Crowd controlling
staff were runing around to fix the lines of buyers unexpectedly
appeared in the middle of the pavillions. I have heard that one of the
popular doujinshi organizers (circles) named 'Uroborosu' sold their
10,000 copies of Evangelion doujinshi in a two and a half hour!! I
think this was the number record sold in such a short time.
On the second day, it was boys' staff as well as original shojo manga's
day. Our forum staff Chris Swett joined us and Mr. Yonezawa received
an interview from Matt Thorn about the shojo manga and doujinshi.
It was a fine, warm winter day and was suitable for shopping doujinshi.
Not to mention that many cosplayers were walking around. Mamy of them
were related to video game characters, namely fighting games such as
Virtua Fighter, Vampire Hunter or Samurai Spirits or so on. I could
recognize many Saint Tails were running and Rei Ayanami (Evangelion)
was shooting pictures. I think over 10,000 cosplayers enjoyed their
costume play. Joyful time passes so quicly. The last Harumi Comic
Market ended safely at 16:00 on 30th December. Many people were missing
the last Harumi very much, and didn't go back so early. Many people
were missing and taking pictures each other until late at night.
The last Harumi was over, but Comic Market is not over! We will move
to new convention center named 'Big Sight'. Summer Comic Market will be
held at 3rd and 4th of August, 1996. Old days over, and new history of
Comic Market just started.
Yoshitaka Ishigami
(Comic Market)