Adventures in Japan

Tokyoversary

Thanks for the calls and emails and actual mail mails wishing us a happy anniversary.

We did have a happy anniversary. The first anniversary, as everyone knows, is the paper anniversary. What better way to celebrate the paper anniversary than by going to a comic book convention? That's a trick question, there is no better way. It's science.

Comiket (short for Comic Market) is a comic book convention that occurs twice a year in Tokyo. It attracts about a million people.

We woke up around five in the morning on Saturday and boarded the bullet train to Tokyo. We made it to the convention centre about half an hour before the show was to open. There were a lot of people waiting around us. It looked kinda like this.



Except with more people.



And some kind of weird machine that made noises and transported something to somewhere.


Luckily, the day was overcast and not all that hot. The day before had been exceptionally hot, over forty degrees.

After waiting in line for nearly an hour we finally got to go in.

I've never actually been to a comic book convention before, but I'm pretty sure Comiket is fairly unique. It's mainly independent and self published stuff, but almost all of these indie comics are based on actual comics or movies or television shows. And on Saturday almost all the comics seemed to be about male romance. Several football fields worth of comics books and fan-zines about dudes falling in love with other dudes. It was a little surreal. And yes, most of the purchasers of these all male romantic fantasies were female.


The other big thing to do at Comiket other than buy books about the romantic adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner is to dress up like comic book characters or take pictures of people dressed up like comic book characters. That was also surreal. Cuz it wasn't just nerds with cameras taking pictures of scantily clad girls, it was also scantily clad girls taking pictures of scantily clad girls.


Our friend Paul was also at Comiket. As was Paul's friend Eric. Eric is visiting from Canada. Eric is a comic book artist. What has he done? Just a little something called Degrassi: The Next Generation. We met up with Paul and Eric and Fin(n?) (an Aussie from Brizzy) after the con and compared notes and pictures and went for a bite to eat.

There are a lot of people in Tokyo. Just a little FYI.



We finally settled on a place that had a giant sandal above the entrance, said entrance being a very small door. You had to crouch way down to get through the door, then descend some stairs past private booths, past a delicious smelling grill, finally ending up in a large room full of tables and people.


The food was good, the drink was good, the company was great. A fine time was had by all. After that we played some arcade drumming games (funny story about that: my wedding band broke) and then we (Carla and I) went off to find lodging for the evening.


Now a note on Love Hotels: in Japan there are regular hotels and love hotels. At regular hotels, you spend the night or nights. At love hotels, you can stay for one night or for a couple of hours. At a hotel, you get a small bed in a small room with a small bathroom. In the love hotel we stayed at, we got a huge bed in a big room with a big TV, a Wii, a DVD player and a Karaoke machine. Plus two jet spa bathtubs: one inside (that one also had a steam sauna) and one outside. Both bathtubs had TVs to go with them. It was awesome.