The collective noun for Otaku is... (image intensive)

A throng? An obsession? Perhaps, an annoyance? ^^

As if several jaunts to Akihabara weren't enough, I went to the 2007 Winter Comiket to see what it was like. To be honest, if I'd had the opportunity to go several years ago I'd be like the rest of its attendees, lining up in the chill morning sea breeze to get my hands on exclusive limited edition doujinshi. I think I was over amateur publishing in general before I got here, so nowadays I prefer to shop for doujin at my own pace. I found on this trip that what I'd become more interested in was gag doujin, especially those from one Fuji Shinichi, because I like her art and sense of humour, something I appreciate more than flat out pr0n (which is quite frankly a poor facsimile of the real thing).

Fearing the crowd I decided to go a little later in the day on both days to avoid the crush. It turns out I didn't have to bother, since the Big Sight was packed to the gills anyway. It really says something when the Maccas next door runs out of burgers to serve the masses at Comiket. O.o

Here's an idea of how many people are at this one event:

... and this is only a fraction of the floorspace at the convention (actually about 1/10). It was by some massive stroke of luck that I bumped into the table where a girl was selling some Code Geass stuff from Fuji, so I was very pleasantly surprised. Keep your expectations low, folks, that's the way to go.

The other part of Comiket was of course the cosplayers, who were gathered out on the verandah between the halls. Naturally I went nuts on the photos, so here's a sample of some of the ones I recognized and some really well made ones that I didn't. No smiley faces on these, because these people know full well they are being photographed for whatever reason and that their pictures will be made public. No, I refuse to take pictures of crossplayers, so no Haruhims for you. I'm saving the trauma for later. Click on the pics for a slightly larger view.

From Code Geass:

I do believe that's Suzaku in military uniform in the back...

From Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu:

She even got the expression down right!

I hadn't realized it at the time, but there's Ha'nyuu from Higurashi at the back!

Yuki was excellent. She commanded a huge crowd of very large and very expensive looking cameras. ^^

The main cast of the show, with an extra Kyon for good measure ^^

It's looking to be a rather long post, so I'm splitting it into parts starting here. The rest of the cosplay photos will follow.