The 2010 Cosplay Summit is over, and preliminaries are just beginning for 2011, but there are still plenty of events going on around Japan.

Last weekend I took a trip to Tokyo for the world's biggest doujinshi event - which also has plenty of cosplay - Comiket.

Comiket (or 'Comic Market') happens twice a year, and attracts 35,000 doujinshi artists or 'circles,' and over 500,000 attendees; this was the 78th event. It runs over three days at Tokyo Big Sight, and the scale of it is enormous!
It's fairly easy to get there from Tokyo station, taking the Keiyou line to Shinkiba and then changing to the Rinkai line, getting off at Kokusai-Tenjijo station. I'm pretty awful at directions, but there were hundreds of other people headed in the same direction, as well as early birds already coming back from Comiket with doujinshi and goods under their arms.

From the outside, the Big Sight just looks like a building as you approach it:

I arrived at about 11:30 in the morning, and managed to avoid the absolutely huge queues that build up for the first few hours. Entry is free, and you don't need a ticket. So, armed with my trusty Comiket catalogue (which is the size of a phone book and contains listings for all the artists), I headed inside.

The inside seems almost magically bigger than the outside, and until later in the afternoon it's incredibly crowded. Doujinshi are sold in eight huge halls, with another two halls for commercial goods plus an outside cosplay arena. Because the area is so big and busy, I was glad of the maps that come with the catalogue, and the fact that I'd marked all the doujinshi circles I really wanted to visit beforehand.

This is part of one of the East halls from the outside, where people can take a break from the crush, sort out and flip through their purchases:

It took a couple of hours to find and meet my favourite artists and buy all the doujinshi I'd had my eye on; after that it was great to just wander around and see the amazing creativity that goes on at Comiket, including some artists who were cosplaying as the characters they draw, which was really fun to see.
Friday is generally supposed to be 'girls' day,' but there was a pretty even mix of male and female visitors, and doujinshi aimed at various audiences. While you can buy a lot of the doujinshi afterwards, either online or from shops like Toranoana and Mandarake, it's much cheaper to get them from events like this, with the added bonus that you can meet the artist as well.

After a little break I found my way outside to the cosplay area. Anyone can cosplay at Comiket, though you have to register and pay around 800 yen first. The cosplay area is the only place where you can take photos of the cosplayers, and anyone is welcome to go in and take pictures (though you should ask first).

It was very, very hot, but everyone was having a good time and the cosplayers looked fantastic.

The doujinshi halls close at 4:00 each day, and begin to quieten down around 3, so after I'd enjoyed the cosplay for a while I made my way up to the commercial halls, which are open till 5:00. This is where professional game and anime companies promote their series, such as Touhou Project, with free gifts like fans and toys.

At the end of the day I headed back to the station with crowds of other attendees. A lot of people stay up in Tokyo for the full three days of Comiket, and start planning for the event weeks in advance, especially fans of very popular circles whose doujinshi sell out in the first hour, and cosplayers who make costumes specially for Comiket.

It's mind-bogglingly huge, hot, and crowded, but there's no other event in the world that even comes close to Comiket; if you're in Japan during the summer or winter, it's worth going at least once; even if you don't buy anything, you're bound to find something to entertain you!