Explore Otaku culture in Japan: visit to Tokyo Comiket

 December 29th to 31st, 2018, there was the biggest anime fan event, “Tokyo Comiket 95” at Tokyo Big Sight. It was started as dojinshi convention with small number of anime fans in 1975 and now it is one of the significant events in Japan with also cosplayers and relevant companies. Especially this year, called “Comiket in the end of the Heisei era”, total number of visitors reached a record high of roughly 570,000 people.

 Since I am not a big fan of Otaku and a crowds hater, I have never thought about going Tokyo Comiket, but I decided to go as my first challenge of plunge. In fact, Japanese Otaku culture is not unfamiliar topic to me because my father is an university professor whose specialty area is “Otaku”, so I had an access to the information of Otaku from a young age. Moreover several times of my experience of studying abroad in both Europe and America brought me to the position that has connections with Anime as Japanese. However I still had a biased view for Otaku people such as they are exclusive and not sociable before I go to the event.

After my visiting everything had changed. Especially the figure of Otaku people is totally different what I had expected. They were friendly and open-minded to others regardless of age, sex, nationality, and background. As Tokyo Comiket is one of the famous anime event in world wide, there were many foreigners. The groups of people selling their works, called “circle”, were willing to explain their works to them without regard to English skills. Also they were not hostile to strangers like us who are not real fan of anime. For example when we asked the group of cosplayers to take a picture together they accepted with good grace. Furthermore they were more considerate of others than majority of people. I thought this because I didn’t bump into anyone despite the crowds. It happens a lot in major site of Tokyo such as Shinjuku station.

In my conclusion, Otaku is not a exclusive group but a universal community based on the common interests concerning Anime and Manga. I felt that it is partly similar to religion. Through this experience I came to believe that people who have something to believe or to love can be braver and nicer than people who does not have them.