At Comiket

Toward the end of the year, Haruto Fuwa was over at Tokyo Big Sight in Ariake to attend the winter Comic Market.

Held twice a year in the summer and winter, Comic Market, or “Comiket,” is the world’s largest event for the sale of doujinshi, or self-published works. They run the gamut from so-called Akiba-style volumes devoted to manga, anime, and video games to more broad-ranged topics like music, food, travelogues of temple visits, and gardening—a vast variety of topics, all on display and for sale under one roof. The event attracts several hundred thousand people every time, and a huge amount of money changes hands over the duration. A lot of professional manga artists and illustrators earn more of their income from Comiket than from commercial publications or games. In addition to the doujin groups producing work for Comiket, a large number of publishers and game companies also put out booths to sell merchandise and announce new titles.

Haruto, as part of the general audience, had to join the long line out front early in the morning, getting into the event hall alongside the rest of the crowd. In his hand was a plastic shopping bag containing drink bottles and snacks meant for his friends running booths; on his back, a rather large backpack with several sturdy paper bags inside. He had come to Comiket every year since high school, purchasing doujinshi and goods based on his favorite anime, manga, games, and light novels. That remained a top priority, but for this event, his primary goal was to find doujinshi for Chevalier of the Absolute World, his novel series.

Not that there are too many, he thought with a self-deprecating smile. He had looked around the Net and perused Comiket’s official catalog to see which groups were producing Chevalier -related works; they numbered in the single digits. There were only around twenty Chevalier doujinshi available at the last Comiket in August as well—frankly, a paltry number for a franchise whose anime adaptation aired its final episode just a few months ago in July. Still, derivative work for a series that’s not so popular wouldn’t be very lucrative, and he was all the more thankful for the groups that chose to make it anyway.

Going around the booths for each circle, he purchased two of each doujinshi devoted to his work; one to read and another for safekeeping. A few of the people in the groups recognized him, which he expected, given all the appearances he had made in magazines and online streams. When they did, he thanked them and chatted for a bit, as long as no one was waiting behind him. At least one refused to have him pay—“I can’t accept money from the original creator!”—but Haruto insisted.

Once he had all the Chevalier doujinshi, he turned his attention toward works based on other series, making sure to say hello to the illustrators, manga artists, and novelists he knew manning the booths. After he finished his rounds through the main booths on his shopping list, he headed for the adjacent hall that hosted the pavilions for the commercial outfits. GF Bunko was among them, and Kawabe, Haruto’s editor, was helping run things. It was mostly devoted to selling posters, wall scrolls, file folders, T-shirts, and more based on illustrations from their main franchises. Chevalier of the Absolute World and Nayuta Kani’s Landscape series were among them; nothing based on Itsuki’s work was on sale, but there would definitely be some All About My Little Sister merch on offer at the next Comiket.

The commercial booths were all mobbed with people trying to score limited-edition anime and game goods. Haruto had to weave his way through the throngs to reach the GF Bunko booth.

Um, I think it’s somewhere around here…

“Oh.”

He spotted a tent with a large GF logo on top of it, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he approached. There were quite a few people lined up in front, and Kawabe, wearing a GF Bunko T-shirt, was helping keep the line organized.

“Keep up the good work,” Haruto said when his editor had a spare moment.

“Oh, thanks. Did you score everything you wanted?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I have a gift for you—are you able to take it now?”

Haruto lifted up his plastic bag.

“Whoa, thank you!”

Kawabe gave him a warm smile.

“I think Ms. Shirakawa and the others will really appreciate this.”

“Huh?”

The sudden name-drop caught Haruto completely off guard.

“You know the part-timer Shirakawa, right, Mr. Fuwa? She’s helping run the booth, too.”

“…Really?”

Haruto, surprised, eyed the booth until he spotted her between a couple of customers. There were three assistants dealing with booth visitors; two of them were editors with GF Bunko tees on, and the third was Miyako Shirakawa. And what was she wearing?

“That’s the uniform of the Avalon Chevalier Corps, isn’t it…?!”

The Chevalier Corps is the most powerful group of knights in the kingdom of Avalon, composed of Lancelot, Gawain, and the other Chevalier heroines chosen by the Calibres they pilot in the battlefield. Their uniform was militaristic in design…although the skirt ventured into “mini” territory, the upper arms and shoulders were exposed, and the shirt was a crop top. This was explained as combining the standard knight uniform with the costumes of the dancers making divine offerings to the Calibres, but the backstory was invented only after illustrator OKINA submitted his designs for the uniforms. In his first draft, they were described simply as “lightly hued.”

A pervy military uniform that exposed this much of the wearer’s body could only exist in fiction, and Miyako was sporting it in style.

“Whoa! Wha—? Uh, why?! Miyako, what are you—?!”

“We had some extra samples of our cosplay merchandise in the office,” Kawabe explained to the confused Haruto, “so we asked her to put one on.”

He was right. They did make official cosplay sets for Chevalier, part of the wide range of merch they produced for the anime launch; they’d even sent a set to Haruto’s house. He had no use for a women’s cosplay outfit, so it was currently stuffed deep inside his closet. Honestly, he never thought he’d get to see it again—much less on Miyako, of all people.

…Oh man. I think I’m gonna cry.

A girl he loved, wearing an outfit from one of his series. The past year had presented frequent hardships for him, in no small part thanks to that anime, but just getting to see Miyako dressed like this made him feel the effort was worth it.

He was struck by deep, powerful emotions as he kept staring at her. Their eyes finally met, and Miyako made an “oh crap” face when she saw him. Her cheeks reddened a bit in shame as she turned her face away.

“Well, since I’m here, how about I give her these drinks myself?”

“Um, sure! Go ahead!” Haruto briskly nodded.

“Why’re you breathing so fast, Fuwa?” Kawabe asked. “…Ah well. You can go in right here.”

He followed him through the tent’s rear entrance.

“Mr. Fuwa brought some snacks and drinks! I’ll take over, Ms. Shirakawa, so you can have a break if you like!”

Taking the hint, Miyako stepped inside the tent after a few moments.

“Um. Good seeing you here, Fuwa…”

“Y-yeah… Good work out there, Miyako.”

Miyako made sure her skirt didn’t flap up at all as she greeted him. Haruto was no less red than she was when he returned her greeting.

“This is just… I dunno. I was so surprised. I never thought you’d do cosplay for my own series…”

“The—the editorial team begged me to do it! …They really wanted me to dress as one of the characters from a more recent anime of ours, but I thought I should at least cosplay from a series I know, so…”

“Oh… I see. Um…”

Haruto’s brain, already overheating, struggled to come up with words.

“It’s super good! I’m shocked! Thank you very much!” he finally shouted, bowing deeply.

“Oh, geez, stop picking on me,” a flustered Miyako replied.

“I’m not picking on you! I’m totally serious! I think this is the absolute best!”

“Ugh…” Miyako looked down at her own outfit, concerned. “I was kind of embarrassed at first… I mean, I’m pretty embarrassed about it now, too, but after working out there for a bit, I kinda got used to it. I’d usually never wear something like this, so it’s actually kind of fun.”

“It is…?! Hey, maybe you’d be really into cosplay then, Miyako.”

“Oh, no way! Never!” Miyako was quick to deny it, but after a moment’s thought, she smiled and stammered, “Actually…maybe you’re right. Lord knows Nayu and Kaiko have dressed me up in even more embarrassing outfits…”

She shifted her gaze away from the booth.

“But I can’t believe how many people there are. I’ve seen coverage on TV before, but actually being part of it, it’s such a surprise.”

“You’re right… I mean, otaku from all over Japan make the pilgrimage here.”

Even a Comiket regular like Haruto could be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the crowds.

“Did you buy a bunch of stuff, too, Fuwa?” Miyako asked, looking at his paper bags and backpack. There were a lot of amateur pornographic comics in the bags, so he slipped those behind him.

“Y-yeah, um… Yeah. Manga, and novels, and stuff.”

“Novels? They sell novels here?”

Haruto nodded at Miyako, who seemed surprised at this.

“Yeah, some circles release novels. There are a lot of professional writers who participate in Comiket, too.”

“Wow, neat.”

“Yeah. Sometimes you see them team up to produce books, too, like Kisetsu Morita and Ao Jumonji.”

“Whoa…” Miyako nodded to herself, looking impressed. “Do you ever make any doujinshi, Fuwa?”

“I’ve never been part of a circle, but I’ve always wanted to try producing one, yeah. It’d be nice if I could get my other writer friends involved, like Itsuki and Nayu and Mr. Kaizu.”

“Yeah, it’d be neat if you could make that happen. But I bet you’d have trouble getting Itsuki and Nayu to send you pages…”

Miyako laughed to herself as Haruto sighed.

“You’re totally right. With a collaboration like that, my end of it isn’t over once I finish writing. If I did it, I’d probably have to organize it all since I spoke up first, but I’m sure it’s a huge pain in the ass… There was once a doujinshi novel called Mimic! produced by seventeen different writers from the MF stable. That was organized by Isao Miura, and he said it practically killed him getting the story sections from everyone.”

“Seventeen…? It’s hard enough to collect pages from one person…”

Miyako’s lips trembled. She had an up-close view of the pain the editors had to go through.

“And, you know, if I launch a project, I’d like it to be a legend like that one, but I think I’d need Miura’s level of fame to pull it off. I think a team of three or four writers is more realistic. I wanna make a game, too.”

“A game? A board game?”

Haruto nodded with a smile. “Yep, yep. There’s an event called Game-Market, which is basically Comiket for board games. Lots of people release original board games and tabletop RPGs there.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun!”

“Of course, producing a board game is more expensive than doujinshi, so you don’t really see many as flashy as the games coming from Germany. But sometimes there are really great ideas behind the more amateur-ish game components, and some of the games could easily sell a lot in retail. It’s real fun to browse around. There’s a few novelists like Yu Shimizu who’ve produced original games; he made this serious samurai war game that is, like, totally different from his writing style. It was funny to see.”

“Do you have an idea for a game?”

“I have a few, but nothing concrete yet. No matter what I think of, it just feels like a pale imitation of some other game, you know? But maybe if I actually made a test game, it’d help me move things along a bit. Would you mind helping test it out when I do?”

“Oh, sure. But have you ever thought about writing the story text for a smartphone game, or a regular video game for that matter? I heard a lot of light novel writers are getting into that lately.”

“Definitely. If I got an offer, I’d be happy to try it out. I bet it’d be a lot of fun, getting to craft this story with voice and music and great graphics and intense battles and all. Plus, one thing I learned with the anime project is that it’s kinda fun creating stuff with a group of people. If I ever get the chance, I’d love to work on an anime again, and I’d like to try writing scripts, too. And music lyrics, and maybe to write for manga…you know…”

The excited Haruto was talking a mile a minute now. He had never discussed what he wanted to do outside of novels before—not even with his editor or Itsuki. Miyako smiled warmly at him, even though there was still a somber look on her face.

“…Oh, sorry I’m rambling.”

Miyako shook her head. “No, no, don’t worry about it. Having all this stuff you want to do… I think that’s a really good thing. Like, I should probably shape myself up along those lines, I guess. I’ll have to find a real job soon…”

She sounded earnest about it as she sighed.