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Comiket 72 Draws Over 200,000 Fans

Mantan Web has posted the attendance figures from the 72nd Annual Comic Market, also known as Comiket or "Komike." The event had an attendance of over 170,000 fans on Friday, August 17, over 180,000 on August 18 and and over 200,000 on August 19. For the event, Comiket returned to the Tokyo Big Sight Convention Center, which also hosts the Tokyo Anime Fair in March. Although it is possible that Comiket brought in over 550,000 unique visitors, there is no data that indicates how many people attended multiple days of the event versus how many people attended one day only. Regardless, the event is already being recognized as the largest gathering of manga fans in history.

Comic Market is Japan's largest gathering of dōjinshi writers and independent artists. The main focus of the event, which bears a similarity to "Artist Alley" rooms at conventions in North America, is the over 10,000 artist groups (or "circles") selling goods, dōjinshi, and original manga on each day of the event. Attendees are also able to cosplay in the "Cosplay Hiroba" area of the convention center, and there is also an area for "commercial" or "industry" booths.

In keeping with tradition, each day of Comiket features different artists and dōjinshi sales based on the series and genres they cover. Comiket 72 featured dōjinshi based on anime, game and novel properties (Gundam, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Final Fantasy) on Day 1, mainstream manga titles and Boy's Love ("BL") titles on Day 2 (CLAMP titles, The Prince of Tennis, Naruto) and original works on Day 3. Among the industry booths, voice talent, singers, artists and others held autograph sessions while products based on new and forthcoming anime series went on sale.

Comiket 73 is scheduled to take place from December 29 until December 31 this winter at Tokyo Big Sight.

Image © Kyoshin Publishing Company