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Comic Market to Stay at Tokyo Big Sight Next Summer (Update 3)

The Mainichi Shimbun paper's Mantan Web site reports that the Tokyo Big Sight event center will again host Comic Market (Comiket), the world's largest dōjinshi convention, next summer. Comic Market 80 will take place August 12-14, after the recently passed amendment to the Tokyo Youth Healthy Development Ordinance goes into effect. The current Comic Market 79 event is running from Wednesday to Friday, and 160,000 came on the first day.

The amendment will expand the number of manga and anime that fall under "harmful publications," the legal category of works that must not be sold or rented to people under the age of 18. 10 manga publishers announced earlier this month that they would boycott next year's Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF), which is also slated to be held in Tokyo Big Sight, because of the amendment. Eight media companies are holding a new event called Anime Contents Expo on the same March weekend that TAF scheduled its two public days.

Comic Market first ran in 1975, and it moved to its current Tokyo Big Sight home in 1996. Comic Market reported a turnstile attendance of 560,000 during its last two summer events. 510,000 are expected at the ongoing Comic Market 80. 35,000 circles sell works that they published themselves over the three days of the event.

One of Comic Market's several previous homes was Makuhari Messe, the complex just east of Tokyo that will host Anime Contents Expo in March. Besides Comic Market, Tokyo Big Sight also hosts the Tokyo Toy Show and other events. Makuhari Messe hosts the Tokyo Game Show and Shueisha's Jump Festa.

Update: Mantan Web reports that the Comic Market organizers is distributing a pamphlet detailing the important points of the amended ordinance to the dōjinshi circle sellers. The staff members will take other steps to ensure that they can run the event after the amendment takes effect.

Update 2: 160,000 people also came on the second day of Comic Market 79, which was Thursday.

Update 3: Dan Kanemitsu notes that Comic Market is already distributing the pamphlet: "The Comic Market Committee publishes the Comiket Appeal, an information booklet regarding how the event is run, how circles are expected operate, what are the rules, what are the changes, maps, history of the Comic Market, etc. It has a section in it that informs circles what the laws they need to keep in mind."