/jp/ - Otaku Culture

It was only my second time participating in Comiket this C77, but there was a definite increase in Touhou attendees since C76, though I don't have exact numbers. Just when we thought Touhou had reached its popularity peak we see that half of an East hall is just not enough for Touhou anymore. People were going in there buying Touhou stuff as if East was a shopping mall. The number of Touhou circles might have only increased slightly, but the number of Touhoufags buying was ridiculous.

On day 2, a ton of staff actually had to come in and block off all longitudinal traffic in East 4,5,6 to cut back on congestion near the doors. Several hours in, Touhou was still a giant mosh-pit, and active sales were continuing an hour after the other side of the hall were starting to fold up their tables.
Comiket is going to have to do something differently this summer, it simply wasn't designed for this kind of consumption. Normally the popular circles get placed on the outside where long lines can form in the parking lot, but this time the "fringe circles" on the inside (mostly a lot of music) where normally density is low enough that the spaces can line up traditionally allowing buyers to wander through, sample, and talk with the sellers, were getting stormed just like the popular circles.
I fear for the future of Comiket. Big Sight just isn't big enough to contain Touhou AND everything else. It was pretty evident this time that Touhou needed all of East 4,5,6 to itself, just like Reitaisai. Although I hear Reitaisai itself is expanding, am I right?
I couldn't confirm this information, but I wouldn't be surprised if they take both East halls this time. After all, Kouroumu was about the size of a single hall, so it wouldn't be fitting for Reitaisai to be any smaller than twice as big as its Osaka counterpart.