Tokyo Journal 2003: Day 2, Part 1
Going to Comiket I was sitting at the local Japanese mall this weekend and a kid sat down at the next table with a packaged egg salad sandwich and I became overwhelmingly nostalgic for Tokyo. How bizarre that *that* is what will make me miss Tokyo the most.
6:30 AMI woke up at about 5AM. It was pretty clear I wasn't going to sleep more, and then I had a sneezing fit, so I was really up...and so was Pattie.
Now I'm going over the Comiket catalog again, then I'll shower and get ready for my day. We ate breakfast at the hotel buffet. Bleah. Expensive and uninspired, I barely ate anything.They had a Japanese breakfast, which consisted of rice porridge or rice porridge. Miso, bacon, eggs, salad, fruit. Nothing to inspire paeans of adoration.
Comiket is very faraway - almost the furthest possible point from where we are staying. No problem. Emi met us at our hotel and navigated our way through three trains and two separate train lines, including the very pretty Yurikamome, which took us over the Rainbow Bridge to Tokyo Big Site, where Comiket was held. Unfortunately, jet lagged and discombobulated as I was, I was not in any shape to appreciate it. Tokyo Big Site itself is an enormous convention center - think rooms the size of large airplane hangars.
We got there before noon and started to shop. I guess this is a good place to back up and explain that Comiket is a twice-yearly convention for the sale of self-published or small press published manga, called
doujinshi. Comiket is held in winter and summer every year. We attended the 63rd Comiket. Because of Comiket's popularity, smaller shows are popping up everywhere. Comic City has a different show in different cities around Japan all year round. We were attending Comiket for two reasons: 1) To buy stuff, duh; and 2) to promote
Yuricon, also duh.
Comiket goes on for three days. The first day was mostly anime parodies (in doujinshi terms, "parodies" are anything with popular anime/manga characters.) So, there was a *ton* of yaoi (stories with male/male relationships.) Thinking about it, it basically looked like popular anime series in general had a strong presence, though.The biggest section was for a story called
Prince of Tennis which we'll never see over here. It's got about a dozen boy characters and one girl - so there were a bazillion yaoi doijinshi for it. There was a huge
One Piece section (a very popular anime about pirates - it's amazing, go watch it. The manga, which is *just* as amazing, is being translated for the American Shonen Jump. Get it for
One Piece alone - it's more than worth the price.
(Thinking about the arrangement of Comiket gives me a headache, but I *think* it boils down to Day 1 - anime/manga parodies; Day 2 - RPG/Historical parodies; Day 3 - Other. Under "other" is hentai, yuri, um, other...
Unfortunately for me, most of the
One Piece stuff I saw was yaoi. I mean, that's fine. I like the boys plenty, but I just don't see Zoro and Sanji together, sorry. The best of the bunch was Shanks x Ben - there were several circles putting together lovely doujinshi of the two of them...but I just don't care. Actually, one of the things I like best about OP is the *complete* lack of sexual tension between the characters. And all the chicks are sexy, competent and strong. A very cool thing in my book, but I digress. I did manage to see on Nami x Bibi implied doujinshi, but they don't get together and I was still disoriented, so I didn't buy it. I'll just have to write one.
Pattie, however, was in heaven. She has conceived an unnatural passion for Yu-Gi-Oh yaoi doujinshi. She was scoffing up Y-G-O yaoi with both arms. Every time we bought something, Emi would hand the vendors the Yuricon flyers we had brought and do a little commercial for the con. At one table where Pattie had just bought a bunch of Yu-Gi-Oh doujinshi, the people selling it listened to the commercial and kind of stared, confused. After it was over they asked, "But...why Yu-Gi-Oh?" Pattie was hysterical at that.
I bought some gorgeous Rose of Versailles stuff and two Uranus/Neptune coloring books Pattie found. I wish I had bought more. I also bought a doujinshi called "Ogata-4" that was stories just of Ogata Megumi roles - this one had Yukito/Yue from Cardcaptor Sakura, Haruka from Sailormoon (a really funny story,) Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho and a little Shinji from Evangelion piece.For the fangirly-ness of it all, I loved it.
We were so busy trudging around behind Emi, I didn't really get to shop for myself, but I knew that Monday I'd be buying a lot more.
My first impressions of Comiket were: 1) It was far more enormous than I could have possibly have anticipated. Pattie figured out that there were roughly 4600 vendors a day - each circle had a little 3' table to themselves. 2) There was much less cosplay walking around than I expected. At American cons, you see a ton of cosplay just walking around the con space. Here, a lot of people selling were dressed up, but few just walking around. Or maybe it was because there were so many people, the cosplayers sort of seemed less in comparison to the total. You can't take pictures in the main areas, either, like you can in an American con - you have to go to the cosplay area during the designated time to do that. 3) The shoes looked painful. I stared downwards a lot, because I was severely jetlagged and because I was carrying the ten pounds of doujinshi Pattie bought. Every time I looked, I saw shoes that hurt me to even look at!
The costumes, as expected, were good, but even so I barely recognized anything. I kept coming across the conundrum of "Is it wacky fashion sense or cosplay?" Half the time I wasn't able to figure out the answer.
Used to American conventions as I am, I'm fascinated by the differences. Because we do *not* have manga culture as Japan does, I explained to Emi, our Artist's Alleys are full of people who draw single pictures, not whole manga. I genuinely think that will change, as manga becomes more mainstream here.
For instance, Emi wanted to know why we don�t use screentones in American art. (Don't email me and ask what this is...just look it up. You're on the Internet already. Use Google.) I said that I thought that, with American comics' emphasis on the realistic, and on action over narration, there wasn't usually a place for screentones. Again, I imagine things will change as more manga infiltrates the American comic market.
As we left Comiket, Emi pointed out that no one was reading their doujinshi on the train - even though we all knew that was where we all came from. (Tokyo Big Site was at a terminus, so there was nowhere else to have come from for that train.) I asked why that was and she said that she thought they were all ashamed. We agreed that was sad. Emi asked for my bag and she pulled out some doujinshi and began to read it openly. *This* is the kind of thing that makes Emi a special person in our minds. I tried to read too, but it made me sick. From that point on, the day (now evening) became torture.
Next time:
Falling Asleep at the Dinner Table
Tokyo Journal 2003, Day 1 Part 2
A friend has just sent me this haiku he wrote for me:
You are my hero,
Now an anime icon
Gently gone insaneI like it. :-)
Once we were settled into our hotel room, I went out for a protracted walk - mostly to identify the local
combi, that is, 7-11 type store. There was an AM/PM right across the street about a block away. (Later, it turned out that there was an *actual*7-11 around the corner in the opposite direction. We alternated.) I picked up drinks and a raisin bread from the bakery in the hotel lobby and we had a snack.
My travel karma had extended to having taken the wrong notebook when we left the house, so I didn't have Emi's phone number. Duh.
Let me just say here that I worship this woman - she is totally cool Not only would we have been horribly lost the first few days without her - I'd probably still be wandering the halls of Odaiba Aqua City in a state of shock - but she's also a whole lot of fun to be with, as you will soon see. She's a Tokyo native, but about half the time when we asked, "what are we doing?" or "where are we?" she�d say, "I don"t know" and just keep going.
Anyway, if I had had her number, I would have gotten a phone card and called her from the airport, duh. But no...no number, no address. Thankfully, Emi had more sense than I did, and had taken the number of our hotel, so she called us there. When I managed to get a phone card, she was already on her way.
Phone cards for NTT do not work in non-NTT phones. Just in case you were wondering.
Pattie and I split up so we could cover both hotel entrances, which were, of course, not visible from each other. Pattie found Emi first. She apologized because she *had* been at the wrong terminal, but hey, we all made it, so we were okay. We gave her our Xmas present for her and decided to go out to dinner.
The area we were in had dozens of small restaurants and they all overwhelmed me. Emi passed by a Tapas place (now *there's* something you never expect to see on your first night in Tokyo!) which Emi dismissed as being for salarymen. She bundled us into an elevator and stopped at every floor where she either decided the place was too crowded or didn�t look right. We rode up and down that elevator like 4 times, until Pattie and I were hysterical, to the consternation of the couple in the elevator with us. And then the 4 guys who replaced them and kind of watched us out of the corners of their eyes while we roared in hysteria as we stopped at the 5th floor for the third time.
Eventually, we ended up back at street level (naturally) and found a place that was loud and good. When we ordered our waitress would shout out our order, "3 Calpis!" and three or four other severs would shout it back, followed by the chef who would also repeat it. This made a lot of sense - making sure the chef heard the order...except that he was standing right in front of us. We were seated directly in front of him at the counter, watching him grill squid.
We ordered pretty much randomly by pointing at stuff, and Emi told the waitress what it was we wanted. At one point we asked Emi what the heck we had just ordered and we got to teach her the phrase "house special." So we still don't know what it was - but it was pretty good. To thank Emi for dragging her butt around town and helping us over the next three days, we picked up the tab.
The three us us sat and talked for a long time, and went over the Comiket catalog. The Comiket catalog is something that needs to be seen and experienced to be understood. It is a 1400-page extravaganza full of teeny-weeny little boxes, each showcasing the art of a particular "circle." Circles are what the Japanese call groups of people who band together to do a project. (Gainax started as a circle, so did alot of well-known artists groups, bands and other endeavors.) This monstrosity weighs about 4 pounds. In comparison, the Stratford Illustrated Shakepeare (Chancellor Press edition) weighs in at about a pound. This is one big, heavy em-eff-ing book.
We had a quick tutorial on how to understand this thing...you page through (this could easily take a few hours) noting the circles that look interesting, then you identify where that circle is located. Each day of Comiket features different things, and there's pullout maps you can mark up to identify who�s where. But I get ahead of myself.
At last we parted for the night, with a promise to meet the next day at 11 o�clock in the lobby. Pattie and I went back to the hotel and, to quote Samuel Pepys, "so to bed."
Tokyo Journal 2003: Day One
Sorry for the delayed update, I've been sick. But I have rectified the haircut issue!
12/26 - 9:50 AMBecause of security "enhancements" at the airport, I wanted to arrive with time to spare. Tales of security line horrors and my own experiences had given me a thrill of Orwellian fear as I packed. Is this pen too weapon-like? Will my medications be so numerous as to arouse suspicion? What will I do without a nail clipper for 15 hours? This last is no joke - I feel naked without one. As I mentioned once to an apoplectic knife-owner, there's nothing I've ever needed a knife for that my nail clipper couldn�t handle...and it's true! Plus, I really hate when my nails are dirty.
So, we left *really* early and watched the dawn rise over New York City. Kind of a nice way to say goodbye to my home. (Oddly, that's what I'm missing most right now - my house. I love my house, my bed, my couch. It's been a few hours and I miss them already.)
We arrived with plenty of time, so the minor delays of checking in and security were to laugh at. We sat down, had breakfast...I *finally* had my coffee, so I once again had a personality. Now we sit and wait our flight, while suffering from nervous stomachs. I'm a joy to travel with...not. Between my asthma, allergies and slight claustrophobia and tendency towards insomnia, I'm difficult at the best of times. As you can imagine, the prospect of 14 hours in the plane was very appealing, also not. I cannot imagine a flight to Australia!
11AM We're on the plane and it's very much like a teeny little slice of hell. Smarmy Xmas carols are being interspersed with Lite FM-type music, extra lite. Pattie's dying, I'm laughing hysterically. So far we've heard:
Johnny Mathis
Crosby, Stills, Nash
Paul McCartney
Simon & Garfunkel
John Lennon
Beach Boys
If Dante were alive today, he�d have begun his Inferno in an airport, instead of a dark wood...
They keep making us eat on this flight, which wouldn't be bad, if the food wasn't so godawful. For lunch I ate P's pretentious lemon cookie, with all hand-rolled, organic ingredients. We napped and they woke us to feed us again, too bad they've never heard of protein.
I'm reading Dashiell Hammett's the Maltese Falcon. The writing is so over-adjectival that if I received it as a submission for the
Fanfic Revolution, I'd probably have rejected it.
Well, that blew - now I'm reading a Charlie Chan mystery, which is better right off the bat. The characters are more engaging, for one thing.
Our seatmate for the flight was a total fashion victim. She wasn't very nice, but I didn't want to kill her or anything until she spent the whole landing blocking the view out the window while she attacked her split ends with a determination and spirit that would have made her teachers proud.
As we landed, our usual horrible travel karma kicked in. Our friend Emi wasn�t there to meet us! We waited about an hour, but no one showed. I assumed, rightly, that Emi was at the wrong terminal (we had a "code-share" flight, meaning that while it said it was one airline, it was actually a totally different one. As it happened, by the time Emi showed up at our terminal, we had already left.
Now, our bad travel karma works in two ways - one, we usually are surrounded by sports teams in hotels, or drug dealers, or other people who roam the halls until the small hours making A LOT of noise. Or, if there's a choice to be made, we make the wrong one...if there's an easy way and a hard way...well, you get the idea. :-) And the hotel never has my reservation.
We had a choice of a bus that went directly to the hotel, or the subway. On the assumption that the subway would be less money (it wasn't - it was more) we chose that. The Narita Express takes you as far as Shinjuku, then you get on a crowded commuter train to Ikebukuro. We sat down on the Express, but apparently had non-reserved seats and were in a reserved car. The conductor tried to tell us how much it would cost to stay there, but we were so sleep- and protein-deprived that we couldn't get it and we just moved to a second-class car.
At Shinjuku, we found the right platform. We just couldn't figure out the right train. (More on the trains later.) Eventually, after P went and acted blonde at a conductor, we got the right train and found the hotel with no fuss. At the hotel, of course, the reservation was wrong. :-) (You thought I was kidding about that, I know. But I'm not - it's *always* like that.) After a slight delay we got a room which was room-like and we sort of sagged with relief.
Next time:
Night on the Town
Tokyo 2003: Tadaima
I'm home, finally. Well, I have been home for a little less than a week, but due to some amazingly wacky things I have no intention of sharing with you, I'm *just* catching up enough to start serializing my trip journal. I'll upload a few key pictures as soon as I have a moment for the interested.
I've decided to start at the end of my journal, so I can give you the overview first, then segue into a more detailed description of what I did and where I went, but let me just say that Japan is wonderful - I'd go back in a second and I'd live there if I could afford it. If anyone out there needs anything done there, I gladly volunteer to go for you.
The two main lessons I learned while in Japan:1) I need a haircut
2) I need new glasses
These were really key findings.
The best things about the trip were: 1) Dinner in a teeny little alley with a toothless old guy smiling at me and waving the whole time. (This was Emi and Takami getting us back for the sausages and peppers down at the Jersey Shore, I'm sure of it...)
2) Fuji-san - just breathtaking. I'm an animist and let me tell you, I was down on my knees worshipping like probably no local has for many a year.
3) Sera Myu - I really thought I'd hate it, but I didn't. It was wonderful.
4) The whole last day, with Fuji-san, the Shinkansen, karaoke/dinner and Shinjuku Nichome. What a day.
5) Did I mention Fuji-san?
The worst things:1) Jet lag - god I wish someone had warned me! It was dreadful. Four days in a funk. Day two was a total nightmare
2) The subway/train lines, until we figured it out
3) Roppongi
The subway and trains were fine and made alot of sense - AFTER we worked it all out. At first it was really confusing. And Roppongi was fine, but compared to the rest of Tokyo, it was dirty and had *way* too many American food chains for us to enjoy it. Other than the jet lag, everything was great, even the trains and Roppongi, it's just that compared to evertyhing, they were the least wonderful. Jet lag sucked, though. Big time.
And finally, I did NOT find Tokyo and the Japanese impenetrable, or incomprehensible or inscrutable or wacky or anything like that at all. I found it to be a really nice city, full of many people, most of whom were nice and polite, some of whom were *exceptionally* nice and polite, some who never even noticed we existed and many who found us curious for a fraction of a second. The entire time we met exactly one nasty person and he seemed like such a cretin after the way everyone else acted, that we really didn't think we were doing anything wrong. And we scared children everywhere we went. LOL
So, starting next time I post, I'll give you the day-by-day,
Samuel Pepys - like. LOL It was fun, and hopefully, you'll find it fun to read about.
