Touhou Game Club

How much Japanese knowledge is required for Comiket? If I could get by with English alone attending Comiket would be much much much much higher on the things-to-do list.

Obviously basic stuff like numbers, directions and useful phrases are absolutely needed but how much conversational stuff is necessary?

The answer to that question depends on your intentions for coming to Comiket: if you are interested in getting the latest releases before they sell out, you'll have no choice but to track down your circles in Pixiv and the catalog, map out your route to the circles and figure your way around the venue. If your intention is to come browse around the different areas and grab whatever strikes your fancy, then you have a lot less necessity to know Japanese other than greeting your favorite circles.

Myself, I don't know that much Japanese despite living here in Japan (I'm not *required* to learn it since I work at an US installation) but I know enough to not get lost, tell my favorite circles how much I appreciate their work, take a picture with ZUN, ask for bonus or limited-edition goods, etc.

It's possible to make the pilgrimage and enjoy the event a whole ton if you don't know a lot of Japanese-- many tourists do. It's just that you don't see many of those people surviving the long lines and figuring their way around an event of this magnitude easily. BUT I have to say, the catalog and the site both have English guides, and there are international tables within the venue with people that can help you get food, where the restroom is, so on and such.

Are the lines so bad that you can spend the entire morning in one to get a single item? I'd like to be able to visit as many circles as possible but still get stuff from my favorites. Are you allowed to read manga and doujin before buying them?

You are able to read and check out everything before you buy it! Only the extras are sealed in Comiket: drawing boards, napkins, towels, dakimakuras, etc.

The waits depend entirely on what item you want. For example, on day 2, we arrived at the venue at 2:45 AM, and we were able to get inside the venue at approximately 5 minutes after the doors opened at 10:00. We rushed STRAIGHT to our main targets: I went to Shimoyakedou and my friend went to Itou Life. I was in front of about... 90-100 or so people, and I stood in line for 45 minutes to grab my items. Then I made my way to Kamikadou and stood in line for ANOTHER 45 minutes (about 300 people in line) to get his items.

I messaged my friend at this point, he was STILL waiting for Itou Life. It was about... 11:45-12:00? Roughly.

Hitting the most popular circles first, yeah, you will have to wait quite a while. As a rule, the circles along the walls of the venue are the ones that are expected to have the longest lines, so they are situated in such a way that people can go outside to make their lines: Sound Holic, Alstroemeria Records, Pizuya's Cell, Yuuhei Satellies, Buta Otome... and that's only the Touhou related stuff! On day 3 are the 'big fish': Tony Taka, Sayori, UDON-YA, Watosato...

You can come to Comiket with the full intent of grabbing as much paraphernalia as possible and succeed greatly, and have a lot of fun! But if you come to Comiket with the intent of grabbing your favorite artists' doujins or CDs, meeting them, shaking their hand and such... you're gonna have to wait. >:

It's been so long since anyone's posted anything... Have some Reverse Ideology.

Mello's post above isn't too far away from yours.
In exchange, you can have some animations from the artist of Osana Reimu. [size=8]Fuwaruu was the one who brought this to my attention.[/h]

It's kind of good actually.

I noticed afterwards.

That is some nice animations, however, I don't like the music that goes along with it.

I can relate to that.

Try to give these ones a listen, they are kind of addictive. C86 product.
http://mapoze.com/pub/dancing/
It reminds of some classic cartoons and JRPG BGMs.

2:45AM is 7 hours and 15 minutes before doors opened. I would ask if you are nuts but considering its the one and only time some stuff is sold its worth the wait. I guess people camp outside the convention center the night before then?

Now that is a real shame, although if it weren't for the risk of my favorite circles selling out before I could get to them, I'd gladly wait.

Yeah, coming to Comiket with the intention of hitting popular circles takes a lot of preparation: food to take with you to the venue, proper rest the night before, a good folding chair or somewhere soft to sit on, plenty of comfortable space for your loot (a lot of circles will give you their brand carry bags when you order new work sets but you don't want to be flaunting those around downtown Tokyo on your way back to the hotel unless you want to either die of embarrassment or get tagged by cops for indecent exposure, lol), books or portables for entertainment... think about it as if you were preparing for a Black Friday campout but without all the violence and trampling.

On the topic of waiting the night before, yeah, one of the staff members was telling me about this raffle they do on the day before Comiket starts... it's a lottery to determine who gets the first 100 waiting spots for all 3 days. You show up at midnight, they call your number, and you are ushered into your waiting area... then everyone else goes in right behind you starting at about 1 AM of the day proper. Some people even stay THE NIGHT BEFORE to simply hang out the common area until the staff tells them it's okay to go make a line to start the wait.

Then they just deploy some tarps on the ground and pass out.

As a side note, Reitaisai is a WHOLE LOT more forgiving! I started my wait at 5 AM and I was part of the first 50 people~

You mentioned violence and trampling. Comiket has been going for a long time so I image there have been incidents involving people rushing too much. How well organized and coordinated are the lines and rivers of people?

I think I would pay the organizers for a warm room inside the convention center to stay in for all 3 nights during winter comiket. Camping outside the venue is a bit much (even though I say that I would do it to get some rare goods). I guess everyone is prepared for rain and stuff then. Speaking of weather has a typhoon ever come during summer comiket (and a blizzard in winter)?

Everyone is really civil about conventions, not just Comiket. Nobody wants to risk getting kicked out of the venue and missing out on the opportunity to get the rare goods after they've been waiting for so long in the first place. As far as coordination, it's just like you said: Comiket has been going on for so long that the staff knows what they're doing. And most people have attended one or more events so there's little confusion.

On the weather, the same tarps people were using to lay down on the ground would double as their anti-rain measure (but there were a lot of umbrellas too). We didn't have any snow during last winter Comiket, but yes, people do come prepared to battle the elements. There's these spray cans that chill out your clothing so your skin can stay nice and cool for summer, and there are these packets that warm up your hands during winter. All these items are readily available in the convenience stores all over Japan. I don't think you can enter the venue if you're not a staff member before the event start time, though... >:

Ohhhhh fuuuuck, son.

Touhou Project Game Coming to PS4

get hype

This is the biggest let down next to losing my credit card to a Ronald McDonald charity box that was un-openable.

I've had a thing against the PS4 and XBox One since they've come out because it focuses so much on social media as a function. I HATE Facebook. Bad memories...

What's up, club?

I've been mostly dead this past month because my ISP was being garbage. Finally switched to a new ISP now. Pretty much the same speed though.

Will there be an event anytime soon? That Slap BiBi/Jen event was promising.

I'm also up for grief syndrome if you guys are still playing it.

Stop playing games.
Use your net to study or better the world by streaming explicit contents.

Hypocrite. You've been playing games with me for days now ever since we discovered our ISP's shocking compatibility.

Should I share that ISC draft here? Might garner some interest.

If anyone's gonna strip in livestream, it's you. I heard old people are in right now.

It still stinks so bad in HM unfortunately. Not sure why the Game required more resources than its predecessor.

Would be wise to save it till weekend. Maybe there would be more people during that time.
Pretty disgutting. You are into loli and oldies now? Disgutting pt.2.

You got a download link for Dancing Phantasmagoria?

Neither. I'm a model citizen.

https://mega.co.nz/#!iRRH1SJJ!Aj02li5HSZPH7wGXJSExaqPVJMMFdpm_JRxu_jkLu2k