The Opening of the 50th-Anniversary Year: A Summer Festival Where Heat Met Constraints

Over two days, August 16–17, 2025, Tokyo Big Sight once again became a crucible of pop culture. Comic Market 106 (C106), one of the world’s largest dōjinshi conventions, drew 120,000 attendees on Day 1 and 130,000 on Day 2—for a total of 250,000 visitors. Yet behind these numbers lies more than a routine summer tradition. C106 was a special event marking the start of Comiket’s 50th-anniversary year, celebrating a half-century since the first convention in 1975. Befitting the occasion, the 50th-anniversary logo was unveiled, and Japan Post announced commemorative frame stamps featuring newly commissioned artwork, amplifying a festive mood.

At the same time, C106 faced a major physical constraint. Due to large-scale renovations at Tokyo Big Sight, Halls 1–3 of the East Exhibition Building—one of the main venues—were unavailable. The impact was significant: the number of circle spaces (creator booths) was reduced by roughly 6,000 compared to typical years, forcing the event to operate with about 23,000 spaces in total. To mitigate the loss, organizers reopened the South Exhibition Building—unused since 2021—keeping the reduction as small as possible.

Viewed in this context, the 250,000 attendance figure is highly suggestive. Although it represented a drop of 50,000 from the 300,000 at winter’s C105, it was only 10,000 fewer than last summer’s C104 (260,000). Despite the core content—circle exhibitors—being substantially scaled back, attendance dipped only slightly. This indicates that Comiket’s pull extends beyond transactional buying and selling of works. What people seek here is the atmosphere of a shared “high holiday,” a festival co-created by a community united by passion. That cultural gravity helped the event maintain its vibrancy despite physical limits. The energy reached far beyond Japan as well, with participants confirmed from more than 71 countries and regions—further proof that Comiket is a truly global cultural phenomenon.

A Torrent of Creation: Circles and Companies Weave the Front Lines of Pop Culture

At Comiket’s heart are approximately 23,000 creators—individuals and groups known as “circles.” Their dōjinshi are the event’s lifeblood, spanning a remarkable range. Major currents at the venue included fan works based on commercial hits like Fate/Grand Order, Gakuen Idolmaster, the Love Live! series, and Kantai Collection, with fans spinning out affectionate interpretations and endless new stories. Yet Comiket’s true depth lies in its diversity beyond that: critical and research volumes on highly specialized themes—railways, the military, food, niche professions—and original works that showcase creators’ individuality, all sharing equal respect. Notably, the strictly age-verified R-18 area saw constant, wall-like crowds—often described as “a wall of human heat”—embodying the event’s ethos of embracing the full range of expressive possibility.

In parallel with this creator fervor, 121 companies set up booths in the West and South halls, forming a second hub of excitement. Industry heavyweights—KADOKAWA, Bushiroad, TYPE-MOON, and VTuber agency hololive production—hosted direct fan interactions. Booths for popular games such as Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, Heaven Burns Red, and the Atelier series drew daylong queues for limited-edition merchandise. Companies strategically offered items available only at the venue—like KADOKAWA’s various exclusive Love Live! badge sets—to spur purchases. Cross-industry participation, such as Tenryu Hamanako Railroad, fueled unique collaborations like “railways × dōjin,” showing how Comiket has evolved into a platform whose influence reaches beyond anime and manga.

Trends observed across the circle areas and corporate booths clearly correlate. Corporate announcements of new games and anime ignite fan creativity, which then erupts into vast numbers of dōjinshi and cosplay. That visible fan energy becomes the most accurate indicator of a work’s cultural impact and reinforces corporate promotional effects. Thus Comiket is not merely a place where fans and companies act separately; it is an interdependent ecosystem in which commercial content stimulates fan creativity, and fan activity validates the value of commercial content. The fervor here serves as the most reliable real-time barometer of Japanese pop culture’s present state.

A Stage for Expression Across Borders: Cosplay and the Heat of International Exchange

Another pillar of Comiket is the cosplay culture that brings the venue to life. Cosplay areas—such as East Hall 8 and the rooftop exhibition space—are not just spots for commemorative photos; they are creative stages where participants embody their love for works. The Comiket Committee treats cosplay as a vital form of expression, and that philosophy permeates the site. At C106, contemporary pop-culture trends were vividly on display. Characters from globally popular games like Genshin Impact, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, and Blue Archive appeared in highly faithful recreations, drawing crowds. Many cosplayers also portrayed talents from the “hololive” VTuber group and stalwarts from the Idolm@ster series, turning the venue into a world’s fair of fan-favorite characters. Increasingly, corporate booths employ official cosplayers, further blending the line between fan activity and commercial promotion and heightening the area’s overall sparkle.

This visual spectacle now crosses borders. That C106 drew participants from more than 71 countries and regions demonstrates clearly that the event is no longer merely a domestic festival. In recent years, more overseas attendees are not only buying dōjinshi but also exhibiting as circles and participating as cosplayers. This grassroots internationalization was not the product of a top-down strategy; rather, overseas fans discovered Japanese pop culture online and began gravitating voluntarily to Comiket—the source and sacred ground.

Responding to this organic demand, the Comiket Committee has strengthened support for international participants: an official website with multilingual support, a Facebook page for overseas attendees, and an X (formerly Twitter) account dedicated to international information are leading examples. These efforts, building infrastructure after the fact, have helped propel a globalization trend that was already underway. Comiket has, unintentionally, become a potent agent of cultural diplomacy: twice a year, a global online community gathers physically on Tokyo’s waterfront to interact through a shared language—love of works—and to reaffirm their identities. This scene eloquently testifies to the depth of Japan’s creative soft power and the strength of its draw.

Carrying a Half-Century into the Future: A Preserved Ethos and the Challenge of Evolution

The secret to Comiket’s remarkable durability at its 50-year milestone lies in a consistently defended philosophy: defining the event not as a marketplace but as a ba—a shared “space” for pursuing, protecting, and sustaining all forms of expression. This ba is sustained by mutual cooperation among all “participants”: circles, general attendees, companies, and staff. By avoiding rigid hierarchies between creators, fans, and organizers—and by embodying the idea that everyone is a stakeholder—the event’s operations are realized through thousands of volunteer staff. This steadfast ethos has anchored Comiket’s identity for half a century.

Yet this venerable ba is not immune to modern challenges, foremost among them the increasingly severe summer heat. Given a history of participants suffering heatstroke, organizers’ countermeasures have evolved year by year. At C106, the entire East Hall 8 served as a vast air-conditioned rest area; staff handed out free cooling packs and buoyed morale in queues with calls like, “Comiket isn’t over until you buy your books and get home!”—a comprehensive effort to protect participants’ well-being both physically and mentally. It is a sincere adaptation to the realities of climate change to ensure the event’s sustainability.

Another oft-cited concern is the aging of the attendee base. Addressing this conventional wisdom, Koichi Ichikawa, Co-Representative of the Comiket Committee, presented striking data from recent ticket purchases: fully 50% of participants are in their teens and twenties. This shows that Comiket is not a nostalgic gathering sustained by past fans but a living culture that continues to attract new generations and renew its community.

The 50th-anniversary year is a pivot that celebrates the past while looking to the future. Challenges abound—venue renovations, adaptation to climate change, and evolving international regulations on expression, to name a few. Even so, the operational capability that delivered C106’s success under adverse conditions, the steady inflow of younger and overseas participants, and the unwavering conviction in Comiket’s core ethos as a “space for expression” all show that this unparalleled cultural festival is not a historical relic but a living organism that breathes and evolves with the times. Building on a half-century of history, Comiket will continue its march into the next era.