Table of Contents

コミケ−１０６

I attended Comic Market 106 (夏コミケー) on August 16-17, 2025.

day 1

I arrived at the early entry queue at 7:30 and stayed until 14:00. There is a pre-queue for early entry ticket exchange. This year, there was also a “cool relief” area in east hall 8, which was appreciated.

I used the same bag I used in c105_report. However, I did bring:

The temperature was about 32C at the peak during the waiting line. Compared to previous summer events, it felt like this was a lot less intense. The main thing I would say is that the shade might make it seem more tolerable but it really doesn't change much. I still drank about the same amount of liquids as I would expect to in warmer weather. I think that basically at this heat you can't really sweat more than the max. At the event specifically, I ended up drinking 3200mL of sports drinks (3x pocari sweat, plus the event specific sports drink).

For some reason, I developed a very bad headache during the waiting line, but I took ibuprofen and it was overall fine. I know it wasn't heat stroke because I didn't have any of the other signs. I suspect caffeine withdrawal, since I had been avoiding it going into the event and carefully ensuring I was hydrating properly.

I added a clipboard with a small amount of capacity, but I didn't feel it did anything substantial to help. I ended up sharing my circle.ms login with a friend so he could add his items directly to my list, and also asked him to provide a PDF with his desired items. I printed the venue map too, since east halls 1, 2, and 3 were closed. I found that having this accessible on paper was significantly better than relying on saved images on a phone.

I basically left earlier than usual only because I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, and wanted to rest a little before preparing for the second day.

I made the decision to stay in a hotel significantly closer to the venue. I won't name which one it is, for fear of losing my new favorite hotel, but it worked well and was quite affordable.

day 2

I participated in day 2 as expected. The night before, I had an absolutely dreadful night’s sleep, only getting 3 hours. My hotel room wouldn’t quite get cold enough, and I was doing circle catalog activities the night before again, too.

I arrived at Tokyo Big Sight at around 7. On day 2, I was in block 4の2, which closed at 7:05. According to the signs, 3の1 closed at 5:53. According to one SNS user, they left for Tokyo Big Sight at 4:30. I assume that “as early as the first train” is the most practical earliest arrival time. Blocks 1 and 2 are early entry only. My friend who arrived at 4の3 at 8:15 on day 1 arrived at 4の6 at 8:30 on day 2.

Day 2 was definitely more packed in terms of people arriving on day 2 than on day 1. I feel very strongly like day 2 is more congested generally in the east halls.

I spent a decent amount of time in the Hall 8 cool rest area, which is new. I used 2 of the phase-change heatstroke prevention packs. These packs use phase change chemistry to produce cooling, and are apparently reusable up to 3 times. I don’t know what they are chemically, but they did seem very effective. They don’t last a long time, but it was definitely nice to have them.

I developed a headache again. I don’t know the root cause, but I used ibuprofen + caffeine (EVE DX Quick).

I drank basically the same amount of liquids, 3700 mL, of which 500mL was just water. There's a bit of a problem that I've felt, which is that bringing anything cold to Comic Market is a fool's errand. It just doesn't stay cool.

New this year, I brought a bag with me from prior Comic Market years, which I used to hold purchases once my backpack was full. I realized that my backpack solution, ultimately, is suboptimal: I need to find a better solution that allows me to purchase things significantly faster. My friend and I brainstormed, and by searching Amazon Japan for コミケーバッグ, you can actually find decent results. It seems like the specific genre of bag that's good is a “meeting bag”. I plan on purchasing and testing meeting bags before the next event, to see if this is a suitable improvement. The downside to this genre of bag seems to be that they're designed to be carried over-the-shoulder, instead of as a sling-type or a backpack type. This means that as the bag fills, the weight will naturally increase. I hope that I can find a suitable bag with an over-the-shoulder type sling for better weight distribution.

I also found that the clipboard type box I had, which was suitable for carrying very small amounts of items, wasn't suitable this year. It just had too small of an area. I'm considering getting a small box I can use and modifying it to have a slot at the top, and maybe attaching a clipboard to that box. I'm not sure what the end solution is.

Finally, I had another issue: cash management. I feel like I need to break down and get a long wallet like most Japanese people have. It's just too fiddly to carry around cash in a loose format, at least during Comic Market. Change and cash were too easily lost and misplaced. I nearly lost several thousand yen on the floor because of poor cash management.

At the conclusion of the event, I stayed after for about 1 additional hour, and helped pack up like I did in C105. I wish I did more, honestly. I ended up packing up about 30-50 tables and only 20 or so chairs. I felt like I could have done more, but east halls 4-5-6 were basically done, and the remaining halls, south and west, were a very significant distance away, which would've required a trip to just see if they needed help. During C105, I was able to easily peek into 1-2-3 and see that they needed help immediately, which led to me helping there. A significant limiting factor is that I don't want to carry my stuff while I volunteer, but I also don't want it to be identified as missing/lost goods. I will bring a sign to help communicate that they aren't lost goods, but rather, are accompanied by someone volunteering next time.