I participated in Comic Market 105 from December 29th to the 30th of 2024.

This was my first Comic Market since moving to Japan, so I took time to optimize my bag for collecting works and generally surviving. The bag is an ActiveGear bag with a shoe compartment. It's considered a sports bag, and I got it from Don Quijote for something like 8,000円. Inside, I used 2 Daiso A4 binder cases (called ファイルケース) with the top portions cut out using a box cutter. In the “shoe compartment” of the bag, I had a KVASS outdoor folding chair and a random folding umbrella. The bag worked fine, when worn on the front, to add books easily. The main thing I regret is that I didn't get some kind of strap to hold the back straps on. It got tiring to carry the bag around all day. The chair was absolutely essential. For waiting in line from 7am to 11am, the chair was indispensable. But later on in the event, when trying to rest outside, it also became a great way to have a small respite from walking everywhere.

On day 1, I arrived at 国際展示場駅 7:02 AM and ended up in block 5-1 of the general participant line for the east halls. On day 2, I arrived at 7:12 AM. I didn't track my arrival at the line, but I ended up in block 5-2 on the second day. This basically amounts to a 10 minute difference leading to 1 block difference. I feel like it's getting harder and harder to arrive early in the general participation line, at least for east halls. It's unclear to me if this is an indicator that this is too late or too early. On day 1, I didn't experience any 新刊 availability issues, but I did on day 2. Both days, I entered halls 456, but the second day lead to missing 新刊 in hall 123. I wish I arrived earlier.

1. This was a winter comic market, and I expected to need more hydration than I actually did. I brought 1800mL of pocari sweat, which was a bad choice on the first day. I reduced to just 900mL on the second day, but could have easily gotten away with just buying drinks on-site.
2. I packed a lot of chemical hand warmers and foot warmers. I used adhesive toe warmers the most, on the top of my socks (not the bottom, which is where the instructions say to put them).
3. I didn't eat as many snacks as I thought I would, but I'm happy I brought them because it was annoying finding food.
4. The FamilyMart ATM line was very long (40-45 minutes on day 1 around noon) – much worse than I've experienced in the past.
5. The line at 国際展示場駅 to return home was very, very long, even an hour after the end of C105. It was surprising how many people were waiting to take the train.
6. Wearing cargo pants with a dedicated pocket specifically for a mobile phone battery bank (right pocket) and bills/100/500 yen coins (left pocket) was a really good move in terms of speeding up payment.

I'm also pretty happy to share that I stayed after close on C105 and helped fold chairs and tables – maybe 20 tables and 30-40 chairs, but I don't really know an exact count. It was really fun, and I hope to again help in C106. I was a bit apprehensive because I know the event venue was closing, but nobody stopped me, so I continued helping close out the east halls until there weren't any chairs/tables remaining.