Undertaking a New Challenge with “Comiket Special 6” - Comic Market Recruiting Overseas Participants

Undertaking a New Challenge with “Comiket Special 6” - Comic Market Recruiting Overseas Participants

Comic Market, the world’s largest fan participation cultural event, is held in the spring and summer and is known for its enormousness that surpasses 500,000 attendees each time. In recent years, the event has become known not just to those in Japan, but also among those overseas who like Japanese manga and anime, and people who go to Comiket once to experience it are increasing. Currently, there is also talk of expanding on the among of people who visit Comiket from overseas. Hopefuls who don’t want to just get doujinshi but want to participate on the distribution side have also been increasing as well.

In order to answer these needs, the Comic Market Preparation Committee is implementing a new challenge. The application period to participate in the Overseas Circle at the special event “Comiket Special 6 - Otaku Summit 2015” to be held on March 28 and 29, 2015 at the Makuhari Messe International Convention Complex has begun.

Comiket Special is separate from Comic Market, which is held twice yearly, and is a special event held every five years around a single theme. Next year will mark the event’s sixth time being held. The committee is aiming to create a place for fans to interact that crosses over national borders under the banner “World Comiket.” The decision to hold Comiket Special 6 is one part of this plan.

Up till now, only those who live in Japan and speak Japanese have been eligible to apply to participate in Comic Market. This doesn’t mean that there weren’t participants from overseas, but the bar to be able to participate was set quite high.

On the other hand, the current Comic Market Preparation Committee established on Nov. 10 an entry form for overseas hopefuls on the official English site of Comiket Special 6. This makes it quite easy for those overseas to apply. The application also has the same requirements for circles in Japan as it does for overseas circles rather than providing a separate application for overseas circles. The number of circles being recruited in total, including domestic and foreign circles, is 1,000 per event day for both March 28 and 29. It seems likely that having Japanese doujinshi lined up on tables along with foreign doujinshi will make quite an impact. Even for fans in Japan, this is likely quite exciting. We can expect cultural exchange to blossom at the venue.

The application period will run from Nov. 10 to Dec. 22. There is a participation fee of 5,000 JPY and a separate online application handling fee of 700 JPY.

A page for Comiket Special 6 also opened on Facebook, which has many users all over the world, on Nov. 10. Information to be distributed there will be mostly in English. It seems that just as the title says, a “World Comiket” will be realized in March 2015.

Comiket Special 6 - Otaku Summit 2015 Official English Site
Comiket Special 6 Facebook Page

Source: animeanime

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