Shopping Guide
For three days from Dec. 28 to 30, the doujinshi festival Comic Market 87 was held at Tokyo Big Sight. After the event came to a close, it was announced by the preparations committee for Comic Market that the festival drew an incredible 560,000 people over the three days.
On the third day of the hectic Comiket, there was an incident that “warmed” people’s hearts and became a hot topic on Twitter.
At the heart of this story, is the circle Ika Anderson, which participated on the third day of Comiket, and its member Pokowatari-san (@konanemu). Pokowatari-san previously said in a post on his own Twitter on Dec. 14, “In consideration of our elementary school friends with only a small amount of pocket money, instead of money, you can exchange 20 acorns for a book.” And furthermore, he explained that, “Not just elementary school children [but anyone] can pay with acorns.” By the way, he said that the exchange rate is, “5 oak acorns for 1 book, and 20 acorns of other types for 1 book.”
And at the Comic Market half a month later? It seemed like people really appeared who came to buy books with acorns. Books that could be purchased with acorns seemed to have been already decided and buyers could actually get books with the pre-determined rate of acorns without any problem.
On this topic, Pokowatari-san commented that, “Oak acorns are hard to get in parks and such, and they are also both large in size and unique in appearance, and so this disparity came about. Next time, I am thinking to more precisely determine the rate based on tree species,” showing that he is eager to continue with the acorn payment.
In addition, people who saw Pokowatari-san’s Twitter sequence responded with expressions like, “It’s so heartwarming,” “Payment by acorns is cute,” “What is the disparity between different kinds of acorns,” and so on.
Source: Otakuma Keizai Shinbun