Japan Trip 2012, Day 7 - Idol Survivor

Today I spent sometime going to a doujin market, Idol Survivor at Hamamatsu-cho. It took up half a floor in the Metropolitan Trade Center there, and there was quite a line. I think there was another doujin market happening on the other half of the floor. I peeked in to see what it was, but didn't decide to just barge in there unannounced.

Why? Well, the first thing to do when going to a doujin market is to look to see if you must buy the market's catalog to get in - they'll usually tell you where to buy one if you go to their web site. Once the doors open, people will check for the catalog - no catalog, no admission. You still might be able to buy one on site, but that's really only a plan for the desperate.

Normally the second thing to do is to look at who's attending and see if there's anything you're interested in, then look at the event map and plan out who to hit and in what order. However, this was a fairly small market, so I skipped that altogether. I figured I'd give the market a once over, then just go back to any table I thought was interesting. Again because of the small scale, it was pretty easy to keep those booths in my head.

Note: This does not work for Comic Market, Reitaisai, or anything of that scale. See Comic Party episode 1, or Lucky Star episode 12 if you wanna know what will happen. You don't want to be Mizuki or Tsukasa, do you?

I didn't take any pictures of the event because I was afraid of breaking some sort of law or rule. Normally... or at least as I understand it, picture-taking privileges cost when cosplay is involved, and requires you to go somewhere on site to register. Same goes for actually cosplaying. Once you register, you'll get a badge, and by showing it on your person, no one will pester you unless you also snap pictures of someone without asking for their permission. So, the camera stayed in the bag for this event.

The other thing I like to do for these events concerns money. Some smaller booths might not have much in the way of large bills, so it's a good idea to bring a bunch of smaller bills with you. Also... well, this is more of a personal preference on my part, but I tend to like to have swift access to my cash for the event as well. If you don't want to hold up a line, this means already out of your wallet and ready to go as soon as you get to the front of the booth to make your purchase. In my case, I usually take my cash out of my wallet and fold it up in another pocket somewhere for the entire event, so I'm already counting bills as soon as my hand leaves the pocket. When I take notes, I leave the notebook in another pocket I can easily get to. Seems a little obsessive, I guess, but I really don't want to be the guy who makes everyone else wait.

The entire event went pretty well for me in the end. My initial run was just me browsing the aisles. As usual, wall booths were crowded, but then if they're popular enough, their stuff will turn up in Akiba sometime so I wasn't too worried about them. So, I just went around to the other booths and picked out what I found interesting in my first run... and only after that did I brace myself for the wall space lines. As it turns out, all that dreading was really for nothing - the lines went fast and weren't overly cramped. I managed to get a sticker for my Suica card, making it look a lot better than it was when I first got it.

The only thing there that I didn't get was an Anzu rabbit, which they had on display at the event's booth. I don't know what you had to do to get one though, the guys talked pretty fast, but I think I had to do something beforehand. I also saw stamina drinks being sold and some can badges. I shied away from them.

One final just-in-case round later (which did turn up a booth that was late to open), and I was out - the entire event took about an hour and a half which is really short. Yes, there was an after-event at 15:30, but that was three hours off and I really didn't feel like it. I instead went off and sat in a small park near the station and played around on the swing set before heading back to Akihabara.