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By Saturday morning, the walkways surrounding Tokyo Big Sight will be filled with people carrying annotated maps, numbered shopping lists and enough electrolyte powder to supply a minor endurance sport.
Comiket veterans do not simply wander around and see what looks good. They plot routes. They know which artist sells out first, which hall to enter through and exactly how much cash is sitting in each pocket. For a first-timer, watching this level of preparation can make Comic Market feel like arriving to an exam nobody told you to study for.
Comic Market 108 – better known as C108 or Summer Comiket – takes over Tokyo Big Sight on August 15 and 16 with more than 22,000 creator spaces across two days. The corporate booths and armies of cosplayers may be its most visible parts, but Comiket is built around its circles: individual creators and groups selling doujin, or independently made manga, illustration books, games, music, criticism, photography, software and works so aggressively specific that no normal shop could ever justify giving them shelf space.
The good news is that you do not need to develop a colour-coded military operation overnight. You do, however, need the correct wristband, the correct day, a basic route and a plan for Tokyo’s humidity – plus the rain currently threatening the weekend.
You are late, but you are not doomed. Here’s how to sort everything out from your bed, with a phone and a rapidly shrinking amount of time.
Get your admission sorted now
Comiket is not free entry. Every general attendee needs the correct ticket or physical wristband for the correct day, and Saturday admission will not get you into Sunday.
The lottery-only Early Entry and Cosplay Changing Room Early Entry tickets are already sold out. If you are deciding to go now, these are the two options that still matter:
AM Entry wristband: ¥1,210 in stores, allowing you to join the queue that begins entering from 11am. These are sold in limited quantities at Animate, Toranoana and Melonbooks, and stock varies by location. Overseas visitors can also opt for the official Eplus international e-ticket, which must be exchanged for a physical wristband near Kokusai-Tenjijo Station before joining the queue.
PM Entry wristband: ¥440 in advance, with entry from 12.30pm. These are also sold through Animate, Toranoana and Melonbooks while stocks last.
At this point, check shop stock before travelling across Tokyo and prioritise in-store purchase or store collection; an online order that arrives on Monday is a beautiful little souvenir from an event you did not attend.
If every advance option fails, same-day sales are planned – but only for PM Entry. Sales begin outside the venue around 12.30pm, the wristband costs ¥1,000 and the organisers expect a significant queue. It is a functional Plan B, not a clever money-saving strategy.
Do not turn to resale apps. Comiket explicitly prohibits the resale of tickets and wristbands and tells attendees not to buy them. This is not the moment for a Mercari miracle.
Once you have a wristband, guard it like it contains your passport and the last known copy of your favourite fanfic. The colours are different for each day, lost wristbands are not reissued, and you should put yours on before arriving at the venue.
Pick the right day before you buy anything
The circles and genres change completely between Saturday and Sunday. Comiket is not a shopping centre where the Blue Archive floor simply reopens the following morning.
The official C108 international map gives the full hall-by-hall split, but the simplest version is:
Saturday August 15: Blue Archive, Uma Musume, Type-Moon, Kantai Collection, Touken Ranbu, online and social games, VTubers, anime, fanfiction, accessories and more.
Sunday August 16: Original works and fanfiction for men, original shonen and shojo works, Love Live!, The Idolm@ster, Touhou Project, doujin software, cosplay, criticism, history and literature, trains, travel, mecha and military.
The corporate area in West Halls 3–4 and South Halls 3–4 runs on both days. Saturday’s corporate booths stay open until 5pm; the circle spaces close at 4pm both days, as do all areas on Sunday.
If there is a particular artist, fandom or piece of merchandise dragging you to Ariake, find out which day it’s there before you buy the wristband. This sounds obvious until you are standing outside Big Sight on Sunday dressed for a Saturday-only obsession.
Build a hit list, not a fantasy itinerary
Open the Comike Web Catalog and search for the creators and genres you actually care about. A circle’s space code – something like ‘East 2 A-14a’ – is its address inside the event. Save the circle name, space code and what you want from it, then arrange the list by hall.
Give yourself three categories: must-buy, would-like and wandering material. If a small circle has announced a limited new release that you will emotionally never recover from missing, go there first.
Download the current C108 map, save your route offline and keep your highest-priority spaces in a phone note. Big Sight is not where you want to discover that your master plan only existed in one browser tab at four percent battery.
Do not recycle a map from an older Comiket. East Halls 4–6 are closed for major renovations at C108, meaning the event is using East 1–3 and 7–8 alongside the West and South halls. Some walking routes are longer than usual, particularly between the West/South and East areas.
Understand what your entry time actually means
C108 officially opens at 10.30am, but that does not mean everyone walks in at 10.30am. Early Entry holders begin first. The AM Entry queue starts entering from 11am, while PM Entry begins after 12.30pm.
The key phrase is ‘starts entering’. Eleven o’clock is not a teleportation appointment, and how quickly you get inside depends on the queue and conditions that morning. The organisers specifically recommend that AM wristband holders avoid arriving excessively early, as it only creates a longer outdoor wait in summer heat. Overnight queuing, camping around the venue and arriving in the middle of the night are prohibited.
Getting there
The easiest routes are the Rinkai Line to Kokusai-Tenjijo Station, around seven minutes on foot from the venue, or the Yurikamome to Tokyo Big Sight Station, around three minutes away.
Top up your IC card before you reach Ariake. The stations and machines will be busy, especially around opening and closing, and this is not the weekend to find out your Suica has ¥83 left on it.
The organisers ask attendees to use public transport. Driving, motorbikes and bicycles are not permitted because no participant parking is provided, and even taxis are discouraged due to traffic around the site.
If you are exchanging an international Eplus ticket, use the Rinkai Line: the exchange point opens after 8am near Kokusai-Tenjijo Station, and you cannot join an AM queue until the physical wristband is on your wrist.
Pack for paper, rain and human humidity
As of August 14, the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Tokyo forecast shows the possibility of showers over the weekend, with temperatures around the high 20s to 30C. Translation: hot, humid and potentially wet – an unpleasant combination for both humans and limited-edition art books.
Bring a light rain layer, a small towel and resealable plastic bags or document sleeves to protect anything printed. Add a fully charged phone, a power bank, comfortable shoes and a tote or light backpack that will not become a weapon every time you turn around in a crowded aisle.
Large suitcases do not belong in the halls. Lockers fill quickly and dragging a week’s worth of luggage through a dense doujin queue is how you become a minor villain in several strangers’ memories.
Bring cash, and make it small
Corporate booths may take cards or cashless payment, but plenty of individual circles still operate most smoothly with cash. Bring ¥1,000 notes and coins so you are not handing an independent artist a ¥10,000 bill for an ¥800 book five minutes after opening.
At a circle table, ask before photographing the creator, their display or their work. If a queue has formed, look for its final person or the saikōbi (最後尾, end-of-line) sign rather than accidentally starting your own rival queue. Do not block neighbouring tables while browsing, and move away once you have paid so the next person can approach.
Remember that the person behind the table is usually the person who made the thing, not a shop employee assigned to absorb your chaos. You are allowed to look and not buy. Just handle sample copies carefully, keep critiques for a different location and say thank you.
If you are cosplaying, do not arrive in costume
You can still cosplay without the sold-out early changing-room ticket. Enter using a normal AM or PM wristband, register at the Conference Tower changing rooms by 3.30pm and pay the ¥500 daily registration fee.
What you cannot do is arrive or leave in costume, change in a toilet or treat someone else’s cosplay as blanket consent for a photoshoot. Ask before taking a picture. If your costume involves a full-body suit, leather, heavy armour or anything else designed to trap heat with military efficiency, be realistic about the weather and your body. Changing rooms close at 5.30pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday. Make sure to give yourself enough time to change back.
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