Comitia is…amazing. I mean, yes, it looks like every other comic event in Japan, with various circles seated at little tables, that you find by navigating rows with letters and numbers, but…but…at Comitia all the work is original.

Comitia fills East Halls 1-3, which doesn’t sound like much, but we were there for a chunk of the day and made it through maybe 2/3rds of the tables. I have a weirdly chopped up foot, with blisters on blisters and am walking with a cane this week, so hobbling 2/3rds of the show was just fine with me. ^_^

We were joined in our perambulations with Okazu Superhero Jye N and what a lovely person he was! (Of course. I expected no less as he is a Guest Reviewer and Superhero here. ^_^) What a pleasure that was!

We had a lovely conversation about the unwritten rules one comes up with as one shops. Mine include things like if no one looks happy on the cover, I’m not buying it. ^_^

The Yuri section was pretty substantial, especially when you remember that this show is all original work. No parody stuff. We picked up some work by UKOZ, a number of circles I’ve never seen before (!) and had to pass by dozens of tables exploring schoolgirls and love. Of course I stopped by BQ to say hi to Kitao Taki-sensei and was also glad to catch up with Takemiya Jin-sensei. Both looked really glad to be there.

My fave pickup of the show was a little book called “Silver Love”, a Yuri story that included an older woman. We still need Senior Yuri and a sports series we can call our own.

I know I missed a few friends in the adult Yuri section, and I’m sorry about that. /waving at Mizuki-sensei/ and we wrapped up with a quick trip to Atelier Miyabi’s table to pick up some of Fujieda Miyabi-sensei’s work.

The crowd at Comitia is a bit less…otakuish…than at Comiket. Much less frenzied buying of everything. Plenty of women, even in the Yuri section and a few times my gaydar pinged at some of the buyers. ^_^ Again, I chalk that up to the fact that the content is original, not parody.

There was a lot of beautiful art, not just doujinshi. There was a retrospective of an artist, Belne, whose old school, elegant BL was quite lovely. I kind of pine for the days of elegant Belle Artes manga, like Applause.

All in all a satisfying day with lovely people. Thanks Jye, Bruce and all you hard-working doujinshi artists!

The next main event on my schedule was being part of the Tokyo Comics Showcase, Volume 1, a Rainbow Pride Week event. So many thanks to Tsuchiya Yuki-san and the very darling Tachibana Remi-san for all their assistance and help and kindness.

Remi-san is a repeat role here on Okazu. You may remember her from a few years ago, when Ana Moreno took me to Takarazuka and we kept punching each other. Remi-san and I had a moment remembering Ana, and being angry that she’s gone (Ana, you jerk dying on us like that. You should have been there!)

We spent the early part of the day in Yuki-san’s office practicing. They wanted me to introduce myself in Japanese. With a few more days of practice I would have been so much less awkward. ^_^

But I only had a few hours, so I was a dog on a bicycle speaking. ^_^

At the event, I have so many, many, many people to thank. Simona, Jocelyne, Graham, Tagame-sensei, Nakamura-sensei, Bourbon-san, Ishida-san, Iida-san, Yamagata-san, friends that came like Komatsu-san and Ransui-san and all the wonderful people I met, like Kai-san and Hiromi-san. It was just so overwhelming and amazing and exhausting and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Thanks to the Rainbow Pride Festival, and above all things, my wife and Bruce for being there. For *once*, I will be sharing the entire presentation with you when I get home as a slideshare that you can use for any Yuri panel!

I am pleased and excited to announce that I will be participating in a discussion of Gay/Lesbian/Yuri/BL/Bara manga in Tokyo on May 3rd as part of Rainbow Pride Week events.

The discussion will be at the Aisotope Lounge (http://aliving.net/access.html) in Shinjuku Ni-choume on May 3rd, from 13:00 – 16:00, with guest manga artists Tagame Gengoroh and Nakamura Kiyo (who wrote GUNJO as Nakamura Ching) and Chairman Satou Yasuki.

I hope you’ll all join us and  I’m confidant that I’ll create a whole new exciting set of verbal gaffes for this event. ^_^; I’ll be presenting a brief history of Yuri in the first half and acting as “commentator” in the second. It should be a blast! ^_^

Please join me for the “Alt-Manga Symposium” on April 7th (Thursday) at Baruch College, presented by Japanese Program at Baruch College and Baruch Japan Club. I’ll be talking about BL, Yuri, Bara, trans manga and queerness in non-LGBTQ manga.

To reserve a seat for the symposium, please register here: http://goo.gl/forms/GY5BzKU9KS

Speakers:
Prof. CJ Suzuki, Baruch College
Manga Creator Akino Kondoh
Prof. George Tsouris, LaGuardia College
and me. ^_^