Alright why is that every time I have to do this, it comes with a virus that I have to hold on to even though I'm pretty sure I can have a fever and sore throat just being overexcited by all of this-

Haha sorry but I gotta *laughs*

WELLLLLCOME BACK!!! To one of the only times of the year where I will spend more than one day writing about indie artwork. To one of the only times of the year where a long post will need a disclaimer so that minors won't just get me sued even if this is a private blog lol. To one of the only times of the year where I decided to do this on my birthday!!! Yeah, that last one is the most important. *wink*

Hey, if I can wait a month long for the winter Comiket to pass, I think we can wait a month longer and spend way too much time talking about them without anyone judging us in any way. Just me, with my thin books. *dabs*

Let's get it started~ in here~!! *giggles*

I mean, we know how this all started, just refer to the one blog post 3 years ago. *giggles*

Oh, you want to know about this one, got it. Also known to me as "The Semi-Centennial Special" lol speeling should be correct (lmao), this winter edition of the one and only largest indie artists (from here, referred to as "doujin") event Comic Market celebrates its 50th anniversary, aligning with when they started their first ever in-person event on *double checks* 21st December 1975!!! (DAMN) If I'm not wrong, they also did it at the same exact location in Tokyo Big Sight, a large convention centre with an iconic upside-down triangle arrangement, enough to house hundreds even thousands of artists and attendees, and transitioned from free entry to raffle-based ticker over the years. Of course nowadays the winter Comiket (a.k.a. FuyuKomi) is done at the end of the year which for this year is 30-31 December, which for me isn't that great for a couple of reasons as seen from the previous time I did this. Because of its proximity to end of year shipping, stock online tends to be more pre-order oriented as shipping companies or even stores take breaks on shipping but not on ordering, and that reviews in my case are done in the new year also backed up for a month late in consequence, the hype for this at least over here is ever so lower than when I had to do the summer Comiket (a.k.a. NatsuKomi) which has always been the highlight of the year even among the otaku, including me but to a much lesser extent.

This has over the years, piqued my interest as to specifically what these illustrators and artists have to offer in terms of original content as I have been a fan of indie content going against the mainstream, but in recent months I have been more wary of AI-generated works online, as artists continue to protest against illegal use of work which has polluted websites which promote indie art (Pixiv has a setting to hide AI artworks) and promoted the training of AI models (PixAI, which then charge memberships to people who use them and post on social media) which imitate thus devalue their work.This is especially obvious when see on Twitter/X lately when they introduced a new feature where you can edit any image in place from other people's posts directly - and people normally delete their posts with the edited images afterwards - which serves to exacerbate the root problem or implementing such things without the artists' consent. This also explains how many of the artists have learned to put watermarks on their work and extend their reach to more social media platforms not and including Bluesky especially when this feature was implemented last December (which has moved into Grok Chat, for paying members only, but otherwise feature unchanged) which just makes this all the more unpleasant that it's there.

This isn't a bad thing per se, but it does affect them artists out there trying to do this more often than ever even as a career as they get more credit for licensed franchises (It's the year of the horse so I'm obliged to promote Uma Musume lol), so the least I could do for them is to give them some money back buy purchasing what great artworks they have produced in the form of illustration books (a.k.a. "doujinshi", or thin books), compiled with illustrations with attention to fail and flawless perfection they dedicated to their work compared to the slop that has since polluted the online space.

I start us off with my last drafted note in conclusion to my very first draft and how everything is wrong about it:

Wow, that has aged badly in just 2 months. *laughs*

Hey me, if this was last year, that'll be a good idea since buying lesser which previously was 6 books did make me pay for shipping which was worth one of the smaller books, so why not spend it on not shipping? But this is the 50th anniversary, dawg!! *dabs* So no, for this time around, this won't do.

The plan then was to consider a second round of order instead of the usual single pre-order round as I've done last year, and ship and review by end of January the next year. But since this year was different, and not like they are going to speed up the pre-orders (which reminds me maybe next time I should just do an order run to be faster...?), I went with an order batch to hit a grand total of EIGHTEEN (18) BOOKS, also as a euphemism of what these books represent too, honestly. *giggles* These are then to be compiled and sit will at least the start of February before being shipped to my place, hopefully before the public holiday season mid February. However, shipping was fast as the package was huge so I can't use the usual post office method, so FedEx shipped it fast, and I had a chance to buy a gift box to put it in and let it sit for another week before starting to unbox my birthday present, starting 19th February for those who don't know of yours truly yet. 

All this is done through Buyee even though I did consider for BuyAndShip which again, I was reminded that theirs is more worth when shipping from separate stores as they charge service fee as a percentage even if it takes more time to consolidate in their Hong Kong headquarters, but if it's in terms of buying things in bulk from the same store, Buyee (notice that I don't even bother talking about Zenmarket which is *ugh* haha) will be more worth charging service fee for when buying proxy from Melonbooks, blah blah the largest online store in Japan which supports indie artists that much, they probably get paid to sell exclusively (online) on their platform. *silence* Not going to explain how sad that is which is why I also do these reviews from other stores which accept international cards and/or shipping whenever I can (used to be Toranoana but they followed the same path as Melonbooks so BOOTH now) just because. Buyee was also worth using the service after all these years because they allow the flexibility of skipping inspection and additional packaging, which - if you are buying a bunch of paper shipped from the best services in the world - hardly needs any checks since I'm not buying from an auction house with user-sold items which can be a liability, and does not contain any fragile items. This has been extensively tested over the past year's shipments, and the most I get was bent edges, so I can live with that decision. *giggles*

To make things worse, the site itself, though welcome for overseas shipping, has been region-locked to Japan since as early as 29th November, so ALL THIS DAMN TIME I had to use VPN to make this happen (shout out to the guys at VPNGate) so I can do some daily monitoring of new releases and plan to add them to my overseas cart as I reach home that day since I can't do that at work. *shrugs* They have a new Taiwan branch opening announcement though, by the way. How this is working I have no f**king idea-

Okay blame me this time for changing the rules here once again, but I promise you this will be the last, and for good reason as I will talk about them later. I will talk about what's slightly changed this time around just because, but this will be the list I'll follow from the next season forward. Promise. *giggles*

Exceptions this season include the raising the limit to EIGHTEEN (18) BOOKS for the occasion, but I would also argue that this might be the way forward due to how I get free shipping for doing in 2 batches of 9 from Melonbooks which had to hit minimum 10k yen in value, and thus remove the requirement for budget to be honest. And yes, R18 symbol just because. *giggles*

The limit for pages also is raised to 32 pages as with most of the books out there otherwise we might never get the likes of... literally every other artist even with the "number not on cover" limit present. I know, at some point if we want to give artists I care about I will remove this or just add as an exception, but that will be on a case-by-case basis. Or I can do it like Harakenshi-sensei and buy their illustration book or manga separately. Maybe that. *laughs*

Every time this has always gone according to plan, so let's talk about how it never did. *laughs*

Selection of works initially was fully based on what I have compiled for the previous Comiket so C106 and I have promised some artists like Hatena Shun-sensei who have since also confirmed that they will participate in this one, so that wasn't a hard decision. What will be the challenge is to meet the schedule of pre-orders while deciding and/or waiting for new ones to be announced over time in Melonbooks and thus oversee the items going out of stock (Akipeko-sensei) and initial selections eventually replaced by better ones or ones more worth talking about (Mashiro K-ta-sensei). I also chose to skip those who have been noted to sell on BOOTH so exclusivity with Melonbooks isn't a thing (which is based), but that also has its own slew of problems. Since they host their own store and manage inventory independently, their sale periods are even tighter, leading to some selling out faster than ever (Shirokuma Jake-sensei) than with a stable inventory like Melonbooks. But yeah, future problem for that we'll talk about the Melonbooks batches first. Many of them which surfaced later especially when deciding for the final lists eventually became an obligation for knowing of them over time and if they played by my rules, and priority was also given to those who went out of their usual cycle to sell compilations and/or spin-offs, but I think it will be worth it to give the recognition as long as they impress. The increase of books reviewed also allowed more to come into view, though it will never solve the problem of giving those I want especially if they are from regulars I have known from the past. *wink*

The pre-order batch was confirmed in 21st December (for the occasion of the first event date?) with NINE (9) books increased from 6, and done before the event date out of fear that the ones I selected will go out of stock especially when I'm giving more popular artists this time around, from AIKO-sensei to BANGSOM, Yugaa to pon-sensei... Even though I knew that they will restock once the event is over and (likely) they hand their physical inventory from location to online just to clear stock, which prompted me to maybe do the purchase the following year in order to not worry about such logistics. In turn, I double checked the stock on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve (why those dates though lol) just to confirm on my decision, and I wasn't wrong half of them were out of stock by the time the event was over. Budget-wise it definitely exceeded due to the increase in page size and from all the above many of them had larger books to sell... so I'm not that worried about budget at that point, which was also why it was removed from the rules in the previous review.

The order batch was considered since then after the stark realization (lol) that the pre-order batch will not ship will end of January similar to last year (WHEN WILL I LEARN MY LESSON lol) as vaguely stated on the online store until it was officially out (yeah, weird system in Melonbooks, biggest store by the way), so that was only a way to ensure that I have enough time to come up with another batch of artists I want to talk about. I ended up selecting 18 books as mentioned, with FIVE (5) regular artists from past years which was also subject to their own stock at that time (gozmi gomzi-sensei, Miwano Ragu-sensei) and drastic arrangements to give some others priority (Akamoku-sensei initially had TWO slots for their 2 books for the event, replaced by Fuuro and Fuumi-sensei), which finally was confirmed on 22nd January 2026, and did not ship out until February even if consolidation was early and shipping of such a large package of items was cheapest (lol) through FedEx, which delivered the package in a few days within the week. This was around the time I also decided to give it a gift box (which can be re-used) and arrived before Valentine's Day, allowing me to package it while still leaving it sitting for another week before I started it on my birthday, spanning from Thursday to Saturday, unfortunately after Lunar New Year outdoor visits and prayers.

Chaotic as always, but now that it has been decided, let's talk about who they are!!

Oh yeah, don't ask about who they are, they are all called "Sensei" we have no idea who they really are, so stop looking at how Rossuri-sensei is posing like an old woman. *laughs* 

Before we actually show what Comiket 107 has to offer, don't forget, I haven't validated if you can view the below content yet... so!!! *giggles*

Thrust me when I say- Excuse me, Trust me when I say (haha) that I have not came ever since my birthday just so I can finish this on time. Reading porn pon-sensei takes a lot of time, you know. *dabs*

Okay, where to go from here. I did consider doing a BOOTH run once again but seeing that I just finished on this one, I'll see whenever the new Comitia is happening right now this weekend as of writing (by the way), or maybe until April or May then I can get my feet wet. Really depends on what I can get to get like, 3-6 books overall so it's worth shipping, so we shall see about that. Maybe I just do one for White Day which if so to pad the March package... then I may have an idea, Hiyoko Mameta-sensei. *wink*

Upon that though, I think it's fair to (not compare to others who buy dozens of books but) increase the book count to 18 books by doing TWO batches of budget around 100k, or 9 books so total 18 as what I have done on this run, but for summer Comiket from 15 including catalogue, and then winter Comiket will drop to one batch of 9. In the future though, I may even consider using the budget and then limiting the books by buying full sets of goods to support certain artists more probably regulars, but that will take up more space in my room though, so I'm still thinking on that. I don't think I need the catalogue anymore to know more people considering my connections and the social media re-posts, so yeah, maybe I should get to reviewing Tam-U-sensei at some point. *giggles*

Finally, this is apology conference time, and I shall list all (and I mean ALL) the artists I've rejected, missed after the order date because I still did spend some time after the event to look at new prospective illustrations, including the regulars who I have mentioned earlier:

(*Regulars will be selected based on variety of new originals, which does not include numbered original sequels, mainstream adaptations, and licensed artwork)

I should maybe use Twitter/X links instead, Melonbooks listings can be brought down and not to say all these require VPN to access now that they are region-locked. *shrugs* (Note to self: Consider creating a special site to showcase these and bypass the limitation; You do have the base already in your GitHub page)

All in all, this has been a long wait, but it might be my new birthday present I give myself every year, replacing a Japanese voice actress(?) photobook instead since who gives a damn about girls in real life. *dabs* Hopefully I can revive this series soon enough, and if not, look forward to September when I see when I can find like, 3 days off aligning with public holidays to do this for consecutive afternoons and write ALL of this up!! *thumbs up*

P.S. Since I will likely not be talking about Melonbooks' infamous event catalogue (the one with event code and wristband) introducing artists and their (sometimes) special illustrations just for the book itself, here is the list of artists involved, and how many of them I know of, as highlighted:

Wow, that's... quite a lot lesser than before. *giggles* This is weird, I thought I knew of more. *laughs* Anyways, that's all I gotta do today's fanfic before I miss the timing. See you guys in the next one in half a year. *thumbs up*

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