Comic Market, often abbreviated “Comiket“, is often described as “the world’s largest self-published comic book fair.”

However, anyone familiar with Japanese self-published comics, or doujinshi, knows much of the material these indie groups put out are usually not very wholesome in nature. In fact, a good number of the books sold at Comiket are hardcore pornographic comics featuring popular video game and anime characters. What’s more, many of the groups selling pornographic material hand customers their merchandise in custom-designed bags that usually feature pornographic imagery as well.

So imagine you’re a mother waiting at the train station with your 5-year-old child on evening in early August. The train pulls into the platform and you line up to board, but when the doors open you can only stand there in shock as a crowd of people leisurely walk out holding giant bags covered in pictures of naked anime girls in lewd positions.

Because this is, apparently, what actually has been happening at Comiket, according to a series of tweets by a Japanese mother begging participants to exercise a little more discretion.

The tweets were made by user @ehimemikan0 on August 9, the day before this summer’s Comiket:

Her first tweet reads: “I live near one of the stations near the Comiket venue. I’d like to make a request on behalf of everyone in the area. To everyone carrying your spoils of war in indecent pornographic bags: could you please put them in a different bag and then take the home? There are children at the station. Please take care so as to keep pornographic material out of the sight of children.

The second one followed soon after: “It was either last year or the year before. My eldest daughter (5-years-old at the time) asked me: ‘Mommy, why is that person carrying a bag with boobs on it? Why is that girl in her underwear? It’s embarrassing.’ It doesn’t matter if it’s anime or real, exposing pornography in public is disgraceful: even my 5-year-old daughter was embarrassed.

Perhaps most alarming is how no one carrying the bags in public seems to be embarrassed themselves.

The two tweets above have been retweeted over 10,000 times total since posted, so hopefully the attendees responsible will show a bit more decency in public this year.

It would certainly be a shame if the carelessness of a few damaged the reputation of Comiket attendees, a crowd known for being extremely well-disciplined, as a whole.

Check below for some (potentially NSFW) examples of Comiket bags in the past.

Source: My Game News Flash


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