The Tokyo Character Show is a two-day convention for anything and everything related to Anime, Manga, video games, toys, idols and character goods. This year's event had radio station Nippon Hoso as a major sponsor, with many major publishing and media companies like Nisshin, Nifty, Kadokawa, Kodansha, Mediaworks, Shonen Gahosha, Sony Magazines, also contributing.

The event took place on July 22nd and 23rd at 'Makuhari Messe', a large exhibition hall about one hour from central Tokyo. TCS is one of the major conventions dealing with the Manga, Anime and mass-entertainment industries, and provides a great chance to see the latest character goods, rare products and artist's works, not to mention attending the numerous special events. This variety makes TCS an important and fun event for both the Japanese character industry and the fans.

Sunday July 23rd was the day I visited the show. The hall was open from 10 am, but I turned up at the Makuhari Messe convention center at around 10:20. I was greeted by a huge queue of fans standing under a blazing summer sun in unbelievably humid weather. Luckily, the wait was only around 20 minutes, so I was able to get in quicker than expected and avoid a nasty case of sunstroke.

With my first step inside the exhibit hall, I found I'd walked out of one heat wave and into another. Despite the air conditioning, the temperature inside was probably around 30°C, with the humidity every bit as bad as outside due to the hundreds of fans crammed inside the convention space. Everywhere you looked, there were long lines of punters in front of every well-known company's booth, making it difficult for the casual passer-by to get a look in. The booth with the longest line award would probably go to publisher Kodansha'. Their special displays and events based around 'Cardcaptor Sakura', 'Ah! My Goddess', 'Save Me, My Guardian Shaorin', 'Love Hina', and other popular Manga and Japanimation titles proved to be a big draw with the fans. In addition to their irresistible rare goods, they had also kitted out their stand with displays of a life-sized Sakura and replica of "Sakura's private room". Attendees were prepared to wait more than an hour just to get a glimpse of this.

Even at the smaller booths, I ended up stuck in long lines in order to get limited-edition character goods. My longest wait clocked-in at 45 minutes - at the Studio Pierrot booth for phone cards featuring their immensely popular "Saiyuki" Anime.

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The main hall at TCS

Sakura-chan, large as life

And they waited...

Saiyuki phone card
© Kazuya Minekura/Enix•Saiyuki Project•TV Tokyo