博麗神社例大祭１０ – Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai 10

Tokyo Big Sight, from the left side. No one really takes a shot from its left side, so this one’s quite special.

I took the liberty on Sunday to partake in the Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai 10 event, a unique event where people can showcase their own parodical creations of anything relating to the vast world of Touhou. As the Touhou game itself started as a doujin, this whole event is dedicated to the doujins of this original doujin (as well as the doujin itself). Let’s see your head process that one.

One of the reasons for its inception was that the popularity of Touhou doujin items were just too popular for the main otaku event, Comiket. It was once reported that Touhou circles were taking up about one-third of the circles in the event, causing massive concerns for circles due to the already ‘limited’ numbers. Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai (hereby Reitaisai) was the solution for trying to offload some of the circles into this more specialised event. Though it has generally been quite effective, there is still a very large number of Touhou booths who go to Comiket. Many participants to these otaku events may only be able to attend one or two major events due to location, finance, etc. so still including Touhou in Comiket with benefit those people the most.

I am personally not a huge fan of the Touhou world, though I did have a short phase where I tried (terribly) at the series of games. My favourite character is Youmu Konpaku, which will reflect on my purchase choices in this event.