Tobie and I have participated in only a few of these comic and arts events, but I think I can already say that there's something distinct about Komiket Pride. There's nothing wrong with the other Komiket events - they're all amazing venues for the general public to meet and interact with different creators directly. On some level, you can view them as art swap meets or something. But really, there are a lot of great interactions that can happen at these things. And while Komiket Pride has a lot of the same interactions in a general sense, this unique gathering of queer creators draws a very particular crowd. Thus, one gets to see so many facets of the LGBTQI+ community spectrum gathered in one place that feels a lot like what you experience at Pride Marches. But it's still tied to the creative community as well, and that's a unique intermingling of two beautiful things.
On a related note, we also got to see a lot of queer friends who opted to make time for the event. We have a lot of straight friends and they're important to us as well. But there's something about having your queer friends together with you in space overflowing with love and rainbows and you all just bask in the shared energy of things. Even with friends in our (older) age range, we end up just watching the crowd at times and marveling at how far things have come and how lucky kids are today to be able to express themselves so freely whereas our generation relied on so many codewords, secret signals and symbols just to even find one another.
For as long as Tobie's creative efforts (or maybe one day mine?) allow us the option to participate in Komiket Pride, I think we'll do our best to make time for Komiket Pride.
Lastly, we had another portrait done by Albert Raqueño. I had brought at least two more friends to have their portraits done by him today, and one of them inspired me to have Yoshi join me and Tobie. It has been 9 years since he passed away, and this was a unique way to have him with us again, even if just in beatiful (yet surprisingly quick) portrait.
Artists are amazing.
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