30th Comic Market 71 (7)

Why did I go again? (1) My companion wanted to go. (2) I wanted her to go. (3) I didn't get to take any cosplay photo the previous day.

We arrived around 12:30. 1 hour made a difference. Although there seemed to be fewer people, it was still very crowded. I took her to the Kaiyodo booth to buy the Vignette Chan figurines, but the line up was so long, we couldn't see the end. So we looked around at other stuff first. She was interested in some of the game booths and stayed to watch promo videos. I didn't want to watch but was stuck with her. (Better not get separated or it was impossible to find each other again.) At the end, she got the figurines after lining up for about 10 minutes only. Much better than I did.

Then we proceeded to the doujin area. No more FMA today. Sob sob sob... My companion's a One Piece fan and she bought a doujinshi. There were so many, it took her a while to decide which one to buy. (Aaargh I should have bought some FMA ones yesterday...)

Then... trouble came. I said I want to take cosplay photos, hinting that we should go. She immediately spotted 3 FMA cosplayers near by and pushed me to take their photos! But, But! (1) Those people were clearly busy shopping for doujinshi. (2) When there's a designated cosplay area, it's rude to shoot photos elsewhere. (3) I didn't want to repeat yesterday's "media pass" incident. So I refused, and at least told her (1) and (2). Perhaps I should have told her about (3), but I didn't think she can understand my personal experience.

She kept pressing on and on. Saying I should do it. Not a suggestion, but an order. Sorry, no written word can describe the situation, but she's been talking to me in a tone of voice like I'm inferior. The lack of sleep had a hand too and I was grumpy. Finally, the stress that had been building up for the past 6 days erupted.

Why do you act like a Japanese travel expert while you actually don't know as much as you advertise? You're too chicken to speak to the cab driver. You're an expert but you only "explore" things on eye-level. You make everything sound like it's for my own good, but it's actually for yours. Most of all, you speak to me in a totally different tone of voice when you need me. Otherwise, I'm just a waste of your time.

No, no. I didn't say it out loud. But it was very tough to hold back. I simply shut up. It was a bit late. Around 3, maybe 4? We went by the cosplay area without taking any photos. And then we went to Nakano. All this time I didn't speak a word. The atmosphere was tense. We didn't start speaking to each other until Mandarake. She needed my help to find some books. To be exact, she needed me to talk to the staff. Sigh... yeah, I was still mad at her. But I think she knew I was upset. So that was that.

Apparently she's been to the Nakano Broadway before. But "couldn't find the otaku shops". Hmm... really...? The whole 2nd and 3rd floor are otaku shops. (That's what I meant by "exploring at eye-level".)

We spent too much time in Mandarake and were only able to look at the 3rd floor. We agreed to come back on another day.

On our way out, we had takoyaki for dinner. My exhaustion robbed whatever remaining brain I had, and I just couldn't calculate the price. (Not to mention the lost of math ability from the near-fatal accident 11 years ago.) I thought she knows about my difficulties. But she would still make insensitive comments that makes me feel very, very bad.