Comic Con is finally here in this scorching hot summer! I have been excited to attend because I wanted to see if this would be a big event in Seoul, and how “fan culture” occurs in Korea. I definitely had a lot of fun and learned a lot, but the experience was a little bit different than I imagined. Below I will recap my highlights. Please keep in mind that I will be reviewing this from a mostly anime-related perspective, so I won’t delve into the Marvel, AMC stuff because it doesn’t interest me and I don’t know much about it hehe.

I arrived at COEX at 10 am (opening time was 11am). I don’t know why I thought the hall wouldn’t be packed, but it was. I had to turn corners 4 times to get to the end of the line. Despite how long the line was, I entered the con at 11:04 so the line wasn’t an issue! A WORD OF ADVICE: Coex was BLISTERING HOT both outside the convention space and inside, so if you can bring a fan and bring plenty of water because honestly it was uncomfortable.

COEX is pretty large so there were lots of exhibitors! I will now break apart my highlights: BOOTHS The convention is divided by different areas like Anime, Marvel, Gaming, Toys, Comics, Films, and of course, Artist Alley. To be honest, I was not thoroughly impressed by any of the booths. They were large but most of them had nothing too interactive. The anime portion too was a little bit disappointing although I did discover some interesting things. I discovered this AMAZING anime streaming service in Korea that I didn’t know existed!! This is awesome because crunchy roll and Netflix in Korea have TERRIBLE options, and funimation doesn’t even work. This service is called Laftel and they have lots of great options and they are streaming current anime too! I am going to do a review of them in the near future because I am very curious to use the service.

The gaming area had lots of interesting Korean games. Some of you may know that I don’t really play games but I LOVE game art, so it was great to see. It is also always awesome to see the mass-player areas!

My favorite booth was definitely ANIPLEX +. They mostly had stuff for Fate/Grand Order and the new game Fate/Grand Order Duel. Again, the booth wasn’t especially interesting but they had the best merch out of the Anime booths (pretty much the only anime booth with merch actually).

My favorite booth was definitely ANIPLEX +. They mostly had stuff for Fate/Grand Order and the new game Fate/Grand Order Duel. Again, the booth wasn’t especially interesting but they had the best merch out of the Anime booths (pretty much the only anime booth with merch actually).

The biggest regret I have is not being able to see this Guts figure up close because you couldn’t go inside the area. It looks AMAZING though and I might try to sneak a closer look.

COSPLAY There were lots of amazing cosplayers today! A good mix between Korean cosplayers and foreigners. It was a little bit hard to take pictures because it was crowded but overall everyone was very nice. There was a vast majority of cosplayers doing Marvel characters which I guess makes sense because it’s so popular in Korea!

I stayed for about 6 hours until I got really tired and decided to go. It was a great day but tomorrow I am going to try to talk to more people. I am still trying to be more comfortable in spaces like this because anime has not been something I’ve been a very open fan of for a long time. Also, if you’re interested, I didn’t buy much, just this Fate/Grand Order Duel figure (because the figures were seriously gorgeous) and 2 keychains for Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family because that is probably my favorite Fate franchise haha. I was so glad to get lancer, he is the one I wanted the most! I honestly adored the Grand Order figures so I might get another one…

See you tomorrow!~