Seoul Comic World

141th Seoul Comic World (7/16-17)

(website: http://www.comicw.co.kr/)

This past weekend has been a blast for me in Seoul! One of the highlights was a visit to the biggest comic convention held in Korea: Comic World. It's held either once a month or every two months, depending on whether you go to the one held in Seoul or Busan. It goes on for a weekend -- I went on Saturday, although pretty much all events (cosplay contest, singing, art contest, etc) tend to happen on Sunday. It was still extremely fun.

The 141th Seoul CW was held at SETEC convention center (they tend to switch between SETEC and AT). To reach SETEC, you ride the subway to Hangnyeoul Station (학여울역) and leave through exit 1. As soon as you get off, if it is convention day, you will see HOARDS of cosplayers in the brightest of wigs and the frilliest of costumes. Follow up the escalator or stairs to reach SETEC! From there you must purchase tickets for 4,000won to get inside. (If you wish to cosplay, you have to pay 1,000won to register before going inside. I haven't cosplayed in years, but I'm pretty sure their policy is still the same: you MUST change from civilian clothes to cosplay inside the convention.) It opened at 11 AM, but people were waiting out since 9 AM. Whew. That's dedication! I arrived quite late, 1-2PM-ish? and it was still decently packed. It closes at around 5 PM. After you get your ticket stubbed, they stamp you on your hand so you can go in and out as you please.

SCW 141 ticket stub ft. Gintama!

Inside the halls (3, I think) were basically ginormous artist alleys. It is densely packed with rows and rows of extremely talented independent Korean artists! If you come early, you will be able to buy items before they sell out but you'll have the battle the huge crowd fighting to rush through to their favorite artists. (If you follow a few Korean artists, they usually put their booth number and location in their twitter beforehand.) 

SETEC Convention Center

They sell things ranging from cards with their artwork, hand-fans, glasses cleaners, artbooks, plushies, posters, keychains, cups/tumblers, blankets, beach towels, totes, pins, and even full on (and mini) dakimakura covers! If you wish to purchase lewd doujinshi, (oh, you) you'll need to provide an ID or passport that identifies you as 19 and older since that's Korea's "Adult Age". 

What always surprises me most after visiting other conventions is the price of the items sold in SCW. It is SO CHEAP! Beautifully printed high-quality cards of characters go for 1,000won at most and sell in sets of up to 10 for only 4,000won! They're kind of useless, I admit, but they're very pretty and nice for inspiration. Glasses wipers go for about 2,000won and come fully printed with cute art. Glossy, fully print posters go for about 3,000won and scroll posters for about 10,000 won. It was heaven! However, you have to buy pretty quickly and don't get a chance to talk to the artist or you'll hold up the line. It was a lot less intimate than American artist alleys and I ended up not knowing where to find half of the artists from my pile when I returned home.

Some of my art cards from CW.

The main fandoms that packed CW were Gintama (which were CW's mascots, I guess, seeing the tickets), Love Live, Re:Zero, Sailor Moon, Touken Ranbu, Elsword, Haikyuu!!, One Piece, Overwatch, Vocaloid, Evangelion, Undertale, Madoka Magica, and Pokemon. Surprisingly, there was barely any manhwa or webtoon merch. It was mainly new anime and classics. I was a bit disappointed to not find ANYTHING for Fire Emblem or Mawaru Penguindrum, among others -- even popular anime like Steins;gate, Hunter x Hunter, and the Gundam series seemed to be MIA...but I still ended up with an okay amount, so I'm pleased!

A Sailor Moon collab artbook I purchased! So beautiful.

A few more pages.

The cards had reaaally beautiful overlays and details!

Even though it was raining quite a bit and the humidity was terrible enough for me to give up on wearing my cosplay, the majority of people (seemed to be mainly high-schoolers and college students) showed up all-out. There were a LOT of Gintokis and Kaguras, Deadpools, Haikyuu members, and Overwatch/LOL characters. They are all very pleasant and will almost always welcome pictures! Some will even ask you what pose you'd like them to be in, lol. 

Just a few key phrases to keep in mind when you go:

사진 찍어도 될까요? (Sa-jin-jjik-uh-do-dwel-kka-yo?) -- Can I take your picture?

같이 사진을 찍어도 될까요 (gat-chi-sa-jin-eul-jjik-uh-do-dwel-kka-yo?) -- Can we take a photo together?

너무 예뻐요! (nuh-moo-ye-ppuh-yo!) -- You look so pretty!

너무 멋져요! (nuh-moo-mut-jyuh-yo!) -- You look so cool!

_________ 있어요? (_________-it-suh-yo?) -- Do you have ______ (social media)?
감사합니다!! (gam-sah-hab-ni-da!) -- Thank you!

SO COOL!

You're gonna have a GOOD time (at CW)!
Undertale was still very popular.

Best girl aside from Nico! (No hate plz)

SORRY TO MY FRIEND
But Naruto was a popular cosplay choice!
Mainly the Akatsuki members, though.

Cuties!!!!

I looked for a Felix cosplay and
could not find any. :(

Best group?!

Loved this candid shot, haha.
That Tetsu was way cute...

And that is all for CW! Unfortunately I took less than stellar photos (and barely any, to boot) but it really is something you should experience if you're ever in Korea and enjoy anime/manga. Afterwards, you can go eat around Seoul's awesome restaurants for dinner! Hope you enjoyed this post! My next will most likely be on the Ghibli Store in Yongsan -- see you then!