Tokyo ComicCon recently celebrated its 10th anniversary having begun in 2016 at Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba Prefecture. However, that was technically not the first one as there was a launchpad event 12 months prior to that just ahead of the release of ‘The Force Awakens‘ (2015).

The San Diego Comic-Con began in 1970 and inspired many other similar conventions and 45 years later Tokyo decided to get in on the act with this launchpad event which was organized by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who was in town to announce that the following year would be the inaugural ComicCon event in the Japanese capital.

On the first weekend of December 2015, InterCity Hall in Shinagawa hosted this special event and just locating the actual rooms proved to be quite the task as signage or posters advertising the event was extremely limited to say the least!

Due to work commitments, I was only able to attend the second day and the first things I noticed on entering the place was that there were just a handful of stalls selling merchandise whilst one corner of the room featured a Star Wars battle pod simulation game.

A bar was situated at the rear with Darth Maul and Boba Fett busts on it. That sold all your usual drinks as well as some special ones for 700 yen named after characters like Palpatine, Darth Maul, Jedi, Sith, Kylo Ren, Luke and BB8. Only a year or two later did I realise this bar had been operated by the awesome SF Bar Kanda Flux in Chiyoda-ku which I actually found out about from a Japanese friend I made at this event.

It wasn’t so long after my arrival that the first of two special guests from the Star Wars universe were revealed. Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine) was introduced to the crowd on a small stage amidst the vendor stalls. He gave a short speech thanking the audience and performed in character for a bit too. He mentioned that the voice for the Emperor was inspired by Japanese voice artists ability to speak and bellow in deep bursts from within the body.

At midday I got the chance to meet and indeed touch him as I got my official photograph taken with him which from my memory cost 11,000 yen. It would probably cost more than double that nowadays! The whole process of meeting him was inevitably very quick but I squeezed in as many seconds as I could get with him. I asked him where he wanted me to stand and place my hands to which he replied, “You can put your hands where you like!” Whilst I could have gripped them tightly around his neck I decided to go for the simpler arm around the waist!

As much as I was excited to meet Palpatine, that was nothing compared to how I felt at seeing and meeting the other guest about half an hour later. Darth Maul (Ray Park) is one of my favourite Star Wars characters despite his fairly limited screen time in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace‘ (1999).

Prior to my attendance at the event, I had actually exchanged some tweets with Ray Park which he very kindly responded to so we briefly talked about that, and I asked if he would be giving a lightsaber performance later on which he hinted he would be. He’s had some personal problems since then, but he was a thoroughly nice guy during our interaction.

Once the autograph and photo opportunities had finished, the area was open for everyone to see a display by Tokyo Saber Guild; a group performing lightsaber fight choreography with a lot of spinning and twirling.

Ray Park joined them all on stage at the end to congratulate them and engage in some stage combat.

Once that was all done, I changed into my X-Wing pilot outfit for some cosplaying action and one couple even asked me if I was Poe Dameron which took me by surprise as I wasn’t so used to hearing the names of the new characters of that time. I said that his X-wing outfit is redder whereas mine is the orange one worn by Wedge Antilles, Biggs Darklighter and of course Luke Skywalker.

My friend Robert (a.k.a. Darth Maul) later popped up stage and gave a lightsaber performance and talked to the watching crowd of his background, and he was briefly joined by Dante Carver (who is famous in Japan due to his appearances in the Softbank mobile phone adverts as well as modelling and other acting work) briefly joined him too for a clash of lightsabers.

Late afternoon, Park wandered the main hall surrounded by a crowd of people. He inevitably appeared on the stage and thanked the stallholders and fans for all the freebies which he was very grateful for. No other country seems to give presents like the Japanese do.

At one point Robert/Maul crouched behind the stage with an offering of his double-bladed lightsaber but Park didn’t notice so I was the one that shouted at him to grab it and give us a show despite him telling me earlier (in jest) that he wasn’t a performing monkey! Seeing this demonstration of skilled lightsaber choreography with lots of spinning and twirling was awesome to watch and one of my highlights of the day. The 23 second video of mine got nearly 400,000 views on YouTube which is about 390,000 more than my next most popular video!!

With the right promotion and marketing this event could have been so much bigger. There may well have been Star Wars fans sitting round the corner from the hall who had no idea that such an event was so close by. That was all to the advantage of those of us present though who were part of a cozy and more intimate collection of people. It is something I still talk about whenever I meet up with others who were at this special event.

One year later and the first official Tokyo ComicCon took place at the vastly bigger Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba which was certainly a step up in size as it took place over a few days with six guests. It takes time to build such an event into an established part of the annual calendar, and I think Tokyo ComicCon has managed to do that over the last decade but some of us will never forget how it all began back in a room in Shinagawa!

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