Comic Market 108 brought approximately 260,000 attendees to Tokyo Big Sight across August 15 and 16, 2026, with about 130,000 visitors recorded on each day. The summer event drew fewer people than the previous winter edition, but it still underscored Comiket’s enduring importance to Japan’s manga, anime, game, cosplay, and fan-creation communities.
For webtoon and manhwa readers, Comiket offers a useful look at the broader fan culture surrounding serialized comics. While the convention is centered on independently produced doujinshi and related merchandise rather than commercial webtoon platforms, it remains a major meeting point for the artists, readers, and fandoms that increasingly overlap with digital-comics culture.
Comiket 108 Sees a 40,000-Attendee Drop
Comiket 108’s estimated attendance was down by about 40,000 people from Comiket 107, which attracted approximately 300,000 attendees over two days in December 2025. That winter event drew around 150,000 visitors per day, compared with the 130,000 recorded on each day of C108 (Anime News Network).
The decline does not represent a collapse in attendance. Instead, the 260,000 total places C108 close to several recent summer editions. Comiket 104, held in August 2024, also drew about 260,000 people, while Comiket 106 in August 2025 attracted approximately 250,000. The latest event therefore remained within the range established by post-pandemic summer Comikets.
Attendance figures at Comiket count visits rather than unique individuals. Someone attending on both days is counted twice, meaning the total measures overall daily participation and venue traffic rather than the number of separate people who entered the convention.
A Slightly Smaller Circle Area, a Record Corporate Presence
Comiket 108 featured approximately 23,000 regular exhibiting spaces across its two days. That was a decrease of about 700 spaces from Comiket 107, which had roughly 23,700 spaces, though the figure was still higher than the approximately 22,700 spaces offered at Comiket 106.
The event’s corporate area moved in the opposite direction. A record-breaking 121 companies exhibited at C108, reflecting the continued interest from publishers, game companies, anime producers, merchandise brands, and other entertainment businesses. Official event information listed the convention at Tokyo Big Sight on August 15 and 16, with the corporate area operating alongside the doujinshi halls (Comic Market).
That combination—a modest contraction in regular spaces alongside stronger corporate participation—illustrates how Comiket continues to operate on two connected levels. It is both a grassroots event for independent creators and a major promotional venue for established entertainment companies.
The Final Event of Comiket’s 50th Anniversary Year
Comiket’s 50th anniversary year began with Comiket 106 and continued through Comiket 108, with commemorative projects planned across the anniversary period. The summer convention served as the closing event of that celebration, marking five decades since the first Comic Market was held on December 21, 1975 (Comic Market).
The original Comiket was dramatically smaller than today’s gathering. It reportedly drew an estimated 700 attendees and featured 32 exhibiting circles. Over the decades, the event moved through several venues—including Tokyo’s Harumi area and Chiba’s Makuhari Messe—before settling at Tokyo Big Sight for Comiket 50 in 1996.
That history helps put the current attendance figures into perspective. C108’s 260,000 visits are far below the pre-pandemic record set by Comiket 97, which attracted approximately 750,000 attendees across four days in December 2019. However, the event’s post-pandemic editions have continued to draw hundreds of thousands of visits despite capacity controls, altered layouts, and changes to entry procedures.
What the Numbers Mean for Digital-Comic Fandom
Comiket is not a webtoon convention in the narrow sense, and its attendance cannot be directly compared with the readership statistics published by digital-comics platforms. Still, the event remains relevant to anyone interested in how modern comic fandom functions. Its independent circles create stories, art books, parody works, original comics, games, and merchandise that circulate through highly engaged communities—often with the same creator-to-reader immediacy that defines webtoon culture.
The convention’s structure also resembles the serialized ecosystem familiar to webtoon readers. Genres and participating circles change from day to day, encouraging visitors to plan around specific interests. That rotating organization mirrors the way platform readers follow different weekly releases, discover niche creators, and build communities around particular genres or properties.
From an editorial perspective, the most important takeaway is not simply that attendance fell from 300,000 to 260,000. It is that Comiket remains remarkably resilient. Even with a slightly smaller regular exhibition area, the event continues to support a vast creator economy while attracting a record number of corporate exhibitors.
For fans of manga, manhwa, webtoons, anime, and games, C108’s figures suggest that large-scale fandom events are still adapting rather than fading. The balance between independent creativity and commercial participation may continue to change, but Comiket’s central role as a physical gathering for creator-driven comic culture remains firmly intact.
Sources
- animenewsnetwork.com
- comiket.co.jp
