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Despite the Tokyo chill, things are heating up at one of the city’s most popular comic conventions.

As 2016 comes to a close, thousands of comic book fans are currently making the journey to the Tokyo Big Sight convention centre for the biannual Comic Market known as Comiket. The current event, on from 29-31 December, is the 91st instalment in what’s become the world’s largest convention for “dōjinshi” or self-published Japanese works, which means the limited-edition items on sale here are considered to be very rare.

While many come to get their hands on the prized, hard-to-get works, others come to cosplay, and our Japanese-language reporter made the trip to the convention centre on Comiket’s opening day to see what popular characters he could find on the grounds. From anime idols to anthropomorphised warships, let’s take a look at some of the most popular cosplayers he encountered on Day 1 of the convention.

▼ Showing way too much skin for a winter’s day was Sheryl from Macross Frontier.

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Unchou Kan-u is a skilled warrior feared throughout Kanto in the manga series Ikki Tousen, also known as Battle Vixens. In the real world, she drew a huge crowd of photographers at Comiket.

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▼ Photographers also flocked to see Reika from GANTZ.

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This is what Japanese submarine I-58 looks like in anthropomorphised form from the Kantai Collection (“Fleet Collection”) web browser game and anime series, commonly abbreviated as KanColle.

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One Piece girls Nami and Nico Robin were also in attendance, representing their team of animated bounty hunters, who must’ve been too cold to make it in to Tokyo on the day.

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Some popular cosplayers like KONOHA opted to attend as original characters, taking inspiration from the world of Disney and Alice in Wonderland.

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KanColle was one of the most popular inspirations for cosplayers this time around, with a number of characters from the series spotted on the grounds. Here we have heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma coming out to battle the cold in human form.

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▼ Musashi and Yamato from KanColle were also seen putting on a show of strength.

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▼ Here we have Kanetsugu Naoe, the self-proclaimed “warrior of love” from the Hyakka Ryōran: Samurai Girls light novel series.

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▼ And no cosplay event could be complete without an appearance from the cast of Love Live!

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▼ Street Fighter‘s Chun-Li showed off her strength.

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▼ Hostess Miyabi from dating sim video game DREAM C CLUB Gogo. made everyone’s virtual dreams a reality with her presence.

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▼ As did the receptionist from Monster Hunter.

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▼ Kay from Girls und Panzer was also there, turning heads at the entrance.

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▼ Characters from Desutoro 246 made an appearance.

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▼ As did Cidney, or Cindy, from FFXV.

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▼ There were White Cat Project characters…

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▼ Revy and Roberta from Black Lagoon…

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▼ And Kurumi with her shovel from School-Live!

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With two more days left for cosplayers and attendees to join in the fun of Winter Comiket 2016, we can’t wait to see what other creative cosplay costumes turn up at the event. Which one was your favourite from opening day?

Photos © RocketNews24
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