CD30 — ComiDay 30, formally the 30th Chengdu Doujin Works Exchange — is the city's big twice-a-year doujin festival. Fang and I are hopeless about doujin merch, so we bought tickets without much deliberation. My legs are still filing complaints a day later, but it was worth it.
What doujin goods have over official merch: more art styles, more ideas, more unhinged experiments.
Here's the final haul:
Getting there
Day 1 ran 10:00–17:00. I know exactly how much stamina I have, so I left the house at noon. The subway takes over an hour, so we split a taxi instead — 20 yuan and 30 minutes to the Chengdu Century City New International Convention & Exhibition Center.
Getting in
CD30 uses halls 4 through 9, and 4 and 5 exist mainly to hold queues. Because we showed up late, the only line was the ticket check; after that we just trailed the crowd through the switchbacks. Painless. The upside of the empty queue halls: the air conditioning was freezing.
On the floor
My first impression was rows and rows of doujin tables packed shoulder to shoulder, closer to a street market than an exhibition. Which is basically what it is.
What I hadn't expected was how many cosplayers there were — the ratio felt close to a regular comic con. That's also why I didn't take a single photo of the aisles; it felt rude to point a camera at people. Here's a borrowed shot of the booths instead:
Neither of us has endless energy, so we skipped the row-by-row tour and only hit the IPs we actually cared about. Good call, as it turned out: we barely cleared the tables on our list before closing.
How it actually felt
Pretty good, honestly. There was so much good-looking merch, and so many good-looking cosplays along the way, that even running on empty was enjoyable.
Crowds. Tickets went up in price and still sold out ten minutes after release, and the floor showed it. Popular tables — miHoYo and the like — meant physically squeezing through. We brought the cushions we got at BW and parked in whatever corner was free whenever our feet gave out. Bring a mat, or at minimum a plastic bag, so you have somewhere to sit.
Signal. In halls 6 through 8, China Telecom was completely dead, which turned paying into a whole procedure: photograph the QR code, walk out to an open patch, wait two to five minutes for a bar to appear. China Mobile held up better around halls 8 and 9. Bring cash. Actual cash.
Shoes. Fang wore a pair of beautiful useless things and had searing toe pain within an hour. Don't gamble on looks. Wear whatever pair you can walk in all day.
Food. There's a Lawson and some fast food inside, all with queues. We ate lunch before arriving, so we didn't need any of it — but packing snacks, and especially water, is still the smarter move.
Air conditioning. Word was that last year's was so bad vendors nearly cooked behind their tables. This year felt noticeably better, though halls 6–8 still ran hot enough to sweat through your shirt, and hall 9 was the most comfortable by far, mostly because fewer people were in it. I came out damp, which is its own small misery.
The haul
Knight thumbs-up photo stick. Absurdly cute and genuinely useful for everyday photos. It has already been deployed on breakfast.
Chocobo and Haurchefant frame. This one is a genuine art object. Gorgeous.
Nefele clear card. The artist's Nefele is something else. This was the first thing I bought all day — one look and I paid.
Melina and Tarnished standee. Elden Ring merch is thin on the ground, and small standees are thinner still. Picked up a very cute one.
FF14 abstract cactuar. Fang said it looks like me, so it came home with us. (Unclear what that says about me.)
Knight and Scholar badges. Heavy, well made, and very pretty.
An oyster-fied Nefele and a little egg thing. Cute, and deeply strange.
The "Staff of Life." Anyone who's played that side quest would have bought it too. No further justification offered.
After
Almost everything good about CD30 came down to the merch. Signal, air conditioning, crowd density — none of those were pleasant. But if you walk out with things you love, none of it really registers. We'll be back next year.