The Red Cross usually sweetens the deal by giving donors an exclusive anime character poster for their cooperation, and the response has been so positive that about 1,500 otaku make a standard-size 400-mililiter (13.5-ounce) donation each Comiket, with organizers dispatching some 30 mobile blood donation buses to Big Sight.
That means there was no Comiket flow of otaku cash this year, and also no flow of Comiket otaku blood.
But no Comiket means no Comiket blood drive, and that’s especially unfortunate since right now Japan needs blood donations.
See, for the past several years, the Japanese Red Cross Society has held a blood drive at Comiket, and the otaku community has been remarkably generous with its hemoglobin.