Kumoricon is the big convention for all things anime. Anime – the highly stylized and extremely popular form of Japanese animation that spans feature films, television, graphic novels (don’t call them comic books), video games and websites beyond measure. And lifestyle itself – one of the big vendors at Kumoricon was Uwajimaya, the giant Asian grocery store chain.
My 15 year old son is very into anime. He was dying to go to Kumoricon and worked really hard for extra money to make it happen. Fair enough. I would have been happy to drop him off at the lobby and pick him up a few hours later, but this event is very well organized, and “No Unaccompanied Minors” is one of their bedrock rules. (You should see the “No Weapons” rule – it goes on forever, on account of all the people who show up in costume. You can’t be a ninja with no sword, so the Policies section of the Official Program really breaks it down. Oaths of Honor are involved, but I digress.)
So I got to go to Kumoricon as well. In the role-playing gaming world, I guess I would have been categorized as a “Mildly Reluctant Dad”, with most of my special powers concentrated in the arenas of “Credit Cards” and “Car Keys”.
You should have seen the place. It was swarming – hundreds of anime fans, mostly young people in their late teens or early twenties, with a fair amount of fully accompanied kids and fully grown adults mixed in. And most of them were in costume. Elaborate, detailed, probably very expensive costumes, combined with makeup and hairstyling – all to recreate the look of some particular person or creature or mechanized being from the massive world of anime characters. Every other person, it seemed, was draped in satin robes and had half a pound of foam rubber fused to their skull.
But there was something odd about the way they carried themselves. It took a while before I figured out what it was.
Usually, in a scene like Mardi Gras or a big Halloween party, the people dressed up in the most elaborate costumes are also the most extroverted and dramatic people in the room. It just goes with the territory. But this bunch all seemed to be the painfully shy and self-conscious type. It was disorienting. Here were all these people who’s attire screamed “look at me!”, but their body language seemed to radiate embarrassment.
Then there was Alex, my son. He’s thin, and has long blonde hair. His favorite anime character is a thin, long haired blonde teenage boy named Edward Elric, from the very popular “Full Metal Alchemist” series. Everywhere you looked at Kumoricon, you’d see posters or coffee-table books featuring this dude. Edward wears his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and when Alex puts his hair in a ponytail, he’s a dead ringer. He looks just like the guy. If they were casting for a live action movie version of “Full Metal Alchemist”, Alex would definitely get a call-back, at least.
But he was reluctant, he didn’t want to put his hair in a ponytail. I told him, “Look around you. That guy’s dressed up like a damn robot! That girl over there is walking around in a full blown “Hello Kitty” outfit. Come on, an Edward ponytail isn’t really going to cross the line here.”
So he did it, and it was amazing. With nothing more to his “costume” than a single rubber band, he instantly looked more like his character than most of the people with the layers of fabric, foam rubber and makeup. He didn’t look like a guy dressed up as Edward, he looked like Edward.
As we wandered in and out of the various ballrooms and workshops and demonstrations, I hung back and watched people watching Alex. Heads turned. Girls swooned. Many eyes tracked his every move. And I came to appreciate the wisdom of the “No Unaccompanied Minors” rule.
We went home happy, me with my swag-bag full of only the schedules, maps and indecipherable Japanese literature that they give you at the registration desk, and Alex with his newly purchased treasure trove of books and shiny objects. And it’s starting to look like maybe next year, we’ll register early and attend more than one day.
