Little Harajuku

WICHITA, Kan. -- I scanned the crowd at the dimly-lit Best Western Wichita North auditorium. I saw one fat Mario, complete with an "M" hat, two Chun Lis from the Street Fighter series and three Soras from the Kingdom Hearts games. And there were 100 other people in costume, representing animes that I had never of.

I wanted to ask the attendees of the second annual Wichita Anime Festival one question: "What the fuck are you doing here?" But since that wouldn't be terribly tactful, I settled on this: "How did you make your costume?" The responses were the same.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," a 21-year-old man told me. He had on a costume that resembled the Disney representation of Robin Hood. He was actually Link, the hero of the Zelda games. He wore rubber boots covered with layers of white duct tape, a green cape made out of a sheet, held together with political buttons painted yellow.

How long had he been waiting? "Since January, when I got my ticket," he said.

To get to Wichita, he drove four hours with a friend from western Kansas. This event, attended by nearly 2,000 people, is the largest anime festival in the state.

"I've got about 60 hours in this costume," a 19-year-old art student from Kansas City said. She was a character from Kingdom Hearts II, a collaboration between anime video makers and Disney. Her costume was based on a character from Tron, the pioneering computer animation movie from 25 years ago. She used black car foam to make the curved costume, and took four coats of paint to put blue strips across the sides. Her keyblade -- a six-foot key that is used in the game like a sword -- apparently was wood, PVC piping and a lot of time with a saw.

This was her fourth festival, making her a veteran. At the festival people kept interrupting our interview so they could take snapshots. I've loved this line -- also in my story -- most of all:

"Sorry -- I'm popular."

Most of the attendees were in high school, dropped off by their parents and wearing costumes that their parents probably made.

What struck me most about the festival was that it wasn't about Japan at all. Or even about Japanese animation. What really drew these children together was a chance to dress up in crazy costumes and act out for a couple days. High school, I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone, can be a tough time, where being cute, popular and armed with the J. Crew spring collection is mandatory. Here, mostly smart and talented children get to be the ones on display for a change, rather than having to do the bidding of the cool kids.

"Anime conventions are the sci-fi conventions of this millennium," the organizer told me. I have to agree. If the art in display was noh theater or Amazonian rainmakers, I doubt the kids would have come out. But this is a group with fans all around the country, fans that want to meet each other and know they're not alone. I see this at indie concerts I attend. (You like Prefuse 73? No way! I do too!) Anime's the subgroup for this generation.

Lesson learned, I left the Anime Festival before the odor from many rounds of Dance, Dance Revolution and poorly ventilated plastic costumes became too much to bear.