THE SHAME OF FANDOM

Two proud cosplayers at Kawaii Kon PAIGE TAKEYA PHOTO

As my sister and I walked from our apartment to Hawaii Convention Center last weekend for the 12th annual Kawaii Kon, we attracted no shortage of stares from passing cars and pedestrians.

My sister had decided to cosplay this year — not just a half-assed “let’s throw on a strategic T-shirt and call it a day” cosplay, but the real kind with the proper wigs and props and details. So there she was, purple-wigged and bedecked in cats (she was Chiaki from video game Danganronpa), walking in shame down the street, hiding her face from the road.

I counted at least eight drivers who visibly gawked and laughed.

The truth is that liking anime has never really been cool. It’s one thing to boast about how you are a Game of Thrones superfan; it’s quite another to tell someone you really love Kill la Kill or Sword Art Online.

Maybe it’s just that other anime fans tend to be a little more socially awkward than your average person (I’ve long chalked that up to a subconscious mimicry of the behavior of anime characters — hence all the running-tackle hugs and shrill verbal tics, which are charming on TV, less so in real life).

Maybe it’s that anime is just permanently associated with sex, a big nono in puritanical America (after all, a friend of a friend was selling lurid coasters adorned with pictures of doe-eyed women in various sexual positions this year at Kon — and they sold like mad).

Maybe it’s just that it’s all so Japanese. Who can really say?

Yet the stigma of your fandom hangs over you, a scarlet letter than prohibits you from joining in all the socially acceptable talk around the water cooler about the latest Walking Dead episode. You are still other, never part of the crowd.

But someplace like Kon is safe. Here is where your pink hair and large sword are seen as normal, even humdrum; where you can purchase porn from the FAKKU booth right there in the front of the Dealers Room and it ain’t no big thing, where the people know you and accept you exactly as you are.

“I saw Kylo Ren in the bathroom just now,” my friend and Metro cartoonist Nicholas Smith reported to me at one point. “He was washing his hands with his helmet on. It was very surreal.”

And the beauty of Kon is that even that strange sight is, in fact, quite normal.

Paige’s Pick of the Week
Justice League: Gods and Monsters

A special pick from Metro cartoonist Nicholas Smith, this animated film focuses on an alternative universe version of the Justice League — including Mexican Superman, vampire Batman and … slightly different Greek goddess Wonder Woman. It’s weird but it’s a pretty good take on superhero accountability, which is a big thing in theaters these days. (netflix.com)

PTAKEYA@MIDWEEK.COM
@LORDMAYOCLOUD