By Bruce Rutledge

Every year on one spring weekend, aliens take over downtown Seattle. Or so it seems to the unwitting shoppers and passers-by who wonder why crowds of cosplay kids dressed as samurai, ninja, video game characters and superheroes seem to be on every street corner and in every restaurant. They’re here to celebrate Japanese pop culture, and they come from as far as Alaska, Idaho and Montana to attend Sakura-Con, the biggest celebration of anime and manga in the Pacific Northwest and one of the biggest anime conventions in the US if not the world.
The level of devotion these convention-goers show will stun the uninitiated. College kids spend hundreds of hours on elaborate costumes; high-schoolers make professional-quality video mashups of their favorite anime characters and songs (copyright law be damned!), and young adults who have never set foot in Japan will talk your ear off about Japanese doujinshi (independently published magazines, kind of like zines) or an esoteric subsection of romantic manga. It’s like Revenge of the Nerds remade by Lady Gaga but with subtitles.
The phenomenon of anime and manga conventions took off in the last decade. The country is dotted with these get-togethers, from Baltimore to Portland, Anchorage to Miami, and most of them started as little gatherings of friends who shared a love of Japanese animated films. Sakura-Con started as BakaCon (Idiots’ Convention), a humble group of avid anime fans who decided to have an annual gathering back in 1998. This year, the 12th Sakura-Con expects to draw about 18,000 to the April 2-4 celebration at the Washington Convention Center.
So what’s the attraction? Are Japan’s animated films and manga comic books that much better than anything we have to offer in the US?
“You see all these kids,” says Meg Uhde of Portland, OR, during a busy moment at a previous Sakura-Con. She motions towards swarms of people dressed as robots, French maids, women in miniskirts and mouse ears, masked warriors, even a blonde ninja. “This is where they come to be themselves and no one will judge them. And more and more and more of these kids are finding that is true. These are your gamers; these are your lovers of anime; these are people who would be ostracized in any other situation, and they get to come here dressed in fantastic costumes that they made on their own, be surrounded by people who are not going to say, ‘You’re a freak,’ they’re going to say, ‘That is amazing! How long did that take you?’ It’s becoming more popular because people are finding community in it.”
The community building around these conventions does not seem to be tapering off. On the contrary, it continues to grow.
“The event continues to grow but not at the explosive rate of 75% we experienced in the past,” says Mira Utz, director of publicity for Asia Northwest Cultural Education Association/Sakura-Con.  “From 2007 to 2009 the rate slowed to about 30% per year, which is still pretty remarkable considering that the economy has taken a turn and the anime industry as a whole has had some trouble.
“We’ve noticed more families with young children, presumably from the twentysomethings that make up over half of the membership marrying and having families,” Utz says.
But still, Sakura-Con is no Aerosmith concert. Most of the attendees are in their teens or 20s, and the convention has an energy and buzz about it that can only be supplied by a mass of youthful fans.
Sakura-Con and other conventions like it have also morphed over the past decade from groups of movie fans to something akin to a Trekkie convention to their current iteration, which goes well beyond anything the Trekkies could have imagined. Fashion trends like Lolita Gothic flourish here. Gamers compete. Toy aficionados pore over rare collectibles. Karaoke specialists belt their hearts out. Filmmakers show their latest music videos. In the US in 2010, there is no group gathering that matches an anime/manga convention in sheer creative energy.
Confession time. I lived in Japan for 15 years. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about Japanese culture and business. I’ve spent my career writing about it and researching it. But nothing prepared me for my first anime convention in the US, Sakura-Con 2007. Where did these people come from, I thought. How come they know so much about these Japanese movies? Why are they so dedicated to this art form? I was ready to write it off as the 21st Century version of a bunch of Trekkies at a Ramada Inn lining up for George Takei’s autograph. But this was different. This had the “I don’t care what you think of me” of the punk movement, the arts-and-crafts creativity of the zine movement and the inspired costumes of Halloween and Mardi Gras all rolled into one event.
“Every major anime convention experienced growth last year despite economic indications that they would stall,” Utz writes in an email. “I think the reason is that anime conventions like Sakura-Con encompass more than just fans interested in one franchise or hobby. Sakura-Con features anime, manga and gaming but within those categories is programming focusing on Asian culture, costuming, painting, drama, voice, drawing, writing, martial arts, J-music, film, software development, travel, literature and more. Sakura-Con is for more than ‘just’ a hardcore anime fan, but of course there are also plenty of those.”
Their presence will be felt on April 2-4 in Seattle. If you’ve never seen a community of creative, positive and, yes, let’s say it — unabashedly nerdy — Americans celebrating another country’s pop culture, then join the fun. Anime fans don’t bite. They’ll probably even give you a high-five on the long escalator ride up to the ticket booth.

Information: http://www.sakuracon.org/

2010 event info

SPECIAL FEATURE: The New Wave of J-POP