Japanese Imports

"It's usually us and the child, waving our arms and trying to explain what this is, why that person has big, yellow spiky hair and why is a giant robot coming down the hallway. But if the parents are cool enough to bring their kids to an event like this, they pretty much go with the flow."

Diederichs attributes the younger crowd in large part to the Cartoon Network, which has introduced a wider range of Japanese 'toons to American audiences. For decades, manga and anime have dealt with such commonplace topics as sports, high school, work, food and romance. (There's another market altogether for the manga known as "hentai," which translates as "pervert.") The everyday-life series were long ignored by U.S. comic book companies, which preferred something more akin to the superhero adventures they already published. It turned out, however, that there is an American audience for stories that don't involve swords, guns or the end of the world.

Peter Casazza, who manages the Georgetown branch of Big Planet Comics, has seen the impact of "shojo" (girl) comics. "Over the last five years, we've seen an explosion in titles and interest," he says. "Especially with younger kids, those between 8 and 20, and especially girls. A lot of manga is geared toward girls -- relationships and high school and junior high and stuff like that. Marvel and DC [Comics] do a pretty bad job of addressing that market."

Traditionally, American fans and commentators have endorsed the serious side of Japanese 'toons, from "Barefoot Gen" (a semiautobiographical manga account of the Hiroshima bombing) to the pro-nature ("Princess Mononoke") and antiwar ("Howl's Moving Castle") anime of Hayao Miyazaki, consistently Japan's top-grossing filmmaker. (Nevermind that his children's movies, such as "My Neighbor Totoro," are more coherent than the ones he makes for adults.) But the newest fans don't want muted tones and solemn humanistic themes.

They prefer the bright colors, ramshackle plotting and sugar-high cadences of comics, movies and TV shows designed for a younger crowd.

John Malott, president of the Japan-America Society of Washington, admits to being "amazed when I see young [American] kids singing the theme song from 'Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi' in Japanese." A former State Department "Japan hand," Malott tallies "three generations of people who got interested in Japan. There was the original group after World War II, who were attracted to the cul ture. Then there was the next generation -- I would consider myself at the start of that -- who were attracted to Japan because of what was happening there economically. And now we have the next wave, of people who are attracted to Japan because of the popular culture."

To Mitsuru Kitano, minister for public affairs at the Embassy of Japan, the increasing American interest in Japan's illustrated storytelling is unsurprising. "For years, anime and manga have been very well received in Asia," he says. "So why not in the U.S.?"

A reader of manga since he was a child, Kitano attributes the universal appeal of the genre to its high level of craftsmanship and complex worldview. "Each character embodies good and evil," he says. "It is not a purely good guy or a purely bad guy. Each character is a reflection of the varied natures of human beings."

Yet manga and anime's American fans aren't stopping with those forms, Diederichs notes. Katsucon now also encompasses live-action film and the music known as J-pop. "We have a fairly large contingent of Hong Kong and Japanese live-action film programming because a lot of those properties are brought out in America by the same companies that bring you anime titles," Diederichs says. "We have Japanese horror, which has become really big in the last couple of years. And then we also have the music.

"These days, most of the musical acts have absolutely no ties to anime at all. They're strictly J-pop or Japanese rock. There's such an expanded interest in anything Japanese. Which has led Katsucon to expand its palette."

Last year, the featured J-pop act was Psycho Le Simu, which Diederichs describes as very theatrical -- and very popular. "It was kind of like going to a Kiss show. It's not so much about the music as the whole experience. We had a huge influx of people specifically to see them. It's a fan base you never knew existed until you have 400 or 500 screaming girls waiting to see this band."

The 2005 musical lineup features Salia, singer of the movie and TV series "Cutey Honey Flash" theme; Mr. New Jack, whose theme-song vocals include the one for "Dragonball Z," a top Cartoon Network attraction; and Funny Stones: Akiko and Maro, singer-models who are also "cosplayers."