Japanese Imports
By Mark Jenkins
Friday, February 17, 2006; Page WE27
The big-eyed ones walk among us.
Without attracting much mainstream attention, such diverse Japanese ‘toons as Astroboy, Puffy AmiYumi and Naruto have infiltrated American culture.
Mostly, these huge-pupiled characters keep to the contemporary electronic equivalent of the back roads: cable TV, video-rental stores and the Internet.
This weekend, however, the growing stateside fascination with Japanese manga (comic books) and anime (animated movies and TV shows) will come pouring out of the Woodley Park-Zoo Metro station and into the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Some of the devotees will even be dressed as their favorite characters.
The occasion is the 12th annual Katsucon, the Washington area’s largest gathering of fans of Japanese comics and other pop culture, including movies, music, video games, toys, trading cards and more. These are people whose knowledge goes far beyond such widely recognized creatures as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Hello Kitty. “Every year, we move to a larger facility as the head counts increase,” says Chad Diederichs, the nonprofit gathering’s press liaison. “This year, we’re guessing in the 10,000-attendee range.”
Katsucon is much like other conventions of comic, movie and science-fiction fans, and “con” is the customary suffix for such events. The rest of the three-day event’s name, however, is something of a mystery. Although “katsu” can mean several things in Japanese, commonly it identifies a breaded meat cutlet. None of the organizers of the first Katsucon, held 12 years ago in Virginia Beach, is still around to clarify the title’s inspiration.
“Literally translated from Japanese,” Diederichs suggests, “the name means ‘Convention of Pork.’ The best we’ve been able to tell, we must sheepishly admit, is that the original translator really didn’t know very much Japanese and got the phrase wrong. Unfortunately, by that time it had really stuck. Right now, our official policy is [to] avoid any literal translation of our name. It really confuses our Japanese guests.”
