Sit close children, hear my tale of undying passion, a hidden predilection, an unspoken love. When I was a baby-faced cherub freshman at college in New England, one crisp fall day I happened upon an odd toy store in Watertown. Yes there was Monopoly and Ken and Lego, but behind the counter set high on a shelf of prominence were these strange and wondrous figurines. They were robots and spacemen, boldly modeled, colorfully boxed and ever so enticing in their foreignness. Before this, I had never spent a single waking moment considering Japan. Made in Japan was, as hard as it is to believe now, a slur. You couldn’t buy Sushi at the supermarket, in fact outside of LA, you couldn’t get it anywhere [citation needed]. But here they were, staring down at me, their boxes adorned with undecipherable kanji. Astro Boy. Rusher. Horikawa Television Robot. I had to have them and a few still kick around my place 50 years later. No one I knew had any interest in my discoveries and over the impending decades I learned to damp down my public enthusiasm. But in private, slowly over time, I became an Otaku.

Later on, when I would fly to Japan, everyone thought I was going for tours of Sake breweries or the Miyake/Yamamoto shows, but that was just work. In my free time I would hop on the JR line to Akibahara and roll around in the manga, anime, games and maid cafés that were my real true self.

Now, of course, like spicy tuna, Otaku culture is everywhere. I am not one of those who pine for the good old days. Old and lazy, I delight in having multiple streaming subscriptions, online manga, and multiple online forums to speculate on whether or not it will get a season 2. The Golden Age is upon us. I honestly cannot tell you the last time I watched something with 3D talent, OK, it was Barbie and I got through 45 minutes before I deemed it too realistic and put on The Banished Hero Lives As He Pleases.‍

My long fandom has been rewarded and now one of the pinnacles of Otaku-ism has exploded in the city I now call home, Anime Expo in LA.

For me and my people it is our Burning Man, our Coachella, our Art Basel and Paris Fashion Week all rolled into one. It is a homecoming of hundreds of thousands of true believers in downtown Los Angeles. Impossible to describe, unwilling to be tamed by words, this is the ultimate group rite of acceptance, of tribal unity unbound by the jaundiced eyes of the ignorant, the judgemental and the trolls.

Wrapping delicately around Independence Day, our eyesore of a convention center turns into Santa’s workshop having suckled at the teat of Wonkaland after a cocktail at the Magic Castle. If, as it is claimed that Every Single Desire is Rooted in our Dreams then stay the hell out of my head when I’m here. Overdosing on stimuli from the intricate booths to droves of cosplayers to the giddy realization that fantasy is tactile puts you in a fugue state while fully conscious and the waking dreams fighting to invade my Id have gone full combat sport on my poor brain.

Not for everybody, but most assuredly for anybody. Race, gender, ability, and orientation all are celebrated as we band together to realize our collective alternative reality where life is grand if you stay away from the dragons.