Surreal-Life Figures Enliven Anime Expo

That fight to the death must have been exhausting.

Maybe that’s why Kalman Andrassy and Crystal Su, both 18, were sitting on the floor Saturday at the Disneyland Resort Hotel, where the largest convention in the country dedicated to Japanese animation was being held.

Their characters had just killed each other in a gut-wrenching installment of “Fushigi Yuugi,” a popular Japanese comic book and video series.

The two friends were among the hundreds who dressed up for “Anime Expo 2000.” More than 6,000 people are expected to attend the three-day event.

This weekend, the area around the hotel has hosted a parade of humanoid creatures posing earnestly in heroic, sexy and dastardly ways, all of them from Japanese comic books, cartoons and video games popular throughout the world.

Meredith Peca, 11, of El Paso was dressed as the villainess Galaxia, of the “Sailor Moon” cartoon series. Her mother, Dorothy Peca, made the gold dress and crown Meredith wore with obvious pride.

“The stories in anime are deeper than American ones,” Meredith Peca said. They even inspired her to take a Japanese language course recently.

Some fans would identify themselves only as their favorite character. One blue-skinned young woman was Zelgadis, the dour hero from “The Slayers.”

“Zelgadis is a very calm character. Very strategic, and extremely serious,” she said, very calmly and very seriously. Then she brandished her sword and posed for a picture.

Business was brisk in the exhibit hall, where people purchased Japanese video games, animation cels, comics, stuffed animals, videos and action figures. Bill Flanagan, 38, who was selling serial comic books, said he understood the urge to portray animated characters.

“It’s like ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ ” he said, referring to the J.R.R. Tolkien novel. “The first time people read it, they wanted to live in that world.”

Su, of Torrance, came as Nuriko, a man who dresses as a woman to honor his dead sister. The recent high school graduate bought a $100 animated cel based on the confused hero. Her friend Andrassy, looking like Conan the Barbarian, was Ashitare, a hulking henchman of the archvillain Nakago.

It all was an eye-opener for security guard Ray Camien, 55. “It’s definitely different,” the 24-year Disney veteran said, watching as Galaxia walked by.