Anime (Japanese cartoons) and their print sister Manga (Japanese comic books) have been a steadily growing American cultural force for more than a decade, coinciding roughly with the video game reign of Japanese titans like Sony, Nintendo and Sega. Given the breakout cuteness of "Pokémon," a hybrid of games, anime and good old-fashioned marketing, unsuspecting parents might have expected a quirky little outing for the kids today at the Arlington Heights Sheraton. Instead, soccer moms looking for Pikachu are discovering Hello Kitty on acid.

It's a scene of swirling mayhem to the uninitiated, as a crowd of pink-blue-or-purple-haired late-teens bubbles excitedly over DVDs, books, panel discussions, video games and costumes. Especially costumes, because elaborate dress-up is de rigueur.

The costumes—boys with oversized weapons, girls as feline princesses or sailors in miniskirts—bring a delicious aroma of ambiguity to a crowd already wrestling with the awakening nuances of sexuality in twenty-first-century American culture. Although the otaku might shudder at the comparison, the oozing PG-13 sexuality references Britney Spears as the naughty classmate, complete with somehow disturbing scenes of overaged fanboys zealously photographing underdressed schoolgirls. Even the balanced male-female ratio belies the stereotypical comic-book convention. Take that, Dan Pussey!

Finally it's time for the masquerade. For the next three hours, the costumes literally take center stage as "cosplayers" vogue or small groups act out favorite anime scenes, while the mass of co-conspiratorial spectators howl, shriek and cajole along. By now, the newcomer is caught up in the fever, if still mostly unenlightened. This foreign culture's product, and the hold it has on American youth, is enigmatic in many ways. Designed by and for Japanese, why are its characters so exaggeratedly non-Japanese in such features as chalky white skin, and most notably, big round Walter Keane eyes?

The questions apparently don't bother today's mostly white American crowd. They're just ecstatic to indulge their shared reverence for all things Japanese, especially cartoons, games, pop music, comic books and sweet snacks like Pocky, a chocolate-covered biscuit stick.

Also by Brian Hieggelke