Kalaʻi Miller: Aloha and welcome to Home is Here, I’m Kalai Miller.

Every spring in Honolulu tens of thousands of gamers, cosplayers, manga enthusiasts, anime fans, and self-described nerds descend upon the Convention Center for Kawaii Kon—a three day long event celebrating Japanese pop culture.

Kawaii Kon (Instrumental music) Faisal Ahmed: It's not only like the biggest anime and Japanese pop culture, but it's like the biggest fan just event period now in Hawaiʻi.

It's the only fan event that comes back annually.

It's almost a staple.

The kids who grew up going to Kawaii Kon are now adults and having kids of their own who are coming to Kawaii Kon so it's very cool.

Gina Maeda: To see other people have this safe environment, this community to celebrate and to be excited about the things that they love; It was something that I didn't have growing up.

It felt like the nerdy things that I enjoyed wasn't so mainstream, and it was difficult to find.

But now being able to create the space for the next generation of fans, it's very fulfilling.

So the word Kawaii is cute in Japanese.

But it's also one letter off from Hawaiʻi.

So it just put two and two together and you get Kawaii Kon.

Kawaii Kon started in 2005, in the Ala Moana hotel with just a few fans just wanting to get together and have panels bring in a few guests.

And it's grown and snowballed from there.

We feature hundreds and hundreds of artists and vendors from around the country and a lot of times around the world as well.

Mio Acenas: I am an artist who is selling in Artist Alley.

Kawaii Kon it's kind of a fun event where everyone can get together and look at people's art.

Everyone here in Artist Alley took a lot of effort to their work and I find it very inspiring.

Derek Fabian: I'm an artist, and I like to create merch with my cartoon characters.

The first time I've ever came to Kawaii Kon, I was really new in my side business, under Seven Sketches.

I didn't think people would appreciate it.

But my friends were like, nah Derek , you got to do it, you got to do it.

And so they started selling my artwork for me.

And I was blown away.

Like people actually like my stuff over here.

So from that point on, you know, I’ve been hooked.

GM: We now have a video gaming room that is the largest in the States.

Three, two, one!

GM: We have one of the largest tabletop gaming collections as well.

And it's all open and available for attendees to come in and try.

It's like a, like a library of tabletop games.

Ming: Welcome to the game room, the tabletop gaming group.

We have a game library behind us, we have over three, 400 games.

Jason Anarchy: I'm a Canadian game designer.

And this is a game I made with Shen comics, who is a pretty well-known web comics guy.

It's called “Your Friend is Sad”, and it's about cheering up a sad friend.

Alika Spahn Naihe: This Hoa Kaua, A Hawaiian Game of War.

It’s all based on the ancient warriors and warfare tactics of ancient Hawaiʻi.

We all wanted to represent our culture in a game.

GM: We have a cosplay cafe, a manga library, multiple panel rooms and our main events room is where all of the magic happens.

That’s where the concerts are.

We’ve tried to include all different types of fandoms: K-pop groups, J-pop groups, rock bands, just so everyone can come and feel like they belong.

GM: That’s where the fashion show is.

GM: And the cosplay contest.

Jessica Tennielle: It’s tailored on the inside, like I took a batiste with horse-hair canvas and tailor’s tape to get like, the nice crisp edges.

JT: We just did the pre-judging for the cosplay contest.

So you basically, you go in, they ask you a lot of questions about like your character, your costume, how it was made, like your whole process.

My costume is Vash the Stampede from an anime called Trigun.

And he is like a gunslinger in this like, futuristic planet, it's really cool.

So I was like, I’m gonna do it.

Like I tailored my coat, like I made everything.

JT: This took me forever.

Jim: I’m cosplaying the Shin Musha Gundam from Dynasty Gundam Warriors.

It took a really long time.

I first built the RX 72 Gundam and then I converted it since 2017.

And yeah, I rebuilt everything, painted it all shaded it and yeah, it took a while.

2017 That same RX 72 costume, I competed, didn't go too well, I lost.

And so yeah, this is my second time trying to like go all out.

Shaugnessy Birgado: It comes once a year in Hawaiʻi.

And everybody brings out their, their one costume or two costumes that they’ve been working on for the whole year, like the Super Bowl.

Grace Chee: It is a thing of passion.

I think we all just like, love to do it.

I always joke, there's that one screenshot from some convention where the interviewer is like, and how much money did you spend on your cosplay?

And all the cosplayers are like ugh, like, don't even ask us that.

Jon Minami: For my first Kawaii Kon, first time I went there, I was absolutely blown away.

Because I thought, wow, people actually dress up for this?

It's not even Halloween.

So, when I first went, I thought, I admit I thought cosplay was a little weird.

Year after year, I kept going.

I was like, oh, I'm a little iffy, but this is this looks kind of fun.

I think I want to try.

So around 2009 I finally broke down.

I was like, you know what?

I want to give this a try.

It is a nerve wracking feeling when something you worked on.

For a long time, and especially part of you knows that it doesn't look good.

But, but you still dig it.

It was a nice feeling because when I first did it, I had people going up and saying, Oh, wow, that's a nice cosplay.

I'm like, oh, that's interesting, but thank you!

GC: I think a lot of people get worried they're like, oh, like, it doesn't look so good.

Or it's like duct tape and cardboard.

But I actually really love those costumes.

Because it's like, yeah, you're starting out.

Let me show you more cool cosplay things.

Another good tip is just like go out into the community and try to like make friends and learn from people.

Marcel Saragena: The energy is different.

I've been around so many different things.

And you know, I very, like where I grew up from was all kind of bad.

And at that time, when I found Kawaii Kon, I was still trying to find friends that's real positive and supportive versus those negative friends and you know like friends like Grace, Jon, Shaugn and everybody else in the community that make friends with.

When sometimes I'm feeling down and I have like, my friends here, they pick me up and hey, let's go do a shoot, or let's, you know, I appreciate all the positive energy that comes from the friends I've made at Kawaii Kon.

GM: Attendance has grown every year.

I'm willing to bet for Kawaii Kon.

Last year in 2022, we had nearly 18,000 attendees, I believe a few years prior to that we had actually broken the 10,000 attendee mark, which, was a huge milestone for us.

And now looking at edging up towards 20,000.

FA: I got involved with Kawaii Kon, in year four, it was 2010.

The organizers who had started the event were from Atlanta, and they were volunteering at the same event that I had been volunteering at since I was 11.

And they realized that Kawaii Kon was becoming more and more epic, it had moved to the convention center.

The demand was there.

And they needed someone with a little bit more business acumen and just logistical structure.

And I started volunteering.

In 2012 was when basically all the volunteers and we had gotten together and everyone had agreed that essentially I should take over.

So in 2013, I became the owner.

But the core of the con is still gonna be volunteers.

The direction of the show will always be giving back to the community, giving back to everyone.

Like, me personally anime events are where I could feel myself.

Like growing up especially, now there’s, it’s kind of a cool thing to be a nerd, or a geek, and it’s like a badge of pride.

But, you know, back in the day, it wasn’t.

It was something that people got picked on for, something that your kind of got ostracized for.

So having an event that allows you to come together with people with the same interests and just realizing that, they’re, you’re not alone is just, was super super important to me.

And it’s something that I wanted to continue doing for the rest of my life so that I could give back to the community that helped me grow up.

GM: What really brings our Kawaii Kon staff together is that sense of a family and that sense of community.

Because we all started as attendees.

We all came and we enjoyed and we wanted to be part of something bigger and making it even better.

Kawaii Kon is largely run by volunteers, everyone from our CEO, to the first time staffer, we're all volunteers.

And we do it because we love the community, because we love what we do.

We're fans just like everybody else.

Normally, we have about 200 volunteers.

But I believe this year for 2023, we have about 300.

So we have grown our family a lot.

Ming: For me, personally, I enjoy volunteering at Kawaii Kon because when I was young, all this kind of stuff was often kind of rejected or looked down upon.

But we've been slowly building the gaming community, the weeb, anime, nerd community up.

And it's really cool to see this tabletop gaming as part of this con.

And we actually have like more events than like anyone else.

We have tons of volunteers from the community coming up.

And it's just really great to see so many people coming, enjoying gaming, and just learning more and more about like the nerd, gaming culture.

GM: When I was a kid, I remember being introduced to Sailor Moon, I feel like is everyone's introduction to anime.

And I loved it, but almost no one else had ever heard of it.

And they didn't understand the appeal.

And they just didn't understand any of it.

They just thought it was another cartoon.

And so to think that that whole genre would grow to something as big as this, I, as a kid would never, never have imagined.

I would have hoped, but not not imagined it.

JM: The closest I've ever come to where I felt like really accepted was in my early years of cosplay.

Meeting some of my earlier friends.

These are guys, you know, they're much older than me.

They have a lot more money and resources to like to make their costumes.

And even though my handmade costume did not look very good, would not even compare to them.

It's like that moment clicked when, when they said, hey man, that's a great costume.

Come take a picture with us.

Come hang out with us.

That was a, that was a really great moment when I felt like oh yeah, these are my people.

Kalaʻi Miller: If you have driven around Honolulu you have more than likely seen his artwork.

OG Slick is a pioneer in the Los Angeles grafitti scene but he got his start painting walls in Honolulu.

Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Slick discovered hip-hop culture at a young age and his spray paint art has led him to a successful career spanning decades.

As an artist he has done it all: from graphic and apparel design to sculpture and even gallery shows, but at the heart of it all is his love for aerosol cans and getting his art up for the public to see.

OG Slick Can to can combat by rivals using paint instead of guns.

An artist from Hawaiʻi, who goes by the tag name Slick.

OG Slick: When did I start using Slick, huh?

You know, the older I get, I mean, the story changes, you know.

But from what I remember.

I think even it goes as far back as junior high.

And I don't know I I'm thinking like one of the sisters because I went to Catholic school, St. Elizabeth.

And I think one of the nuns was like, I think I got sent to the principal's office or something.

And the principal was like, it was Sister Auxiliadora.

And she's like, Oh, you think you're pretty slick, sir, huh?

And I think it kind of stuck in my head you know, that.

I think I was trying to be sneaky or something get out of studying or something or I forgot what it was but I think that kind of stuck.

And then being my name was Rick, it kind of Slick Rick, Slick Rick, you know.

My first taste of Hip Hop.

I would say it was back, back in the day.

In the days whe we used to pop lock.

One of the hotels in Waikīkī had a teen club there called the Point Before.

My father was a cop, I used to catch ride with him to Waikiki and he let me go to the club while he worked his beat or whatever and that’s where I saw these dancers.

And they were like pop locking, you know?

And I was like, oh, I want to do that.

I was into like miming, as weird as that sounds, you know?

Because miming was like, was like, popping.

You know, like, because we used to do like the box or like pulling the rope.

You know, those are all like, like, popping moves.

But it's also with miming.

So, yeah, it was weird.

I think in my past, sometimes I could have ended up being a mine, you know, rather than (laughs).

The first time I actually saw breakdancing was I'm at a club out here and I remember Jason Silva he went down to his hand and then started spinning on his hand and we're just like, holy, like, you know, that was on some next level, you know, it's like he was spinning on his hand, you know?

And then Rock Steady Crew came and they were actually a big influence, you know, seeing Doze for the first time, you know, him painting on, on, on a, I think it was like a like a bedsheet or something.

So seeing spray paint, like from a, from a b-boy.

Like, that was like exciting for me.

Because I wasn't exactly the best dancer or best b-boy, especially when power moves and stuff got into breakin’, like, I wasn’t that athletic, you know, so I couldn’t do all the like backflips and all this but I definitely could paint my ass off, I was pulling more towards the artistic side.

So my crew was Bomb Squad.

You know, and I’ll always be Bomb Squad.

That was my first crew, you know?

It was actually a b-boy crew.

We did like performances like we opened with for like, mechanical masters like, you know, at events and things like that, and b-boying.

But out of everyone in the crew like you know, I was like the worst B boy.

So I kind of took it more towards the painting side.

Because bombing you know, bomb squad.

So of course it just lent itself to be more of a painting thing, you know?

I was always artistic since I was a child.

So I just naturally gravitated to graffiti, you know, writing my name and writing the crews name and then the rest is history.

I've been pretty fortunate, knock on wood, all these years to stay one step ahead of the law, you know, as far as my art is concerned.

But early on, I realized I could make money with my craft.

Rick Ralston from Crazy Shirts, was like a advocate for anti-graffiti.

And he was on some kind of board to fight graffiti on the island.

And somehow, maybe he saw one of these news things or whatever that I was on and found out that I was slick.

He kind of gave me carte blanche at his place, it was his art department, and they're like, hey, teach this kid about graphics and how to apply some of that.

It was fun with Crazy Shirts because they liked the humor, right?

They liked to the flips and parodies.

Which I was, I was raised on like Wacky Pack stickers.

So, you know, making fun of like, corporate brands and things like that.

So, I was doing those flips early on at Crazy Shirts.

I aspirations to be like a photorealistic airbrush illustrator.

That's what I was gonna do, you know, or, you know, I knew something to do at art or fine art, but I knew I couldn't do it here on the island.

So I made a deal with the folks to stop doing graffiti and go to the mainland and study art.

That deal didn’t go well because one semester in I actually met my graffiti crew in LA, Kill 2 Succeed.

So on my lunch break at Otis Parsons, I’d go to eat lunch and I saw them doing graffiti on the band shell down there.

I gravitated towards them because they looked like me, you know, because I'm from mixed descent as well.

I was like, oh, so they kind of became my family.

Graff attracts graff, you know, and during the course of that time we’d eat, breathe, and (bleep) painting.

That was our life, you know?

Money and all that, school, everything was secondary.

Like we didn’t care about that.

It was all about getting up and painting.

A group that actually showed me love when I first moved to Los Angeles was Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.

Hardcore West Coast gangsters but talented dancers, musicians.

Early pioneers in that rock hip-hop mash-up, sort of soul-funk.

They're way before their time, you know?

They used to come for vacation but they’d come to the nightclubs and dance and battle.

And I remember Kobra and them telling me like, oh, Slick when you come to LA, come check us out and they were definitely some of the first people I looked up.

I did their, their single Psyko Funk.

I did that cover on Island Records.

And actually, I'm in that video too.

If you look at the Psyko Funk video, they're supposed to be like in a mental institution.

At the end, I'm like, spraying a little door and I'm trying to sneak out of the mental hospital.

At the time this guy wanted to battle me.

And that’s, a lot of people know as the Slick/Hex battle.

And it's actually a really famous battle, like a lot of people, took about a week.

And people came from miles around, this was way before social media.

And but people found it, you know, the big Slick/Hex battle, you know.

And at the end of five days, I mean, we didn't even know how to end it.

Because we could have went on forever just dissing each other.

You know, we're like, Okay, what do you think?

What do you think?

And I was like, do you think you took me out?

He's like, No.

And I was like, well, I won then.

And then this television station hit me up about battling him again on television.

And I didn't want to do it, because I already took him out.

You know, I was like what, I got nothing to prove, you know, like, whatever.

And then he was gonna battle somebody else, blah, blah, blah, and I was like, nah, so I'll battle him again.

So that’s, a lot of people know as the second battle on TV, which I lost, by the way.

Yeah, he was way more prepared for me on that one.

But apparently, that battle touched a lot of lives.

You know, it was early, like reality TV, kind of, because we were going at it, you know.

But from that the reason I think that's so important for my career is because from that, I guess some directors were there at the battles.

So they're like, Oh, we want to recreate that battle and a music video.

So right after the battle I did the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Taste The Pain” video, where they had Hex on one side and had me and the other side, kind of going at it behind the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And then I did another video for like Ice Cube.

The Ice Cube video was, was a pretty dope experience especially because it was, I believe, Ice Cube’s first video departure from NWA, you know, so honored to be a part of that one.

I painted the L.A. hands, I think, somewhere in the late 90s.

I painted that on a wall.

And we ended up taking the L.A. hands from that wall and making it into like a little logo.

And it just kind of caught on and people loved it.

Especially from L.A., you know, and also people not even from L.A. they just loved L.A. culture.

And everybody thought it was Mickey hands but it wasn't even Mickey hands.

It was another character throwing it up.

It was like this little like Cholo like rat throwing it up, you know?

And, but everybody thought was Mickey because he's the most famous cartoon character that has gloves.

You have Bugs Bunny like Krusty the Clown.

Like, you name it, gloves and miming it just, you know, it all goes hand in hand.

No pun intended, but yeah.

I'm in a box.

But yeah, so but the hands I've always done hands, even when I was at Art Center.

Like I was really good at drawing the hands, you know, not that I couldn't draw the rest of the human figure.

But I think the hands spoke a lot, you know, like, the gestures and you know, you could do a lot with your hand, you know, like and tell stories.

And, you know, I love that (bleep), you know?

Pow!

Wow!’s, you know, I remember the first one they did without me.

And I was kind of hurt.

I was like, how are they going to have a Pow!

Wow!

in Hawaii and not invite the Slickster?

You know, I was like, I'm from here, you know?

You take it kind of personal.

And then I think the second year, we actually got involved and met Jasper and stuff.

He was cool.

And yeah, it just became a thing to do, like every year is to come back and paint for Pow!

Wow!, you know, and it was great excuse to come home and do what I love, is paint walls.

We’re over here in Kalihi at Pālama Settlement for Worldwide Walls.

When I heard it was out here in Kalihi at Pālama Settlement, I got really excited, you know, because I thought there was a possibility to paint the gym here.

The Pālama gym is like what the white whale was to Moby Dick.

Or to graffiti artist, you know, it’s like the ultimate fame spot.

So I actually been eyeing up this wall for years.

Since the 80s.

I was like, Oh, that would be mean to have a Slick piece on the gym right there, you know.

It’s just kind of crazy how it came full circle.

And I'm actually painting the gym.

It's an honor to actually get that spot out of all these amazing artists here.

So I'm trying to come correct and do something pretty sick for the community.

The concept on this one was the shaka hands turning into the love.

Like it's kind of represents coming together as one.

Yeah, so to come back here and get the opportunity to paint on this wall is is unreal.

The feeling is just unreal.

You know, super blessed.

I mean, I do all the other, like paint canvases, or make sculptures or design, design things or skateboards, or, you know, whatever I'm designing.

But nothing takes the place of spray painting.

I just love.

I don't know, the spray.

And I think the, the motion is kind of like, maybe it's like tai chi for me or something.

You know, because when you spray it's like a lot of like this and you know, like when I'm spray painting, I'm in another, another place.

I love it.

Kalaʻi Miller: Mahalo for joining us.

Please visit PBS Hawaiʻi dot org or the PBS Hawaiʻi YouTube for digital exclusive content from this episode.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller, a hui hou.

I am in Funko POP!

overload right now.

Wow!

Faisal Ahmed: The guests feel that aloha spirit.

They always tell me that Kawaii Kon is their favorite convention.

They said that this is one of the only events where it’s more common for them to just get gifts from the attendees.

And they don’t ask for anything in return, they just want to show the appreciation.

OG Slick: L.A.’s would probably be considered my home because I’ve been there, what since like ’87?

But my heart is always in here, right here in the islands.

No matter where I am in this world, or where I end up, this is home.