Monsters, heroes and princesses meet at Japantown anime fest

Jenny Jacobitz relaxes in an Eeyore kigurumi while she waits with her friend Tobias Finnian (right) for the start of the annual San Francisco Anime and Cosplay Festival at Japantown in San Francisco. Jenny Jacobitz relaxes in an Eeyore kigurumi while she waits with her friend Tobias Finnian (right) for the start of the annual San Francisco Anime and Cosplay Festival at Japantown in San Francisco. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Monsters, heroes and princesses meet at Japantown anime fest 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Monsters, princesses, dragons and sundry superheroes descended on Japantown Saturday and, by and large, stood around and stared at each other, the weather being too hot for shooting ray guns or cutting each other’s heads off with swords.

It was the annual Anime and Cosplay Festival, and only those people who know what anime and cosplay are showed up. Those who don’t drove past Japantown in cars, slowly, and stared at the small army of people in fluorescent wigs.

“I’m a divine goddess,” said Jasmine Kathleen of San Francisco, who was decked out in a white and purple outfit, the kind that anime heroine Ishtar Rin wears, the kind that empowers her to shoot bolts of fire at bad guys from her gigantic moon, she explained, or tried to.

Next to her was Shelly Bakugou of San Francisco, who was all set to punch bad guys as her alter ego, Yang Xioa Long, a superhero in a brown bodice and yellow hair who, she said, is most adept at vanquishing villains with supercharged fists, which she possessed in her imagination.

Anime is the Japanese form of fantastical animation. cosplay is short for costume play, which is the formal name for pretending it’s Halloween in the middle of July.

“A lot of these people are normal people,” said organizer Greg Vilora, as one of them walked by carrying lightning bolts. “This festival allows people to do something different from their 8-to-5 lives.”

And that was surely true for Caitlin Morris of San Ramon, decked out in a red kimono, who said cosplay helped her figure out who she is inside.

“I was a really shy person and wouldn’t talk to anybody,” she said. “This brought me out of my shell.”

It also brought her to the middle of the main Japantown plaza, beneath the giant pagoda, alongside scores of fellow costumed creations. The great thing about the Japantown festival, many superheroes said, was that it didn’t cost anything. Usually, such proceedings are held at role-playing conventions inside giant halls where it can cost $100 or more to get in.

The festivalgoers said they were excited about guest appearances by cosplaying superstars Reika and Cheru, even if few other people on planet Earth had any idea who Reika and Cheru were. But most of the time at the festival was spent standing around, gawking at everyone else and taking selfies with them, after first laying down sword or ray gun to facilitate the operation of the cell phone.

On the plaza, vendors were selling hundreds of different anime key chains and stuffed animals, for up to $50 per key chain.

“I couldn’t tell you, off the top of my head,” said key chain vendor Sue Lee, when asked to identify the names of the key chain characters. “There are so many.”

The hardest working fellow seemed to be a man inside the giant yellow robot costume of the character Bumblebee, from the Transformer movies. His name was Lionel Lum and the line to have your picture taken standing alongside him was about 10 people long.

Bumblebee, said Lum, is pretty good at beating up the evil Decepticons, his sworn enemies. In addition, Bumblebee can transform himself from a robot into a Chevrolet Camaro whenever he chooses, which is what makes a transformer a transformer. That’s something that he himself cannot do, said Lum.

“I wish I could,” said Lum, from somewhere deep inside his costume. “I like Camaros. I’ve always liked Camaros.”

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF