Brandon Saigusa remembers watching "Robotech" and "Battle Fever J" with his father, who immigrated to Hawai'i from Japan.

Anime, Saigusa said, was their common ground.

"My dad saw something that his kid liked and something we could do together," said Saigusa, 33, a network administrator who now watches anime with his three children. "For my dad, it wasn't just a kid's thing."

Anime — or Japanese animation — is more than just Sunday morning cartoons targeting imaginative kids. It can be more art form than visual pastime. And the breadth of topics, storylines and graphic styles in anime appeals to a wide range of ages — not just kids.

"In America, cartoons are much more for children than adults and geared toward them in art and plotline," said Chris Macedonio, vice chair of Kawaii Kon 2009, an anime convention that kicks off today at the Hawai'i Convention Center. "But in Japan there's a very different attitude toward animation. It's viewed as more of an art form and, because of that, it's not always meant for young children."

However, both Macedonio and Sean Akita, 35, owner of Mechahawaii in Kaimuki, say more families are enjoying the anime subculture together. More parents today are now dressing up (cosplaying) as the anime characters they grew up watching, and their children often dress in matching costumes.

"For those parents, they are having just as much fun as their kids," Macedonio said.

Saigusa, who grew up watching mecha series "Macrosse" and "Gundam," watches anime with his family a few times a week. It's not only nostalgic for him, but he gets to share something he enjoys with his kids.

"My kids know who Mickey (Mouse) and Winnie the Pooh are — but they also know who Totoro is," Saigusa said. "It's very much a part of our life, part of our family culture."

From his store, Akita has seen the anime rage reach kids of all ages. While keiki, teens and college-aged customers flock to his store to buy anime figures, he also has one regular customer who is 72.

"He comes in all the time," Akita said. "And he actually follows (anime) series."

GROWING PHENOM

The popularity of anime has exploded in the past decade, thanks to the accessibility of these TV series and movies both in DVDs and over the Internet, local experts say.

Adults who grew up in the '80s watching "Robotech" and the anime-inspired "ThunderCats" only had access to what was available on TV or in theaters, which wasn't much.

But when Web sites made file-sharing easier, fans were able to quickly get their fix of the latest in Japanese animation.

"Now we can watch (anime) about the same time they're released in Japan," Akita said. "It's very different from 10 years ago."

Anime is booming, both in Japan and America.

The Japan External Trade Organization reported sales of anime DVDs in North America reached $316 million in 2007. The total North American market for all anime-related goods — video games, toys, games, apparel — was $2.8 billion that year.

Akita has seen increase in interest in anime and manga — Japanese comic books and graphic novels — in recent years. His hobby shop on 12th Avenue opened in 2003 specializing in car, ship and robot models.

About a year ago, he brought in miniature anime trading figures and capsule toys. Word spread, and now he's hosting cosplay competitions and participating in anime conventions.

COSPLAY RULES

A subculture of anime is cosplay — short for "costume play" — a type of performance art whose participants dress up as characters from anime, manga or video games.

Local contests — such as the one at this weekend's convention — can lure hundreds of cosplayers, decked in elaborate (and stunningly accurate) costumes.

"It's really grown in the last five years," said Akita, whose store hosts cosplay contests that boast close to 400 participants, including families and some cosplayers in their 50s. "It's phenomenal to see the costumes. A lot of them are handmade."

And most of these cosplayers are adults living out their anime fantasies.

Angie Velardo, 30, started watching English-dubbed anime as a kid at her grandma's house. But she never thought about dressing up as characters from her favorite shows until the first Kawaii Kon convention five years ago.

"It sounded both shocking and fun to know that you can dress up as one of your favorite anime or manga character," said Velardo, who works at Yotteko-Ya in the McCully Shopping Center. "It's like bringing a character to life."

Like many cosplayers, Velardo puts together her costumes from a variety of sources — anime shops, toy stores, hardware stores and craft outlets — but she prefers to create her own by hand.

"It gives you a kind of pride knowing that the cosplay I am doing is being made to the best of my knowledge and as close to perfection that I can possibly do," she said.

While creating costumes can be costly — some cosplayers can spend hundreds of dollars on a single costume and spend up to a year creating it — it's not about the price tag.

"The idea is to awe people because (the costume) looks right, not because you spent a lot of money on it," Velardo said.

ANIME WITH IMPACT

Unlike traditional American animation, anime often tackles mature topics such as drug abuse, politics and violence.

The popular "Ghost in the Shell," directed by Mamoru Oshii, is a science-fiction mystery that boasts rapid-fire action, nudity, profanity and enough violence to garner a PG rating. "Paprika," based on the novel by Japanese science fiction writer Yasutaka Tsutui, moves between reality and fantasy in this disturbing psychological R-rated anime.

But it's not always violence that filters anime.

"The Sky Crawlers," for example, follows the trials and tribulations of a group of young fighter pilots. This series, based on a Japanese novel by Hiroshi Mori and featured in this year's Hawaii International Film Festival, has a more somber storyline that deals with war and politics.