"I can't believe we're here," Mel sighed under her breath. She was dressed like Cinderella, and was trying to hide herself from the glances of young people and a few others her own age who were staring at her as they walked by.
She and Danny were at the Animeplex Convention in Southern Los Angeles, for a weekend of "fun" and of course investigation. There were at least two thousand people here, and almost all of them were dressed up like freaks from various cartoon shows, mainly in Japanese cartoons.
Danny looked at her for a moment and fought back the urge to cackle. "No one said you'd have to dress up," he said. "Especially like a Disney character."
"Well excuse me for not watching Japanese kiddie shows," she said in a huff.
A young teenager seemed to listen in on their conversation, and walked over to them. He was dressed like a blonde samurai, carrying a large gun, and wearing grayish glasses. "Actually Japanese Animation owes a lot to Walt Disney," he said with a grin. "For example, the large eyes in anime was attributed to the creator of Roboboy, a nineteen fifties anime, who was a major fan of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney. The large eyes came from Mr. Disney's use of them for his early characters."
"Um, okay," Mel said, taking a step back from the youth. "And who are you supposed to be, Cowboy?"
The teen looked down at his clothes and blushed, "I really couldn't decide to go as Auron from Final Fantasy 10, or as Vash the Stampede, from Trigun."
"Do you come to these conventions a lot?" Danny asked, edging toward the boy.
"Actually this is only my third one," he said. "My uncle brings me here a lot."
"How many has he attended," Mel said, taking the offensive. The boy frowned and took a step away from her, eyeing her uneasily.
"I'm not sure, why do you want to know?" he said, his voice breaking.
Danny put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her aside, "No one likes a pushy Cinderella," he whispered in her ear. She scowled at him again for a second and turned away, looking at the many vendors selling their wares.
The male F.B.I. agent looked at the boy and smiled. "It's nothing really, but could you tell us what he does here?"
The boy frowned for a moment and crossed his arms. "Well, there's lots of things that he does, although he sometimes sells videos in the second story of this convention, at least that's what he tells me."
"What kind of videos?" Danny looked over at his partner, who was now edging toward the many counters, looking at shirts adorned with anime characters faces, books, DVD's even small Japanese comic like books called Manga. She was interviewed certain other individuals, and then slowly was swallowed by a group of oddly dressed people.
"You probably won't need to worry about your wife, sir," the boy said. "It won't be hard to pick out a Disney character in a sea of anime lovers."
Danny felt his jaw drop and he laughed. "Mel, no she's not my wife, just my . . . friend."
The boy smiled. "Same thing goes for that too," he looked in the direction she disappeared and his smile grew. "She's hot," he said in a low tone.
Danny shot toward Mel's direction back at the boy, raising his own eyebrows. "Okay, so anyway, getting back to your uncle. What kind of videos does he sell?"
"I've never seen them myself, personally," the boy said, his eyes never leaving toward where Mel had vanished. She'd look really hot in something that showed off her stomach. He bit his lips and looked toward Danny who was glaring at him. "They're Hentai, that's why he sells them on the second floor, away from children."
There seemed to be a fridgid blast of air, as if someone had just turned on the cooler right under Danny. "And what is Hentai?"
"Its filth," came a nasty reply off to their side. They turned and faced a large security guard. The boy screeched at the sight of him, and dashed away, disappearing into a mob.
"Who would you be?" the detective asked, sizing the large beefy man up.
"I'm Adam Speiliz," he said, in a ruff, hard voice. "I work here as a security guard."
"You seemed to scare the crap out of that poor kid," Danny said, trying to see if he could see the boy. It was hopeless, there were at least thirty if not more who were dressed as either this Auron guy, or Vash the Stampeder or something like that. "Wasn't that kind of overdoing it?"
"No," Adam snarled. "The kid's uncle sells Hentai, the filthiest piece of shit that's ever come out of Japan.
"So what is it?" the detective demanded.
"You're with the FBI aren't you," the security guard said, changing the subject. "Here to investigate those murders aren't you?"
Danny frowned, news really traveled fast. How did this guy know about them?
"The anime society tends to be close knit at times, so when something happens to our more boisterous members, we find out sooner than the normal public." He smiled and scanned the room for any trouble makers.
"That's interesting, but what in the hell is Hentai?" Danny snapped.
"If you haven't figured it out, then you are pretty dim," Adam chuckled. "Its animated Japanese porn."
Danny felt his jaw drop and blinked a few times, "They sell things like that here?"
"Not at every convention, some of them frown on the practice, but yes a few, like this one do. They try and justify it by having the venders on the second floor, denying anyone under the age of eighteen; access."
Mel had returned; her notepad full of words, and one of her arms full of packages. Danny looked at her for a moment, and smirked.
"Okay so I found some good buys," she snapped. "I also got some good info."
Danny rolled his eyes and turned back to Adam. "So, were the girls murdered into this whole Hentai scene?"
"Nope, none of them," the man said. "Oh they liked dressing with very little clothing, and they all idolized bad girls in normal anime, but none of them were into porn as far as I know." He smiled with smug self assuredness and looked at the two of them.
Danny quickly brought his partner up to speed, and she turned to the security guard. "Do they have any connections to this guy on the second floor?"
"I just told you, they weren't into porn," Adam snarled. He frowned and stroked his chin. "Well he did like talking to Sarah Daniels. She had a major Gundam fetish, and he was convincing her that he had a friend who was trying to make a live action Gundam show," he stopped as they stared with blank expressions. "Gundam is a long running series about future wars in giant robot battle machines," he explained. "There are at least two dozen different story lines that have been written, along with Manga novels, games, one true live action film, and even both a museum and an amusement park ride."
"Sounds interesting," Danny said.
"Sounds like it's made a lot of money," Mel said with a grin of her own.
"A million of legions of fans," Adam said nodding his head. "I've never really watched it myself, I like the mystery shows to be honest. But people like Sarah was a major Gundam junkie, and that boy's uncle was constantly hounding her about staring in a new movie based on Gundam Wing."
Mel pulled out a picture of the girl, and showed it to him. "Is this her?"
Adam looked at it for a second and nodded. "Yes, that's her. The last time I saw her, she was in a Southern L.A. convention dressed as Lady Une."
"Okay, hold up, as who?" Mel frowned and looked at the man with determined eyes.
"Lady Une, a villainess in the Gundam Wing series," he lead them over to a stack of Manga and picked it up. He paged through it, and pointed to a woman who almost mirrored Sarah in her death scene.
Danny looked at the book, "Is this the only one there is?"
"Of that volume or the Wing series?" the vendor asked.
"The series," Mel said quickly. The man behind the booth shook his head, muttering something about newbies, and pulled out a dozen books, all of them nearly ten dollars each.
"If you sign up for a membership to the U.S. Anime Corps you can get a twenty percent discount." The man handed out a piece of paper and rose an eyebrow.
"You two be careful," Adam said, "that's how you get messed up with all the weirdos here."
Mel sighed and looked at Danny, there was no way they could afford all of those books, and they needed them to solve this case. "It's a bit too late for that," she groaned. She signed her name and then paid for the books.
This is getting to be an interesting case after all. Danny smiled as he watched her pay and the two of them continued their investigation until the convention came to a close. Afterwards they left for their car, and drove off, unaware that two strong eyes were watching as their car disappeared.