As a prospect, I understood that one would never become famous being a translator, and since I've never really sought out fame, conceptually, that was fine with me. But like most people, I've never actually seen real fame in action.

Then along came Pokemon.

Of course, real fame never actually brushed me personally, even with a juggernaut like Pokemon. There were a few people who foolishly asked me to sign autographs since I had "something to do with it" (I wonder if those autographs actually brought the value of the manga down), but when I said that I was the translator, most people nodded with an uncomfortable smile, then went off looking for someone important to sign their merchandise.

But real fame brushed the manga author, Toshihiro Ono, at the San Diego Comic Con in 1999, and I was right there to witness it.

Ravening hoards. That's the only way to describe it. I guess rumor had gone around that he was the "creator of Pokemon" rather than the author of a manga based on the anime and game. So there were huge numbers of people who wanted him to sign cards from the collectible trading card game, anime tape and DVD boxes, plushies (difficult to sign), T-shirts, and even bootleg material. And it didn't end. Remember that scene from The Mummy when countless people from the town are all stumbling forward chanting "Imhotep, Imhotep..." in never-ending waves? That's my memory of that convention.

Still, most of the ravening hoards were young and enthusiastic about Pokemon, and that makes up for a lot of ravening. But the worst parts of the convention were not the hoards themselves but the hoards' mothers.

We knew that with the popularity of Pokemon, there would be far more people in the signing line than could reasonably receive even a signature let alone a sketch. So we made up some cards on a nice, white, heavy paper stock, photocopied some of his cute Pikachu images on them and asked Mr. Ono to sign them ahead of time. So we had a good-sized stack of them ready at the signing. During the first half hour, we realized that he wouldn't go through many people at all giving them sketches (he wanted perfect sketches for each person), so we informed the line afterwards that it would only be signatures from that point on. Then when it was about 15 minutes until the end of the signing, we informed the still-long line that they would have to make do with a handshake and the pre-signed card.

That's when a few children started crying and more than a few mothers went on the war path. (Especially one who got in only minutes before the line was closed.) I guess they assumed that Mr. Ono was like a bank -- if you get in there before closing, you are entitled to full service. And invoking reality to these people went nowhere. I tried to explain that a man gripping a pen for more than two and a half hours will wear him out a little. He isn't a signing machine. But that argument didn't make any difference to the angry mother of a crying child. In the end, the only thing I could do was be the villain. Direct their anger on me rather than on him. Pretend that my arbitrary rules were the cause of the unfairness of the world, and allow them to vent.

I guess it's the never-ending line of people and the unreasonable expectations that convinced me that a career choice of a great degree of anonymity was the way for me!