 |
|
|
|
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Sunnyvale business owner Ken Westfall holds up a selection of his vast anime DVD and video collection at his store R&K Comics and Cards. All the videos and DVDs are subtitled or dubbed into English, and it is one of the largest collections of rental anime in the Bay Area.
'Kings of Anime' reign in city
R&K Comics and Cards has a plethera of Japanese titles
By William Jeske
Well before "anime" became a household term, American families were allowing it into their living rooms. Almost 20 years ago, the old afternoon Looney Tunes and Brady Brunch reruns were flanked by Japanese productions like "Speed Racer," "Star Blazers" and "Robotech."
Anime today enters American homes as the popular Pokémon, Digimon, Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura.
One Sunnyvale business saw that the adults of the 1990s would eventually demand more and better of what they grew up with a decade earlier.
R&K Comics and Cards, located at 568A El Camino Real, stocks what is arguably the largest selection of English dubbed and subtitled anime titles on videocassette and DVD in the South Bay.
Many entertainment media outlets can make the same claim, but R&K has gone to the trouble of making these titles available for rent. Most stores make their anime titles available only through sale.
It's the rental service that makes lifelong Sunnyvale resident Gary Tang keep going into R&K several times a week and leaving with three or four titles.
"Renting is a wonderful service," said Tang, who fell in love with anime as a child and now is the secretary of the Tsunami Anime club at San Jose State University. "I know of no other store that has the largest collection of anime ready to rent in the San Jose area."
Ken Westfall opened R&K Comics with his son Rich (thus R&K) in Santa Clara in 1982. He said they began renting a paltry collection of 50 arcane Japanese titles. When demand grew and titles became more commercially available, his floor and shelf space became too crowded. Westfall moved operations to a larger space in Sunnyvale in 1992.
Danjer Newton, the store's general manager, came on a year later. Newton said he saw when the collection grew to about 300 titles, there were already several titles available commercially.
"I started noticing then that we needed to order more," he said. "About two years after that we had about 600 tapes and everybody was talking about 'anime, anime, anime.' So, the entrepreneur in me came out and I literally said, 'I want to be the king of anime in the South Bay.'"
Newton said over the next four years he strived to expand the store's rental collection by acquiring at least one copy each for the English dubbed and subtitled sections, one DVD, and a handful more to sell. The collection is supplemented by an eclectic array of live action Hong Kong cinema, both vintage and new releases.
Eight years later, the collection has grown to 3,000 titles and now threatens to encroach onto the shelves reserved for comics.
Membership, too, has grown. Westfall believes the store has up to 700 members, 400 of whom are active renters. Newton said some members come from as far as Fremont simply because R&K stocks rental titles no place else has.
To become a member of R & K, people must provide a credit card and a valid ID. Patrons without credit cards may leave a $30-per-tape deposit. Parents can set up their children with accounts. Membership lasts until the credit card expires. R&K is located at 568A East El Camino Real. For more information, call 408.732.8775.
|
|
|
|
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
