NL 2

When you stroll into an anime specialty shop in the U.S., there are a couple of demographics you expect to see among the customers. Teenagers with brightly dyed hair. Thirty-somethings digging through discounted single-volume VHS and DVD releases for those elusive remaining episodes of Maison Ikkoku or Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team. Maybe a handful of Japanese expats.

But if you happen to be shopping for anime goodies in Los Angeles, just a stone’s throw away from the world’s leading film studios, you also might spot a famous Hollywood actor, like these Californian otaku who ran into Nicolas Cage.

The Love Live! movie finally came to America last weekend, with one of the theaters screening the anime hit being the Downtown Independent Cinema in Los Angeles. Conveniently, the theater is located within easy walking distance of the city’s revitalized Little Tokyo Japanese enclave, so before catching the film, some anime fans decided to swing by the nearby Jungle (also known as Anime Jungle), one of L.A.’s most popular anime retailers.

While there, they ran into Cage, who was kind enough to pose for a snapshot.

https://twitter.com/AkibaBlare/status/643212409977597954

Contrary to what the tweet says, there’s no proof that Cage actually attended the Love Live! screening. Nor is this a sign that Cage, famously a huge fan of American super heroes, has switched his comic loyalty to Japanese manga, as some sources are saying the reason he was at Jungle is that his son is a fan of anime, not the actor himself.

Still, as someone who took half of his stage name from Marvel character Luke Cage, and who also named one of his children Kal-El, after Superman’s birth name, we think Cage felt a certain sense of kinship to the American otaku milling about Jungle. We’d also be willing to bet he appreciated the enthusiasm shown in their anime-inspired fashion, too, considering that at the time the photo was taken Cage seems to have been in the middle of cosplaying as Ghost Rider.

Related: Anime Jungle
Source: Jin, Brown Paper Tickets
Featured image: Twitter/@AkibaBlare
Top image: Love Live! official website