In 2025, BART introduced the Let’s Glow! BART Anime Festival and attracted more than triple the expected 1000 attendees. This year, the free anime festival expanded to accommodate even more anime fans. I traveled to the Warm Springs/South Fremont Station to check it out.
This year, the fest doubled in size. Booths and exhibits took up both sides of the BART station. The Itasha car expo in the Southern Pick-Up lot, the Artist Alley in the North side lot. In between, there was a stage for performers and cosplay contests, and a Food Truck row.
Itasha cars are vehicles themed and often wrapped with graphics depicting characters from popular anime and manga, and now VTubers. The Artist Alley was double the size and packed with shoppers picking up fan-made anime art, plushies, and merch. The longest line was for the Railgoods booth selling official BART merch featuring its Anime mascots: Baylee, Nimbus, Jasmine, and Mira
BART has anime mascots? Along with the Vatican (yes, the Vatican) the San Francisco BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT system wanted to reach out “the youth.” Appealing to Asian-weeb subculture of Anime by bolting on a BART logo onto it. Did it work? Overall BART ridership is down 56% since 2016 but the Lets Glow! Festival has doubled in attendance since last year. So yay, I guess?
Too Much Information live chat show. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle continues to dominate the box office and KPop Demon Hunters is a cultural phenominon. It all started with Japanimation: Japanese anime TV series that were adapted for US after-school broadcasts in the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s. https://moondogindustries.com/tmi-251008-japanimation-quiz/
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Japanimation was the common term that was used to describe Japanese Anime TV series released in the US. These are the most popular and influential Anime series that hit the US in the 70’s to early 90’s.
Kimba the White Lion, known in Japan as Jungle Emperor (Japanese: ジャングル大帝, Hepburn: Janguru Taitei), is a Japanese shōnenmanga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka.The anime series was released in English Dub to US markets, on September 11, 1966; on CBS stations.
Astro Boy, known in Japan as Mighty Atom (Japanese: 鉄腕アトム, Hepburn: Tetsuwan Atomu; lit. ’Iron-Armed Atom’), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. A B&W anime came out 1963 but not in the US. A color anime series did out in the US until 1986 in limited markets.
Star Blazers is an American adaptation of the Japanese anime television series Space Battleship Yamato I (1974), II (1978), and III (1980) (宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Uchū Senkan Yamato). Star Blazers was first broadcast in the United States in 1979.
Mazinger Z (Japanese: マジンガーZ, Hepburn: Majingā Zetto; known as Tranzor Z in the United States). One of the first Giant Robot animes to be released in the US.
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (科学忍者隊ガッチャマン, Kagaku Ninja-tai Gatchaman, lit. Science Ninja Squad Gatchaman), also simply titled as Gatchaman is a 1972. Heavily edited and adapted for the US in 1978 as Battle of the Planets (BOTP) and the team was called G-Force. These super hero teams would go on to inspire live Super Sentai series like Power Rangers.
Beast King GoLion (百獣王ゴライオン, Hyaku Jūō Goraion; The King of Hundred Beasts GoLion) is a Japanese super mechaanime television series that aired form 1981 to 1982. The animation from GoLion was edited and trimmed to create the American series Voltron: Defender of the Universe
Transformers is a media franchise produced by Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. The Anime doubted in the US 1985 becoming a hit, and was co-released in Japan under the name: Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers. The Transformersmecha were largely designed by Shōji Kawamori, the creator of the Japanese mecha anime franchise Macross
Sailor Moon (Japanese: 美少女戦士セーラームーン, Hepburn: Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn; originally translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon,[1] later Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon[2][3]) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. An English dub of the 1992 anime series was release in 1995.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the subway system that runs through San Francisco, Oakland, and now to San Jose. They recently adopted an anime mascot character called Baylee and her three associates. On September 6, 2025 BART hosted its first Anime and arts festival, named “Lets Glow” at their Warm Springs station near Freemont, CA.
The event was free to attend. I drove in and utlized the ample free parking. I arrived before the official start time of 4:00pm, there were already over 300 attendees and more arriving via the regular BART trains to the station.
They distrubeted event passports that could get stamped at various sections of the event. There was an Itasha row with fun anime and video game graphics modified cars. There were huge crowds around the Artist Alley where local aftists sold their art and merch. There was exceptionally long line to buy BART Anime themed merch.
Lets Glow had probably 10 times more folks than the BART organizers anticipated. It was a fun taste for anime lovers but not much to do and see. Future events would do better to have a headline guest or guests like voice-over artists or J-POP bands.
