About Us

With origins going as far back as 1999, the Karaoke Kaizokudan was formally constituted on April 28, 2004. We are a veteran group of volunteers who run karaoke events at several anime conventions in California, including Animation On Display (AOD), Fanime Con, Anime Expo, and Pacific Media Expo. In the past, we have also done karaoke at Anime Destiny, RECCACon, Kumoricon, Anime Vegas, GenCon SoCal, and Tales of Anime. In addition to contests and open mic singing, we have also recently begun to branch out into educational aspects, such as hosting convention panels on Japanese music.

Our philosophy is simple- provide a well-organized, fun, and enjoyable event for convention attendees and in doing so, support the community by promoting the enjoyment of anime and japanese popular music and bringing together anime/japanese music fans. One of our greatest rewards is seeing the friendships and sense of community that has developed over the years at our events.

What does the name mean?

"Kaizoku" is Japanese for "pirate", and "-dan" is the modifier for "group". So a loose translation would be "Karaoke Pirate Group". Official credit goes to our friend and supporter Katie for coming up with this name.

Why the pirate theme? You guys must think One Piece is the greatest series evar!!!111!11!!

Our organizational identity is based on Space Pirate Captain Harlock. The founder of our group was inspired in particular by the movie Arcadia of My Youth, which is basically the story of how Harlock became a pirate in the first place. Our motto, "under our flag, we sing in freedom" is based on the Captain Harlock quote "I live in freedom under my flag". Astute observers will notice that the skull part of our logo is from Harlock's flag.

Isn't it Captain HERLOCK?

One of the recent domestic releases spells "Harlock" as "Herlock", and the creator of the series, Leiji Matsumoto, has indicated a preference for "Herlock". However, "Harlock" is the traditional English spelling of the series/character and in our view, makes more sense as an name in the English language.