By Gene Ching
KungFuMagazine.com started covering Comic-cons and fan gatherings back in 2016. I went to the Silicon Valley Comic con that year for ‘Ray Park and the Force of Wushu,’ my cover story in the 2016 July+August issue. Since then, KungFuMagazine.com published fourteen articles focused on different fan gatherings, three of which were dedicated to San Diego Comic-con. Some may wonder what such a massive assembly of nerds has to do with Kung Fu. Comic-cons are outstanding barometers of what is happening in pop culture. It’s where we find the latest trends in the public perception of martial arts, and we’re all about that.
However, right around Chinese New Year this year, KungFuMagazine.com crashed. We were developing an upgrade, but we didn’t anticipate our old site going down so abruptly and terminally. The data was saved, but rebuilding the site has become a nightmare of a challenge. In the interim, we launched this temp site as a placeholder, which is where you are reading this now. We haven’t restored the 500+ archived articles on the temp site, so most of our previous coverage of fan gatherings isn’t available currently. However, for reference, I had Kevin Ho restore last year’s SDCC coverage here: The Kung Fu of Comic Cons – San Diego Comic-Con 2024 by Patrick Lugo and me.
Patrick and I reunited for SDCC 2025. Just before heading south, we saw each other for a screener which Patrick reviewed (see THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS - Fourth Time’s the Charm). But unlike last year, our paths diverged for most of SDCC25. We were on different quests; Patrick will deliver his own account, independent from mine. Stay tuned. That’s coming soon.
The Landing Party
Upon landing, I went directly to an invitation-only party from Den of Geek, where I freelance. Den, in cooperation with Nerdist and Geek Sundry, hosted a Game Party featuring games from Op Games replete with drinks, swag and snacks. I should’ve eaten more before indulging in so many cocktails, but fortunately, my Shaolin zuiquan skills are still functional. It was a great party, as always.
Earlier that week, Chris Longo, the Chief Creative Officer for Den of Geek, asked me if I wanted to check out a new Augmented Reality (AR) project with Sakamoto Days. I had watched an episode of it but hastily decided it was too derivative of my favorite anime The Way of the Househusband (I cosplayed Tatsu at SDCC23), so I blew the show off. Despite my misgivings, Sakamoto Days is extremely popular – a top-10 hit in 67 countries.
Being the diligent reporter that I am, I binged the whole remaining season in three nights just before SDCC25. And I now admit, I was wrong. It is not at all like The Way of the Househusband except for yakuza-gone-tame main story. Sakamoto Days is more caricature, especially with the fights. Anime fights can be outrageously exaggerated, which is an acquired taste. They're so cartoonish, which is exactly why they work. It's an element of classic cartoon Tom and Jerry ultravi, tossed together with a hyper color palette and wacky over-the-top images. Sakamoto Days is hilarious that way.
What sealed the deal for me was the character, Lu Xiaotang, who is introduced later in the show. Lu is the orphan daughter of a mob family with red hair and a long braid. And most of all, she’s a drunken Tai Chi fighter. However, she’s young and just learning how to drink. Her fights progress through various stages of drunkenness. Now I’m a dedicated fan of the show.
The AR project was by MEDIALIFE.AI which turned Mr. Sakamoto into a live, augmented reality experience. It started with the posters at the party which came alive when viewed through AR on my phone. Mr. Sakamoto stepped out of the poster and into the party. I spoke to Sofia Gorenstein, Founder & CEO of MEDIALIFE.AI, first at this party, and then at another private party Den hosted on Saturday. In the interim, her team went out into the Gaslamp district next to the convention center and AR tagged some of the building wraps. Sakamoto Days logos and image appeared on top of them as AR media. It was like the show’s opening scenes. “Reactions were priceless, you truly had to be there,” said Gorenstein. “People instantly pulled out their phones to check it out for themselves. It was effortless, magical, and completely unexpected for them. Families of all ages were delighted.” It was too much fun, like walking into Sakamoto Days in the Gaslamp.
Hopefully Lu will get the AR treatment next time.
Publisher’s Log Stardate 297438.3561643835
This year’s most glaring trend was Labubu. They’ve skyrocketed to a contender for Funko (but they won’t even get close – they’ve got to be a passing fad). And if you’re not nerd enough to grok that, well IYKYK (and if you don’t know what that acronym means, that would be ironic).
I’m definitely not into Labubu. What I was looking for was something from K-Pop Demon Hunters, but that was too hot and fresh. Anything remotely connected to that show was gobbled up early. This was my first time to I engage in Comic-con specials. These are exclusive limited-edition merch that can only be found at SDCC. It was a lesson on early birds and worms.
Some might question my K-Pop Demon Hunters fandom. In my defense, one of the three K-pop star demon hunters, Mira wields a woldo - the Korean cousin to one of my fav weapons, the guandao. I still practice guandao weekly. I love that weapon. And until this show, I had never heard the word ‘woldo’. I’m in it to further my understanding of Korean martial arts. At least, that’s my story.
On Friday, there was a panel that I missed: “Camera, Culture, Combat: Unveiling Filipino Martial Combat Legacy in Comics, Film, and Television.” It was an echo of a panel I saw last year and found fascinating. Unfortunately, I was chasing down another lead that panned out and placed me too far away from where it was held. SDCC is big. I walked 10 miles on Saturday and barely covered it.
I had a similar problem with “The Anthropology of Kung Fu Cinema,” a Saturday talk given by Eric Jacobus. Eric is an old friend. We featured him and his amazing stunt work in KungFuMagazine.com over the years. I had to get across the convention center and got horribly lost because two – TWO – staff people sent me in the wrong direction. I didn’t get there until the very end of his talk. Fortunately, Patrick got there for the whole thing, so stay tuned for Patrick’s take on it. And there just might be a sweepstakes for his new book, If These Fists Could Talk: A Stuntman’s Unflinching Take on Violence. Eric kindly gave me an autographed copy, but I have yet to tear into it for reasons explained in the Outro of this report.
The Away Team
Saturday night, my favorite DJ was playing in the Gaslamp district. The Gaslamp is the neighborhood that surrounds the convention center, and it is packed with activations, activities, and cosplay craziness. SDCC averages 130,000 badge holding attendees but even more come to the Gaslamp to enjoy the related festivities. You don’t need a badge for those. You just need to be willing to stand in long lines.
Luke is a serious Kung Fu practitioner that we’ve covered in KungFuMagazine.com before. The last time I saw Luke was at an exclusive private afterparty for World’s Away, a new EDM Festival that was launched in Monterey. That was last year.
This year, Luke was coming in hot. The weekend prior to SDCC, Luke was at Tomorrowland, a famous annual EDM festival held in Boom, Antwerp, Belgium. That afternoon, Luke played at a Vegas pool party. Two shows in one day – Vegas and SDCC.
Laidback Luke joined the SDCC Gaslamp scene at the Parq with a show called SuperYOU&ME, something he launched in 2008 out of his love of comics. He teamed up with Stan Lee and Todd McFarlane in 2012 to develop a super-suit just for this DJ party. In SuperYOU&ME, Luke takes classic themes like Star Wars and Superman and drops that bass in them. Cosplay is encouraged. It’s super fun.
The Parq is a nightclub designed for EDM, or any great show. It has dazzling lighting and a booming soundsystem. There are plenty of private tables, and if one buys a top shelf bottle of liquor, three women in lingerie and light sticks bring it out on a neon platter and serve the first round. Opening for Luke were Robot Sunrise and Linney. Laidback Luke came on sometime after midnight. For parts of his show, pink silhouettes of Kung Fu and Tai Chi were projected behind him. It was a great show, so much fun, and Luke threw me a Kung Fu salute from stage which I was honored to reciprocate.
I don’t know what time it ended. My phone was dying, and I broke my charger cable so I couldn’t recharge during the day. With no phone, I couldn’t summon a Lyft, so I had to go while I still had some phone juice. If worse came to worse, I could’ve walked back to the hotel. But I already logged over ten miles that day, not hard to do at SDCC because there’s always so much to see and do. I left just before 2AM and SuperYOU&ME was still raging. Given his insane tour schedule, I bow down to Laidback Luke’s DJ Kung Fu.
Twenty Twenty-five marks the 20th Anniversary of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Nickelodeon staged a huge installation. My Kung Fu cousin, Sifu Kisu’s fight choreography was groundbreaking (no earthbending pun intended). He wove traditional Kung Fu into the movements of the different benders, a brilliant showcase of our arts. What’s more, the villainous Fire Nation used Bak Sil Lum, the very same style that connects Kisu and me by lineage. When watching the show, if you’re a traditional Kung Fu aficionado, it works on a higher martial arts level. Once more, IYKYK. KungFuMagazine.com covered that show extensively, and Kisu was extremely kind to invite me as his guest to the premiere of The Legend of Korra at Nickelodeon studio. Accordingly, the Nickelodeon installation was a ‘must see’ for me.
Nickelodeon offered some gorgeous 20th Anniversary commemorative pins, exclusive for SDCC25, and I got in line to get some. But by the time I got to the front, they were sold out (I had a similar experience at the Godzilla store pop up in the Gaslamp). I wasn’t the early bird. No worms for me. I settled for a golden commemorative Aang figurine. After standing in that line for so long, I felt obligated to get something. Then I stood in another line for the photo experience, which was totally worth it. It was a free promotion and everyone who participated got a print in a cool 3D envelope plus animated graphic files for social media.
The thing about the long lines at SDCC is that they’re surprisingly fun. No matter what your fandom might be, you’ll find kindred spirits at SDCC. You can find your tribe, your clan, your people. Everyone is having a blast and sharing their favorite experiences of nerding out. When I was in that Godzilla line, there were these two guys in front of me dramatically debating something about Godzilla… in Italian. I don’t speak Italian outside beyond the scuola di scherma, but I could get some of the gist – Mothra was mentioned prominently. They were having a grand time with that wild Italian gesticulation.
Outro
Those that know me, know that my schedule gets crazy during the summer. I volunteer as a medic at concerts and music festivals, and summertime is when those festivals. And the weekend after SDCC25, I was scheduled to work Dead & Company 60, a three-day festival in Golden Gate Park. In the early nineties, I worked for the Grateful Dead as a consultant. It was the best job I’ve had so far. Who said you don’t get flashbacks? I only had a few days to shift gears from professional nerd to deadhead.
Switching gears from SDCC to D&C60 was challenging and complicating the shift was the news of the arrest of the Abbot of Shaolin Temple, Shi Yongxin, on embezzlement. During that week in between, my phone, my email, my direct messages, everything started blowing up. Everyone wanted to know what I thought and what I knew. And again IYKYK.
We had a head’s up that this might happen. The Shaolin North American Association staged a Shaolin Summit on June 16-18 this year. Part of that event was to erect a stele at Shaolin Temple for the North American Association. However, as that event drew closer, there were rumors that the Abbot was under investigation and that consequently, there would be no Chinese media coverage of this historic event.
From the beginning, Yongxin’s abbacy has been fraught with controversy. In 2006, I started documenting scandalous news on our KungFuMagazine.com forum in a thread titled Abbot Scandals. That thread is twelve pages long and including this latest news, contains over 170 posts.
I first met Yongxin in 1995, before he took abbacy. When he became abbot, many Shaolin followers re-discipled under him. Shaolin disciples take on names from this epic poem, each generation name is the next character in the poem. Yong is 33rd generation and Yan, which is the most prevalent now, is 34th. I was given the opportunity to re-disciple but I refused. When Yongxin became abbot, I was already a layman disciple under Shi Decheng. I was given the name Xinglong (32nd generation dragon). My Shaolin name is ‘dragon’ and there is no way I’m changing that.
My martial newsfeeds were flooded with stories on Yongxin’s arrest. The media loves stories about religious figures succumbing to sin. The Standard stated that Yongxin fathered 170 children and embezzled $41 billion USD. Those are outrageous numbers. Yongxin would’ve had to father a child every two months to have that many kids. Nowadays, it can be so challenging to determine what news is real and what is propaganda.
I’ve been asked if I knew if Yongxin was dirty. Honestly, he was always fair with me. Mind you, I’m press. Even more, I’m foreign press. Because of my position, I get treated differently. I get a unique perspective, but it’s one that my subjects want me to see.
Over Yongxin’s quarter century abbacy, he did a lot to improve the state of Shaolin. He launched innovative programs like the Duanpin grading system and Shaolin Kung Fu Games. He revived Shaolin medicine. He got Shaolin included in UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage list. Most of all, he cleaned up Shaolin village. You should’ve seen the place in the nineties before he became abbot.
I’ve been asked what happens next? I have no idea. I’m very curious where all his disciples stand. Yongxin must have hundreds of disciples. All the Official Shaolin Temple Cultural Centers around the world are run by Yan generation monks, direct disciples of Yongxin. What happens to the Games? The Duanpin system? Will the steles endorsed by Yongxin stand?
Shaolin has taught me that all things are impermanent. It’s a basic tenet of Buddhism.
When Yongxin took abbacy, he brought a lot of change including a controversial forced relocation of Shaolin village. I wrote an article with then editor Martha Burr about it. “Karmic Wheel Turns at Shaolin Temple: A controversy Erupts at Songshan” was published in our December 2000 issue. I concluded that article with some Buddhist philosophy that I adapted to fit Shaolin’s upheaval back then. That conclusion still holds true.
Karmic Wheel Turns at Shaolin Temple: A controversy Erupts at Songshan
by Martha Burr and Gene Ching, December 2000, page 67.
First is to suffer injury and injustice. Adversity is the result of past transgressions over countless eons of history, bearing the fruit of bad karma. A Shaolin follower must bear and accept it with an open heart and without complaint. By understanding suffering as opportunity, one advances on the path.
Second is to adapt to conditions. If Shaolin enjoys fame and fortune, it is the result of karma seeds sown in its previous incarnations. When the conditions change, this too will cease. Why be joyful about it?
Shaolin must remain unmoved by the winds of joy to follow its mysterious path.
Third is to seek nothing. Everyone in this world is blinded by delusions. They always covet some-thing, longing for more. For Shaolin, seeking is suffering, seeking nothing is bliss.
Fourth is to practice the Dharma. The word Dharma comes from the Sanskrit word for "hold." It is the teachings, ultimately free of impurity, defilement, and attachment. The true teachings of Shaolin Chan and kungfu will always endure when we practice mindfully.
About author:
Gene Ching is the Publisher of KungFuMagazine.com and the author of Shaolin Trips.
Thread:
https://www.kungfumagazine.net/forum/martial-media-culture-and-other-arts/off-topic/66554-comic-cons
https://www.kungfumagazine.net/forum/wai-jia-the-kung-fu-forum/shaolin-kung-fu/40469-abbot-scandals
