Story Behind Initial Mile

Hi Everyone. Welcome to Initial Mile.

I'm Kelvin Brillante. Some of you may know me as the martial artist, the triathlete, cosplayer or the one dude behind the camera taking photos or videos of your cosplay! As a certified exercise physiologist with a passion for fitness, fascination for anime and overall design and art, I had the desire to create something that would allow me to share the best of both worlds. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I took the opportunity to dive into this unique idea I had and Initial Mile was born. With my formal education in Kinesiology, 15+ years of working in the fitness industry, experience as an amateur fighter, competitive endurance athlete and inspiration from the anime universe, Initial Mile follows a hybrid training method. Initial Mile provides free visual workouts, anime inspired hybrid workouts, training programs and anime related content in an effort to inspire, motivate and help you adapt, evolve and ascend into the hero of your universe whether that means going Super Saiyan, Plus Ultra or achieving A-Class Hero rank.

About Anime Fan and Fitness Festival

Anime Fan and Fitness Festival was the first kind of "fusion" anime and fitness events that debuted in Gilroy, California on September 6, 2025. The mission for this event was to introduce both worlds to one another; anime fans meet fitness and fitness enthusiasts meets anime.

Proudly presented by Initial Mile, Anime Fan and Fitness Festival has a goal to help fans from both worlds live a fit, creative and balanced lifestyle, support small businesses by giving them the opportunity to share their own passions with the community and bring high-quality entertainment at a price that won't dent the wallet. Whether you're a lifelong anime fan, a die-hard cosplayer, fitness enthusiast, or a curious newcomer, there's something here for everyone. Every positive, good-vibe warrior is welcome.

Meet Orkai the Gray Guy and Kyraga the Trusty Husky

Balancing my fitness lifestyle with my artsy-fartsty, creative mind, and through many modifications and updates, I created Initial Mile's original characters, Orkai, the gray guy and Kyraga the trusty husky.

Orkai originally started off as a simple clip art that was used for my early visual workouts back in 2020. I was just learning how to create clip arts during the pandemic and had no digital art skills, so I simply learned how to create basic clip arts of exercises in the form of silhouettes. As I was working through the concept, I tried to create a character that got too "complicated" and went back to keeping it simple thus a gray silhouette transformed into a character with some muscles. Orkai presents himself as a joyful, curious and affectionate warrior who always has a positive outlook.

Kyraga was inspired by our family husky, Jasmine. Our husky is not your typical husky. Most huskies want to jump, play, "sing" and go for long runs. Our husky is like a cat! She's quiet, rarely sings unless excited, loves to bask in the sun, hates running but will turn on the "protection" button when it comes to strangers approacing our family. Essentially she loves her quiet "me time" but is ready to fight when she needs to. This is exactly the personality of Kyraga, wears a cat mask because most of the time, he lives the cat life and keeps to himself majority of the time but will step up when necessary.

These two characters met while passing through anime univeres and since have spent their lives traveling together through anime universes to learn new methods of training and gaining new knowledge from masters of the unknown.