The past two days we spent over 13 hours at AnimeNYC, the annual anime convention in New York.

That’s the entrance to the convention center. There was a bit of a wait to get in each day since lines were very long, but the process was smooth and to my surprise they didn’t even check bags (aside from everyone walking through a detector).

I took these photos of the main floor from a viewing balcony upstairs. Here we see some of the large booths just inside the entrance, mostly for manga publishers and game companies.

This photo looks in the opposite direction at various other booths including one from Friskies (yes, the cat food company) which was unexpectedly one of the most popular booths of the show since they gave out freebies and printed customized trading cards of your cat! (We didn’t line up but I read the wait was over an hour!)

That shows half of ‘artist alley’, which is our favourite part of the show. In nearly 600 stalls, amateur artists sell their own work. Much of our time at the con was spent here.

There’s an average view from the show floor. Crowds were intense and sometimes too thick to walk easily. Today was busier than yesterday, and the excess of people made finding a quiet spot to rest or using a toilet a challenge!

Since it was where we spent most of our time, I wanted to showcase ‘artist alley’. The above is a photo of a typical artist’s booth. Most usually sell prints, pins, keychains, stickers, postcards and some sell stuffed toys, t-shirts or acrylics as well. All the merchandise features the art of the stall holder. Most of these artists are young women, and the topics of their art vary from ‘cute’ to ‘horror’ to ‘romance’ to just weird. Sometimes the art is anime-themed, but just as often it’s not.

Here’s another booth. This woman’s art was exceptional, and we bought some prints from her. Prices vary a lot, from small items (stickers usually) for a few dollars up to large acrylics or tapestries for well over a hundred. Most of our purchases were made in artist alley, and I’ll do a follow-up post detailing what we bought in a few days.

That’s a ‘behind the scenes’ of a typical booth. I’ve watched YouTube videos some of these creators have made about the process of working at a con, and it’s amazing that often it’s just one person. She arrives to an empty table and a single chair, and had to set up and stock the booth by herself! It’s a lot of work, but for popular artists can pay off in a big way. I’ve read that this con in particular can be one of the most profitable in the world, and artists come from as far as Australia to sell at AnimeNYC!

Back over a decade ago when we went to New York Comic Con the artist alley offerings usually started and ended at colour prints. These days the prints often include texturing or foils, and some even have heat or water-activated coatings. They can be printed on metal, cloth, acrylic or even wood. The artist above sold their original art printed into acrylic plates and enhanced with multiple foil layers. They weren’t cheap, but they were dazzling when the light caught them!

Many artists sell original art as well, and some even do sketch commissions on the spot (we saw some long lines for these today). The above was a small (2 x 2 inches) sketch in a ‘shikishi board’ and she had a sign that she’d be putting newer ones out as she finished them.

My favourite artist was a guy who was passing time hand carving rubber stamps! We found him yesterday and I returned today with a postcard to get an impression (which he didn’t charge for) which you can see above. His talent was prodigious, especially since he just did this as a hobby. I tried to buy one of his stamps but he wasn’t selling! He also had another hobby, but you’ll read about that one when I blog what we purchased…

That’s the Hololive vtuber booth, which much like last year was the most popular location at the convention. Vtubers appeared live on the big screen and interacted with the very enthusiastic crowd. Today there were so many people clustered around the booth they had a bunch of employees controlling the crowds to keep an avenue open for people to walk past!

That’s an independent vtuber; one of many scattered around the show that you could talk to. Vtubers are ‘virtual YouTubers’ where a (usually anime styled) avatar is controlled by a human actor. The person on the screen in the photo is the digital puppet of a girl that could have been anywhere in the world at that moment. Vtubers are a phenomenon now, and remarkably popular consider you may have never heard of them!

This professional model was at a booth for a new mobile game. With the stage, perfect lighting and the professional costume she was the spitting image of the game character she was portraying. Of course the average con-goer doesn’t look half as good as she does, but these days cosplay is a big part of the con (of any con) and a decent chunk of participants attend in costume. Here’s a few of the better ones I saw:

I’m not sure what this exactly is. It looks like the character Chiikawa, but isn’t exactly correct. It was gigantic, and just sort of bobbed around just inside the convention center, as if the person inside could barely move. If this wasn’t some sort of promotion, I imagine someone spent ages making it!

This trio was upstairs on the cosplay level. That’s a Mandalorian and a ‘slave Leia’ and I’m not sure who the third guy is. I believe that’s the Puerto Rican flag, and they had a whole choreographed routine. This group was very popular, with a large crowd photographing them.

This guy – portraying Pochita’s true form was also very popular. I saw him a few times and he always had a massive crowd stopping him to take photos. Chainsaw Man was a popular character for cosplay but most used the red version so I think this guys advanced depiction earned him special attention.

This was my favourite, and she was as charming as she looks. The character is Shirahoshi the giant mermaid from One Piece (see the tiny Luffy in her cleavage?) and she made the entire costume herself. She said the scales alone, which were sewn on individually and made of some sort of glittery fabric, took her about a month! When she walked she sort of glided along the floor and it was very convincing.

There were loads and loads (hundreds actually) of shops selling anime and manga and figures and games and cosplay equipment and so many other things. There were gacha machines (some outrageously expensive), lots of booths from companies advertising their newest offerings. There were panels and dozens of celebrities doing autographs. There was an entire floor dedicated to card and board games. In short there was more than you could reasonably see in only two days, and we were happy to stay mostly in the main room aside from a quick walk through the gaming center.

Speaking of celebrities the highlight of the con for me was seeing Tetsuo Kurata. He was the lead actor in Kamen Rider Black, a series I loved, and it was a little emotional seeing him in person. Through his translator I expressed my admiration for his work and I got a fist bump from Kamen Rider Black himself. I’ll remember that for a long time 🙂

It’s late and I’m very tired and I think this post is long enough. As I’m sure is obvious we had a great time and we’ll surely be returning for AnimeNYC 2027!