I was excited to attend Anime NYC this year, and it’s a convention that I feel will grow and continue to become even more amazing over time!
It took place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center over a perfect summer weekend, unlike the prior years it was right before Thanksgiving week, and with the cold weather it’s not a particular favorite time among vendors and attendees (especially the cosplaying ones).
Anime NYC had many food vendors, special guests, world premieres, the American Manga Awards, unique exhibitors, a gamers’ hall, and an artist alley. As always, getting to the convention is super accessible by public transportation.
Hands down I would say Anime NYC is a great convention for someone in the United States or internationally, to experience their first anime convention. The staff was excellent, the coordination of special events ran smoothly, and everything had a good flow overall. They truly cared about the convention-going experience, which is why they have so many returners. This pleasantly surprised me because I have been to so many American anime conventions which I would not recommend for first-timers ever.
The cosplay scene at Anime NYC was stunning, everyone from casual cosplayers to pro cosplayers all enjoying showing off their lovely outfits and people were being very respectful to the cosplayers personal space which was great. You could see many unofficial professional photography corners going on throughout the floors of Javits.
On Friday of Anime NYC, Creepy Nuts had their concert which I eagerly attended since being introduced to them in early 2024 from a popular Instagram reel dance move from the song Bling-Bang-Bang-Born, which is the anime opening song for Mashle: Magic and Muscles, and then naturally binging all their music on Spotify afterward. Hearing them live was amazing and I hope Creepy Nuts come back again to perform in local NYC venues.
Tickets for the Creepy Nuts concert went on sale in mid-July and sold out fairly quickly. At the concert, if you bought their CD and T-shirt (for only 40 dollars, very affordable) you could join their autograph session afterward, which fans did including myself. It was lovely seeing the Japanese fans also who flew in just to see them perform at the event and cried after the autograph session. This was a very intimate session for the attendees at the concert!
Anime NYC has a tier seating system for their seat assignments for events on the main stage which are very fairly priced, well labeled, and orderly when getting to your seats.
On Saturday and Sunday, I walked around the exhibitor floor, gaming hall, and artist alley, and was very much impressed by the talented artists that Anime NYC had this year. They picked them perfectly and I don’t think I saw any artists without crowds in front of them. The exhibitors were a healthy batch of large brands such as Aniplex, Bandai Namco, Crunchyroll, Netflix, Good Smile Company, HIDIVE, and some strictly just from Japan, as well as the usual local exhibitors we get on the East Coast. The gaming hall has several rows of game creators showing off their new games, and of course, the free-to-play arcades which are fun to play for all ages.
They also had the hololive STAGE World Tour’24 -Soar!- going on which was interesting to watch Vtubers interact with the fans on the exhibitor floor. I saw tons of merchandise for this genre of fans, which was the most I have seen outside Japan. The Hololive tour had their big panel on Saturday which sold out instantly so I wasn’t able to attend but I could only imagine it was everything the fans thought it would be!
Now you’re probably wondering about the food situation since after it’s the Javits Center, well I am here to let you know they had tons of local NYC Asian vendors there making sure we were all kept fed, while it was slightly pricey they gave you a decent amount of food and the lines moved very fairly quickly. My favorite part was the large sectioned-off area to sit down and eat since most conventions don’t usually give you that allocated space.
I very much enjoyed Anime NYC 2024, and I hope they will continue their momentum of becoming the best East Coast Japanese culture convention when they return in 2025 over the August 22nd weekend!
Were you at Anime NYC? If so, what are your thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment below or chat with us on Twitter/X at @TheConCollectve, Threads at @theconventioncollective, or Bluesky at @theconcollective.bsky.social
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