Looks like it’s finally time to update the travel log, huh?
Last month, I attended two events in the state of New Jersey: NJIT Minicon and Castle Point Anime Convention. One of these events should be familiar to anyone that has frequented this blog in recent years, the other is a relative newcomer to the anime convention scene that is currently only in its first year. Since I assume you all know how these event coverage blogposts work, I’ll cut to the chase and begin with our first subject:
The journey of 2025’s conventions began with NJIT Minicon, a small yet charming bite-size anime convention that made me nostalgic for when anime conventions were generally smaller and less expensive to attend or sell at. A time period that I had experienced very little of before lockdown would hit and forever change the landscape of the bigger and more mainstream anime conventions as you know them. True to the event’s name, much of the event took place on a smaller venue space than what’s common in conventions in the modern day, being located at the New Jersey Institute of Technology Campus Center, specifically the entirety of the building’s second floor.
After registering for a badge and acquiring your convention guide pamphlet, you would head upstairs to the second floor where much of the event would take place proper. The event was hosted for only a single day: Sunday April 6th. Thus, much of the event’s setup period took place in the morning, assuming the event had no “Day 0” to set booths up before opening the following day. Attendees were allowed to enter at 10AM and the vendors and artists’ alley became accessible at 11AM. Aside from the vendors and artists, there was a small manga library in the main lobby, some small CRT’s running Nintendo GameCube consoles, a “Main Events” stage for opening/closing ceremonies and panels back down on the first floor, three panel rooms, and two tournament rooms. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the event was its theming, and I’ll admit, it’s certainly what got me hooked on attending NJIT Minicon in the first place. The original advertisement flyer I picked up back at DerpyCon in 2024, the event’s convention guide pamphlet, and various signage across the event were all themed around the ever-so-popular RPG Persona 5. The Phantom Thieves graced pretty much every sign at the event, and in a clever design choice, the panel rooms were each labeled numbers 3, 4, and 5, featuring the appropriate Persona protagonist on the sign next to the panel rooms’ doors. It was a clever design choice, though it did leave me wondering if there was a Panel Room 1 or 2 for a moment.
Stepping inside the vendors’ room at 11AM, which was the inside of the box-shaped ring of halls that made up the majority of the con’s attractions, displayed the event’s “Mini” namesake in a bigger light. Under 30 artists were set to appear at the event, and only four vendor booths were present. It was easily the second-smallest set of vendors I have seen yet when both vendors and artists are factored in, with the only event having it beat in "smallest number of tables at an event" is EMCon. The remaining space was taken by booths advertising other local New Jersey events in the area, including Castle Point and DerpyCon. Even with the very small number of vendors, I still found myself enjoying the vendors section of the convention quite a lot—with the lower attendance numbers it was a lot easier moving from booth to booth and being able to converse with artists without straining my vocal cords after hours of trying to raise my voice to speak through my mask is always appreciated. And the over-saturation of a single franchise/series wasn’t really a factor with the limited number of artists present at the event.
With the things to do at the event being limited in scope, I mostly stuck to hanging in the Artist’s Alley, although I would take frequent walks through the halls surrounding the vendors to pass time. The panel rooms were surprisingly active throughout the day, as were the two tournament rooms. The three tournaments that were run that day were no-brainers: All day was a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament, in Tournament Room 1, and Tournament Room 2 ran Street Fighter 6 for the first half of the day and Tekken 8 for the second half. Other games were run on the two GameCube setups in the main hall and there were tabletop gaming setups intact, though I had very little reason to engage with them as I can imagine sinking away too much time from what I considered the important parts of the event.
As the day went on, the weather would improve throughout, from overcast to moderately cloudy. I continued to converse with the artists at the event, passing time by leaving the vendors’ section and checking out the rest of the venue. I would stop for a lunch break partway through, although the burgers I had were not exactly fresh by the time I got them. Probably should have opted for something else but I was in a bit of a rush so the burger would suffice till I got home that day. And then closing time arrived and I wrapped up my last remaining chats and farewells with the artists before 6PM struck, taking one final stroll along the hallways as well as outside the building NJIT Minicon took place to reflect on the day. I would pack my bags and leave with six commissions in total and several new connections , riding off driving out of New Jersey to the sight of the setting sun amongst a now-cleared sky. Overall, the event surprised me, perhaps in a way that was different than most other anime conventions I’ve gone to in the area. After describing the event to a friend of mine on Twitch, she would bring up that the event felt very similar to a relic from a bygone era: A 2000’s and early 2010’s era anime convention, back before increasing budgets would forever shape the landscape of the modern day anime con for years to come. Attendance was low, admission was cheap, there were no notable big-name guests present, and there was no over saturation of one singular franchise in the artist’s alley. NJIT Minicon was a much more chill and stress-free event after having gone to many more expensive events with larger gatherings of attendees and vendors/artists (or being too small for its attendance numbers, as AnimeNJ++ has shown). As for what I left the event with, there was not enough cosplayers for a cosplay photoshoot, but I did score six commissions in total, all of which can be seen here.
With that said, we have one more event to cover today, and that is of course none other than Castle Point Anime Convention 2025. This visit would mark my eighth time total attending Castle Point, and now that I was warmed up for the con season with NJIT Minicon, it was time for something bigger in scale. Driving and parking was no issue for the event and when I finally got out of my car after an hour and a half on the road, I… immediately began taking pics of cosplays at the event. Yup. The cosplay photo shoots were back in swing once more after four months on hiatus. I didn’t get any new fancy tech that would enable better shots, instead sticking with my old and reliable iPhone camera for the entire trip, snapping pictures and some video clips of the venue in-between the various cosplay shots. After getting the first round of cosplay photos, I made my way inside the Meadowlands Exposition Center.
Now in the main space of CPAC 2025, one look around and you’ll see that, layout wise, not much has changed. The artists and vendors’ sections remained pretty much identical to last year, the former hosting 100 distinct booths as it typically does and the latter serving as the central hub for a ton of anime merchandise. It seems that the idea of having lines to enter the vendors’ hall and artist’s alley has been fully abolished, as not once did the staff members stop and force attendees into lines, even during the hours where both sections were at their peak. Perhaps the lines made sense back when the event was run at a college, but with the move to a larger expo center, there was little need for any sort of monitoring people entering and exiting specific parts of the convention. Of course, that made transitioning between sections a lot more seamless, compared to when lines were enforced up to 2023’s event. As for the Artist’s Alley itself, I came out with seven total commissions, although I did struggle a fair bit to find the artists that were open for them. One of the commissions was ordered so late that I effectively had to rush back ten minutes before the Artist’s Alley closed to grab it and post the commission onto social media. It was worth it, but wow, what a rush! Overall I got a lot of value out of the Artist’s Alley this year, and it’s no wonder why I see it as such an important part of almost every event I attend.
I actually do have a bit more to post in regards to the Artist Alley at CPAC this year, but for now let’s move on. Aside from the Artist’s Alley, I would gradually wander the man halls of the Expo Center to collect more cosplay shots, viewing the section opposite of the vendors and artist’s. The Cosplay Photo Booth section of the event was moved towards the front of the hall, in which cosplayers could have professional-grade photos taken against various themed backdrops. One of the options for a background was a field of Sakura trees, fitting for an event that takes place in the middle of Spring and is usually associated with elements of springtime in Japan as a result. Moving past the Photo Booth, you would arrive at the gaming section of the event, and it felt oddly lacking in certain departments compared to previous years. The four-player Gundam game was no where to be found, and the remaining lineup was the traditional anime con video gaming role call: Modern FGC fighters, anime fighters, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and an assortment of Japanese arcade games (rhythm games and a two-player Initial D machine). The rest of the space had spaces for various tabletop and card games, including a whole station for learning and playing Richi Mahjong. As with last year, tournaments for the more noteworthy staples of modern-day fighting games were also held and streamed live, including the then-recently released Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (mis-labeled as an Arc System Works on the program guide), complete with live commentary. Unfortunately there was no space on the event floor to spectate the tournament, and with dedicated fighting game events coming up later in the year (both to spectate online and attend in-person) as well as other ways to play these console games at home or at a Round 1 arcade, I mostly ignored the gaming section save for brief intermissions from the rest of the event. It did close much later than the rest of the event, going past the Vendors’ and Artists’ closure time of 7:00 PM and lasting up until the Day 1 end-of-day event, CPAC the Dance, took place.
For the rest of the main venue space, special guests for the event were just beside the gaming area, though with how large the lines for them usually got at this event, I chose not to get in line, especially when this was already a pretty expensive event and I needed all the money for next weekend’s Garden State Anime Fest. The theater for live stage shows was next, and like last year the volume was tuned to appropriate levels to not blast the entire event with music. Live shows and a few panels were held at the stage, including both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the event. But by far the show’s biggest star, and the one everyone piled up to this event to visit, was Emi Niita. Following most of the rest of the event closing for the day, this music artist and voice actor would take the stage Saturday evening to perform for an hour, signing various songs to perhaps the biggest crowd of attendees CPAC has ever had for one of its guests. No, really. The audience was so enormous that a small crowd gathered outside the seated areas to spectate. This was where I stood to catch the final few songs of the performance, with a big selfie of Emi Niita and all of the audience cheering behind her. It was a very pleasant experience, and it was awesome to see CPAC bring in such a big guest from abroad. If live concerts aren’t your thing, the event had plenty of panels across the two days of the event. Some of these panels I definitely would have tried to catch if I was not busy with the Artist’s alley and cosplay pictures, but I did make it out to one panel this year, and it’s one you may recognize: The Dad Panel. It was back and full force and was just as incredible to experience in person as last year, though once again there was (to my knowledge at least) no archived recording of the panel. Although it was funny getting to see my own phone get used as a prop when I got a Shiny Lucario from Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket literally earlier that day (One of the hosts who played the role of “Dad” played as a Team Rocket grunt, if you need the context).
With everything else covered, I suppose it’s time to discuss trends, as I typically do for these bigger anime cons.
To the shock of no one, One Piece saw a pretty big amount of representation at the event, for its huge genre-spanning appeal and it’s status as one of the biggest anime series of the modern era. Zoro was probably the one character I saw the most of amongst the main cast, with at least five of them roaming around the event on Saturday.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was once again a very recurring sight, with pretty much every part from 3 to 7 seeing some kind of presence amongst the many cosplayers at the show. I particularly got a kick out of the one Jotaro cosplayer that created a Star Platinum replica to rest on his body and carried it all over the event. It was a form of dedication you don’t see that very often, and for that I admire the dedication to the craft.
For newer anime series, DanDaDan and Delicious Dungeon (That’s a lot of the usage of the letter D in a single sentence) came in swinging with a fair amount of representation. It helps that both series had cosplay meetups across the two days of the event.
One series I saw some nice representation of was Devil May Cry. It wasn’t a monstrous number but it was still three Dante’s and a Lady or perhaps two, which is a pretty good amount for a video game series not named… err, Genshin or Honkai. All this sudden representation may have all been due to the new anime series that dropped on Netflix, but I am fully basking in it while it’s still around.
Sonic got its fair share of cosplayers, including a few Shadows on Saturday and a whole group of Sonic cosplayers representing the full squad the day after. Call it hype from the recent movies as well as the monumental success of Sonic x Shadow Generations, but I’ve always been a Sonic guy at heart and will respect any representation it has out here in the anime convention space.
Speaking of Sega, special shoutouts go to a duo of Jet Set Radio cosplayers dressed as Beat and Gum respectively. Not often do you see representation of a classic Dreamcast-era Sega franchise out here on the anime convention floors.
Personally, one of the overall winners of this event for me was a cosplay of Shiver from Splatoon 3. It was a whole body suit with a full face mask and everything, and it surprised me with just how much it looked like the real deal. I wanted to give this one a special shoutout as well since a lot of labor and love definitely went into a cosplay like this. It’s right next to the Low-Poly Cloud Strife cosplay for me on how much the cosplayer committed to the bit.
There is one franchise here that I have yet to mention, and it’s been something of a growing issue in many of these larger anime events for some time. Genshin Impact, as well as its sister titles Honkai Star Rail and (to a lesser extent) Zenless Zone Zero, have continued their raging dominance through the landscape of the modern-day anime event. While the current pricing for anime convention Artist’s Alley tables has forced creators to stick to very specific “trends” that sell well in anime circles, primarily top Shonen franchises like One Piece, Jojo, and Demon Slayer alongside newer anime series like DanDaDan, Genshin and Honkai have both seen massive sweeping success in Artist Alley booths since roughly 2023. And sure, some anime and games have had surges of representation in the Artist’s Alley, but absolutely nothing has put a dent in the momentum these Chinese gacha games have maintained in the anime art space. And Castle Point Anime Convention has made me notice this in the spotlight more than any other event in recent times, as a good number of artists have had boots that catered to selling prints, buttons, keychains, and stickers featuring the playable casts of the two games. It got to the point that I decided to take a good long look at why these two games flipped the entire anime art community on its head—reading up a bunch of discussion posts as well as some further research from a friend of mine who was very close to the anime con scene:
The creators of the games, MiHoYo, have explicitly said that selling Genshin, Honkai, and Zenless Zone Zero mech is completely A-OK in Artist Alleys. Contrast this to most anime series where trying to sell fan-made merchandise on Etsy has led to artists being forced to take down the art in question, and in a few rare instances they have also been asked to take their art down in the middle of an event!
The characters and art style appeal exactly to the demographics of the current era of anime artist allies, both to the kinds of artists that get accepted in and to attendees. Combine that with the overall popularity of the games (they’re free to play after all) and it’s no wonder why Genshin and Honkai has so much representation at these events.
The games have a longer shelf life than most anime, which run for a season’s worth at a time (and maybe an extra season or two) before concluding and fading out of relevancy. Only Shonen Jump properties have been able to survive for longer thanks to how much they appeal to many kinds of anime fans, and some like One Piece or MyHero are just too big to be forgotten about by newer anime series.
Everything I listed above only seems to apply to larger anime con artist alleys, which is currently only Castle Point and AnimeNYC; Smaller events like NJIT Minicon, Garden State Anime Fest, and DerpyCon have smaller artist alleys that prevent any one franchise from gaining dominance. And sure, NYCC has its recurring staples in its even more enormous artist’s alley, but the staples that are there (Marvel, DC Comics, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) have far longer legacies than anything MiHoYo has created and don’t detract from other, smaller projects as well as indie works. It’s also surprising how much comic artist alleys encourage supporting the original works and stories of different artists just as much as it encourages buying fan-merch of your favorite properties, compared to anime conventions where it’s rare to see someone promoting and selling copies of their own comic or manga. In the end, that should paint a picture on why Genshin and Honkai have been running amok in anime artist alleys for some time now, especially since it’s also been a hot topic amongst a buddy or two of mine. Then again most of it does not apply to me as I only exclusively order commissions of my characters and will only snag prints under rare circumstances.
But anyways, 7:00 PM was fast approaching, the vendors were closing up, and the artists were gradually taking their leave. I would grab the last of the commissions I ordered at the event, say my goodbyes, and spend the rest of the evening wandering the event. The final moments of the day were spent getting a few more cosplay shots and spectating people in the gaming area. During this time, the sun was beginning to set, and somehow the exact formation of clouds and sun baked the area outside in a golden glow. When I returned inside, I saw Emi Niita was live on-stage and did what any other person would do: join the crowd and enjoy some tunes. It was spectacular; especially with all the glow sticks being waved and lights going off in every direction and color. Wow. Seriously, wow. Emi Niita would conclude her show and take her leave, but not before taking a photo with the crowd. It was a really heartwarming moment to end the day. After the concert concluded, I returned to browsing what was left of the event, catching up with a close buddy of mine in the gaming area and grabbing the last few cosplay shots of the event. The sun had fully set outside, and I departed the Meadowlands Expo Center to return home. Overall, Castle Point 2025 was another success of an event, though I feel like there was something lacking in the Artist’s Alley this year (aside from the surplus of Genshin and Honkai merch in the Artist Alley) compared to 2024, and the gaming area felt like it was missing something. It was still a great event, just not one that was at the absolute peak.
Before I depart to start up Part 2, which will cover Garden State Anime Fest and Cradle Con, you can see the final gallery of cosplay shots at the event, as well as the full commission haul.
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