After eight months worth of conventions I can finally say my journey across New Jersey, Long Island, and New York City is finally complete. And now I get to spend the rest of the year (as well as the first four months of 2020) in the comfort of my own home doing what I usually do. Resting, chatting with friends, and making stuff. And after the ride that was 2019's fall son season, I feel as if I deserve a break.
So how was AnimeNYC 2019, you may ask? Well it was a great con- but in ways it was a bit of a step down from AnimeNYC 2018. You see, complicated scheduling issues and other such issues prevented me from visiting the convention on Friday. So instead I opted to go Saturday and... wow.
First off, the convention was massively packed as the con was now in its third year of operation and word of mouth combined with a possible push to make the con more wide-spread and commercialized(?) lead to attendee numbers exploding. Second, both the dealer's room and artist's alley doubled in size- to the point where the artist alley had to move down with the dealer's room to accommodate for the larger number of artists selling prints. This had its ups and downs- for one the artist's alley was no longer in risk of having its artists getting baked under the sunlight of the glass walls of the balcony where it was located in 2017 and 2018 and you could transition between the dealer's room and the artist's alley in the blink of an eye, but that also meant that the crowded-ness of the dealer's room bled into the artist's alley and instead of walking on carpet which didn't drain your stamina as quickly as cement... well, you were now walking on cement. Additionally, a few prolific artists I've met at the con in 2017 that also attended AnimeNYC 2018 were completely absent. The list is too big to describe in full but while some managed to come back a second or even third year, others were left out.
Because of the absurd expansion to the Artist's Alley and with how nearly every booth had a big crowd in front, I ended up meeting and chatting with less artists overall compared to 2017/2018. I met up with the ones I wanted to see, yes, but it's a bit disappointing when I ultimately ignored what felt like 80% of the artists. So the one thing I looked forward to for the convention didn't really live up to expectations, so what else was there to enjoy?
Well, the cosplay of course. As I mentioned, typical comic cons don't really have enough worthwhile cosplays that it's worth going around snapping pics, but since this was an anime con, I had my phone's camera on the ready and snapped a plethora of pics, resulting in the second-largest collection of photos yet at 162 unique cosplay shots. It didn't break the record set by AnimeNEXT 2019 at 190 but it still was a number to be proud of and I was snapping pics form the moment I got there to when the con ended- even venturing into the first floor food court which I never thought I would ever do.
If you want to see the outcome, here's the entire gallery for your viewing pleasure:
Link
Panel-wise the only panel that interested me enough on the day I went (Saturday) was the Gkids panel. They showcased some upcoming releases but everyone got the most hyped about Promare when it was announced it would get more screenings in the city. There was even a raffle at the end of the panel and predictably I didn't win anything (but I got a good laugh when for one of the prizes, I was off by one number). The other panels I was interested in didn't interest me enough to the point where I wanted to diverse from my "schedule" and attend, and the only other panel I would have went to see (the Into Creates panel) was the day prior, and according to one of my friends it was largely disappointing with no Gunvolt-related announcements to speak of.
I left the con at around 8:30. I intended to stick around for about an hour and a half longer but the garage that I paid to park my car while I attended the con was not willing to hold onto the car for much longer before it would force me to walk to the car and get it by hand. Plus, my legs were starting to fail on me from ten hours of endless walking with not much sitting so I took a few final pics of the Javetz Center as I did with NYCC and left.
And that was the end of eight months worth of conventions. There were two other minor local comic conventions hosted in early June and late October but they were not significant enough to warrant putting into the infographic. I also considered attending Derpycon 2019 but I had to choose between that and the local con, and the local con won.
So what's in for the rest of the year? Well, I'm going to go on break from cons because the holidays are fast-approaching and I have some things I want to work on, namely finishing up some Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart projects and possibly get back into sprite-ripping for The Spriters' Resource afterwards. as for 2020, I have no plans to attend any sort of con until Castle Point Anime Convention in May.
Until next time, see ya, and happy holidays.
