Anime NYC 2019 Friday Gallery by Adam Etheridge

Anime NYC returned to the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City for its third annual convention on November 15-17 this year.

When reading discussion regarding the convention on social media prior to the convention, I’ve seen people use the word “small” when describing the event on a number of occasions. This is likely because these people are comparing Anime NYC to another convention held at the same venue — New York Comic Con.

Although Anime NYC does not draw as many attendees as NYCC, there is, and never really was anything “small” about the convention. Anime NYC drew 20,000 fans in its first year, 36,000 in its second, and although I do not have exact attendance numbers for this year’s convention at this time, it was clear that attendance grew even higher in its third year. (Ed. Note: AnimeNYC got back to Adam. Attendance this year was 46,000, and the total square footage used at the Javits was 427,000 sq. ft., up from 350,000 sq. ft. in 2018.)

The event does not occupy the entire convention center, but the organizers have increased the amount space they utilize each year to accommodate all of the fans, vendors, and guests in attendance. Whether you’re talking about the overall size of the event, the dealer’s room, artist’s alley, the guest list, or anything else regarding the convention, Anime NYC does basically everything BIG.

Anime NYC had a huge guest list full of popular voice actors, anime creators, manga authors and more, from across America and around Japan. Those in attendance this year included Rie Kugimiya, Aoi Yuiki, Erika Harlacher, Todd Haberkorn, VOFAN, and Mamoru Yokota, just to name a few.

Gaming was also a big part of Anime NYC, and attendees could enjoy over 40 video games direct from Japan courtesy of Tokyo Attack!, and participate in tabletop freeplay and tournaments courtesy of Foam Brain Games.

The exhibit hall grew even larger than last year, with hundreds of dealers and artists in attendance, offering attendees a wide variety of collectibles, artwork, apparel, manga, games, and other merchandise. The amount of space utilized and number of vendors in attendance has quickly grown to make Anime NYC’s exhibit hall one of the largest of any anime convention on the east coast.

Exclusive anime screenings, a masquerade, and the Lantis Matsuri anisong concert (which was a separately ticketed event that sold out), were among the many other big attractions and events at Anime NYC this year.

Big issue
I’ve stressed how big everything at Anime NYC was this year, and although this was a good thing in many ways, it also resulted in some very apparent growing pains for the convention.

Perhaps the most egregious example of this was the situation with cosplay meetups. Anime NYC asked that fans who wanted to host a cosplay meetup submit a request via a form on their website. These requests were then compiled and listed on Anime NYC’s official website. That in itself was a good thing, as it gives more visibility to these groups to attendees that may be cosplaying characters in the various fandoms.

However, there were a couple of big missteps here. First, the organizers apparently allowed the hosts to hold their meetups at whatever time they requested. This resulted in multiple meetups being scheduled for the same time, which during some peak times led to 4 to 5 meetups all being held at the same time.

Also, the event organizers stated that all cosplay meetups would be held in the same area; the South Concourse of the Javits Center. Although this is a fairly large area which could suffice for a couple of meetups to be held at the same time, it was not nearly large enough for the amount of meetups that were scheduled to run concurrently during peak times. This area turned into an absolute clusterfuck during the early to late afternoon hours on Saturday, which led to many cosplayers simply walking away and skipping the meetups, and a cramped and tense situation for those that stayed. To quote a post from one of my Facebook friends: “OOF THE MEETUPS. I was at the MHA meetup..it was terrifying.”

The exhibit hall also felt overcrowded during the peak hours of the convention. It felt so cramped at times, I felt like I was back at NYCC. The Artist’s Alley, which was housed by itself on the top floor of the Javits last year, was moved into the exhibit hall with everything else this year. This was a double-edged sword, as although it was convenient to have everything in one location, it added to the volume of people in the area, which became a bit overwhelming at times.

In its first two years, Anime NYC was a convention that managed to have a large amount of content, while maintaining a sort of mid-sized convention charm. This year, the event lost some of that charm.

Despite these setbacks, I still consider Anime NYC to be a good convention that I would recommend to most anime fans. I feel like Anime NYC has everything in place to become a truly great event, and I believe the issues I mentioned can be solved by the organizers to achieve that greatness. This is an event I touted as possibly becoming the gold standard of what is achievable for a new convention, and I have faith that the organizers will get back on that track next year.

Anime NYC will return to the Jacob K. Javits Center on November 20-22, 2020.

Cosplayers in this gallery include Elizabeth Rage, Starlight Goddess Cosplay, _imsofvckinsick, kcosplayer, moknowsdesign, intaxkt, reborn_humanoid, crazycosplay, patriciakashek, cafecrazednekochan, Cherrie Cosplay, triotrin.cosplay, mistajollof, otaku_girl365, and many more.

We now use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.

To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.