Anime NYC was incredibly impressive, even as someone not really into anime

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to do more things that I would normally avoid. Whether that’s various mixers to challenge my deeply introverted tendencies or concerts for games I otherwise have little interest in, I’m making a concerted effort to broaden my horizons.

But nowhere is that more applicable than my latest one-day excursion to New York City. Originally, I was only planning to go for Final Fantasy New World, an intimate concert experience focused on the music of my all-time favourite series, in between Fan Expo Canada. After all, this was a special 10th-anniversary show featuring Final Fantasy XIII and VII Rebirth composer Masashi Hamauzu, so I was eager to meet him. (Thankfully, I did, and it was wonderful!) But with the concert taking place in the evening, I needed something to do during the day, and lo and behold, I saw that Anime NYC was happening.

Now, I should preface this by saying I’m not really an anime guy. I don’t have anything against it, per se, outside of some people with anime profile pictures; it’s just that my interests are primarily in gaming and film. I really don’t watch a lot of TV in general, American, Japanese or otherwise. (Anime films, on the other hand, I tend to really enjoy, from the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon to one-offs like Promare and Belle.)

However, I wanted to kill the time, so I decided to request a media pass and check out Anime NYC. Therefore, I went in with little in the way of expectations, and to my delight, I came out very impressed with the whole experience. Here’s why.

Anime of all kinds

As mentioned, I do vibe with some types of anime, particularly in the film space. For that reason, I was pleased to see a great variety of both anime films and TV series that cater to different audiences. For the bigger anime fans, there were premieres for the likes of the Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween movie and Ranma ½ and Dan Da Dan series. The English and Japanese voice casts, as well as the composer, were even in attendance for that last show.

None of that really appeals to me, admittedly, but what did was the world premiere of Netflix’s Terminator Zero anime series. It already had my attention as a Japan-set story that isn’t yet again about the Connors or even Kyle Reese, and the involvement of creator and showrunner Mattson Tomlin (The Batman) and director Masashi Kudō (Bleach) and animation studio Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, which I recently watched and adored) had me even more interested. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to the panel + premiere (it was at the same time as the FF concert), but I would have absolutely tried to go otherwise.

Only 2 more days for Terminator Zero!
Take a look at what happened this weekend when Mattson Tomlin, Masashi Kudō, and Khleo Thomas took the stage at @animenyc pic.twitter.com/nuz4XodG5e

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) August 27, 2024

And truth be told, I’d have been willing to check out something like Dan Da Dan if I had more time. That’s the beauty of cons like this; they’re almost like buffets through which you can sample and discover all kinds of new things.

A strong guest lineup

A quick look at Anime NYC 2024’s roster of guests reveals a commendable assortment of talented voice actors, directors, singers and other creators. On the one hand, there are people who I don’t personally know but will no doubt appeal to anime aficionados, like actress Chiwa Saito (Fate/Grand Order), hip hop group Creepy Nuts, Daigo Ikeda (Beastars) and Shoji Kawamori (Macross).

But Anime NYC also wisely notes that there’s a huge overlap between the anime and gaming spaces, and it’s in that area where I found many of the guests that were most personally exciting. First, there’s Critical Role, the popular Dungeons & Dragons webseries. (Sure, it’s not strictly anime-related, although there is an animated Prime Video adaptation.) While my only experience with D&D is last year’s incredible Baldur’s Gate 3 game and criminally underrated live-action movie, the Critical Role cast is relevant to my interests for several reasons, with stars Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey, in particular,  being in several of my favourite games (namely, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, The Last of Us and Persona 4 Golden, respectively). Then there are the likes of Steve Blum (Cowboy Bebop) and Max Mittelman (One-Punch Man), who I most love for their roles in the Final Fantasy VII series (Blum as the former Vincent Valentine, Mittelman as Red XIII in the Remake series).

From left to right: Chris Opperman (FF New World and Distant Worlds arranger), Masashi Hamauzu and Hamauzu’s interpreter.

And then there were guests who were gaming-specific, as well. The standouts for me were Hamauzu, who made a special appearance ahead of the evening’s concert, and Dan Salvato, the creator of the popular Doki Doki Literature Club. (Sadly, the latter had to cancel last minute due to a family emergency, but nonetheless, he was a notable get in terms of gaming talent.)

Clearly, Anime NYC had something for pretty much everyone when it came to the guests.

Even more gaming programming

I’ve long been vocal about the need for more gaming events in Canada. We’re the world’s third-largest producer of games, and yet we don’t have something even remotely similar to PAX, Gamescom or Tokyo Game Show. Some smaller efforts have popped up from the likes of Toronto’s Kashamara Productions and Edmonton’s Game Con, but there’s not much on the whole. Even Fan Expo Canada, which is by far our biggest pop-culture event, has been sorely lacking in terms of gaming programming in recent years.

All of that is to say that I was very eager to see what Anime NYC had to offer on the video game front. The guests would have been solid enough, but they also had an impressive ‘Gaming Hall’ featuring a variety of indie games, as well as older fan favourites like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and tabletop titles. With Fan Expo Canada almost completely lacking large publisher booths or even smaller setups to play games both new and old, I really appreciated this. (The indie spotlight, especially, is great as it goes back to my point about discovery — I wish we had something like that for Canadian devs!)

But my favourite thing out of all of this was Atlus’ iBuyPower x Hyte partnership to promote Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis. I actually haven’t had the time to play the new P3R, despite adoring the original, and so I was happy to try out this DLC and really appreciate just how incredible the remake looks and runs. The demo itself didn’t show too much, with the party running through a large compound and fighting various enemies. However, in a roundabout way, it got me even more eager to play the base game. (I’ll save it for after Metaphor: ReFantazio, the next game from that core Persona team.)

Everything else

The biggest con I’ve ever attended is Fan Expo Canada, which has an attendance of over 100,000 people across four days. (It’s the third-largest in North America behind only San Diego and New York’s respective Comic Cons). Therefore, Anime NYC is quite comparable with an attendance of 101,000 spread over its three days, and with that in mind, it proved to be far better than Fan Expo in some key areas.

In particular, the venue, NYC’s Javits Center, is just much better suited for an audience of this size. Even when using both of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s two buildings, Fan Expo feels overstuffed, especially with the venue’s notorious single set of escalators — which often break down and lead to significant traffic delays — linking the two. The Javits Center, by comparison, is a single building comprised of several spacious floors featuring several sets of escalators and stairs each. What’s more, everything was smartly divided depending on programming type; the autographs and photo ops were tucked away in a dedicated corner of one expo room, panels were in one leg of the basement while the Gaming Hall had another, and the big booths for the likes of Bandai Namco, Crunchyroll, Viz Media, Vtubers, vendors, a Japanese food market and more were all spread out across a couple different halls. (There were even three special Evangelion anniversaries throughout the show floor that I visited for MobileSyrup contributor Andrew Mohan, who’s a big fan of the series.)

My personal favourite booth, though, was by far Bandai Namco’s. I got a tour from a very friendly rep with whom I talked about all kinds of video games and got to see their several activations, including those featuring Studio Ghibli products, Kaiju, various detailed figures and more than 200 Gashapon machines (crank-powered toy-vendors). They even had a big Gundam setup offsite at Times Square, although I didn’t have time to visit. While Bandai Namco has had a presence at Fan Expo Canada, including this year, its involvement in Anime NYC was far more expansive.

Room for improvement

Admittedly, Anime NYC having nearly 100,000 people (well above last year’s 65,000) seemingly led to some hurdles. For one, the panel I attended with Hamauzu was supposed to begin at 11am, but we didn’t even hear anything until 11:06 about being let in shortly. (The panels I’ve attended at the likes of Fan Expo would have generally already had people be seated before 11am.) Delays happen, but the lack of communication was frustrating, especially as this was my third (of four days) of cons and my feet were killing me. (I’d also been up since 4am.)

I should also mention that Aleks Le (Solo Leveling) did apologize in a since-deleted post on X (Twitter) for a “severely mismanaged” line that led to several fans getting kicked out prematurely. I can’t speak to that, personally, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. (He did promise, to his credit, to make it up to fans the next day.)

Final thoughts

I went into Anime NYC thinking it would be a serviceable way to pass the time and left rather blown away. Whether it’s the different kinds of anime and creators (both mainstream and lesser-known) to guests like Critical Role and video game actors who have even broader appeal and an assortment of playable video games, I had a great time at Anime NYC. I certainly wouldn’t recommend someone try to do both that and Fan Expo Canada (or another con) in the same weekend like I did, but if you’re interested in taking a trip to NYC (especially if you’re already nearby in the Greater Toronto Area), I can’t recommend Anime NYC enough.

Anime NYC returns to the Javits Center from August 22nd to 24th.