Anime NYC at the Jacob Javits Center has come and gone, which means no more Javits Center stops until 2023!
All seriousness, Year 2 of Anime NYC under COVID-19 protocols means we’re still not where the convention used to be (2019), but some major events (Hajime Isayama’s appearance, Reincarnated as a Slime event, premiere screenings of Trigun: Stampede to name a few) took place and were likely welcomed and enjoyed by many, alongside the usual jaunts to the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley.
But here are my general thoughts as one covering the convention as press!
Good
+ A lot easier to get into than last year. By far! No need to beat around the bush — last year’s COVID-19 set up was simply disastrous in all respects. Obviously Leftfield Media would be making especially sure this wouldn’t happen again for this year’s ANYC, so I’m happy to report that the experience was seamless. I was told which way I had to enter ahead of time, what I had to show, and then once I had my wristband so I could provide proof of vaccination, I was set for the weekend. No long lines for me, got my badge, was all set. I only have an observer’s view for attendees, but while I did see lines on Friday, it looked like they were moving pretty well. So I’d at least like to believe overall things went smoothly, but if it didn’t, feel free to let me know.
+ Actually was able to get into all the panels I planned to. I’ll likely elaborate more in the panels overview post for later this week, but the change to reservations for certain panels might’ve contributed to me somehow not missing any of the panels I planned on going to, which is usually rare for me. No waiting way ahead of time either. So at least from my perspective, this was very good plotting for the weekend.
+ Attendance. Definitely looked like a lot of people showed up all three days — even while I spent a high majority of Saturday downstairs, there was a good amount of people for all of the times there. I believe I saw an article saying LeftField Media staff for ANYC is looking to expand for 2023 so more people can get into the convention, so I will be interested in seeing what they do to make it worthwhile for people to come back and for new attendees to stop by.
+ Exhibit Hall/Artist Alley/Autograph/Food all in one gigantic area still works. You still have concerns about so many people all in one space, trying to wade through the giant exhibit hall, but I think for this year, it seemed fine. I was able to move around well enough, and I was able to go through every row. Unlike last year I’m not sure if companies and artists made their money this year, though I did see someone comment about Sunday being way busier than Saturday, a rarity for them! But generally I thought things were organized fine.
Mixed
• So about that mask compliance…? As the world generally tries to recover from COVID-19 and how to handle protocols, at least for Friday I did see a lot of people wearing masks. The rest of the weekend? Eh. The good news is you can’t get into ANYC without proof of vaccination, and from just making sure we’re all staying healthy, I’d like that to continue. But it’s certainly looking more and more like mask compliance is going to stop in the future, so that’s for sure going to make decisions difficult for certain people, and especially artists who go to conventions to make money. In general I wonder if COVID-19 protocol will be added for next year’s ANYC, but we are wells away from knowing if that will happen.
• Guest list still feels lacking. There were definitely notable names at ANYC, but it maybe feels like another major guest or two could be needed to make it all pop. Of course, asking all of this when we’re just still getting out of the pandemic is a big ask too. Negotiations can also be tough as well, so in the end, it’s hard to really say there was a big letdown honestly.
• Not enough panels? Well, there was more than enough for me since I mostly attended the industry panels, but if you weren’t at all interested in those, were there enough general panels to entice attendees? Maybe? I’m at least curious if there was enough to do during the convention — Saturday for example I found was the most packed with panels, but Friday and late Sunday didn’t have too many panels of interest for me.
Bad
– The Wi-fi. Water is also wet by the way. Anyways, not that this is ANYC’s fault, but as usual, you’re better off using your data instead of the Javits Wi-fi since it’s just terrible. Even heard it was particularly troublesome on Friday. As most people and places are using technology instead of cash to pay for things, at some point having functioning internet should be a priority you know?
– The 7 train. As I was thinking of another way to say what’s the point of having the 7 train at Hudson Yards if they’re not gonna be open to take money from fans over the weekend (as I now have gone another Anime NYC mentioning this), I got approval to share this LINE conversation I had with Helen, which is basically me finding an alternative way to say in this part to never rely on taking the 7 over the weekend at ANYC:
All in all, this was definitely a much more straightforward and clean Anime NYC for me. Will definitely hope things will be the same but somehow even bigger in 2023.