I went to Japan in March/April of this year, I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to Anime North this year but the better part of me said that I should commit to going to it just to see how it was, for better or worse. So with that in mind, on the last Wednesday before AN I brought tickets for the Sunday, as usual since by then the Saturday tickets had already been sold out. By the Friday all tickets have been sold out, even for Sunday, oh boi. With that said, let’s take a look at how AN 2023 on a Sunday turned out.
Arriving at approximately around 9am-ish via car I had a pretty damn good parking spot, like right beside the main dealers exits/entrance. Quite a number of people were already here lining up to get in and to pick up badges. Seemed alot more organized this year considering that there was no longer any covid19 proof of vaccination checks that were needed.
Proof of existence, yea boi. I decided to wear my Sabaton Bismarck shirt, no, this is not the one that was signed by the band members that I got by surprise, I actually ended up buying another shirt some time later since they still had it in stock. I only remembered I had it because in Azur lane they are currently having a new event that stars a new Bismarck Zwei ship, yea. King of the Ocean.
Proof of existence II featuring a green Quick Ninja named Daniel-san. I can’t smile for shit for the camera, fuck, ahwell.
After a not to long wait I went in with Daniel-san to pick up my badge for Sunday. It always amazes me when I see people bringing in stroller level-babies to a convention like this; their dedicated to the animu must be so strong.
As per usual, once I got my badge, they kicked us back outside to wait a bit more to line up to go into dealers room. A familiar sight indeed.
As it will become further evident, dealers is slowly becoming a place for cosplay goods, weeb clothing in general and all sorts of craft like goods that are made by small businesses or individuals.
Some edgelord incline black shirts with some beasts or pokemon dragon animals or some shit, I have no idea. Not the best, which certainly reflects the amount of traffic here.
This table/booth is always here selling manga, I remember last year that they were one of the few other dealers other than Beguiling to sell books.
Nice and spacious rows to walk. Unlike last year, the right most wall is now populated with books and merch as it should be, mainly from the Labyrinth. Gud shit.
Ah yes a nice array of prize figures from Japan from UFO Catcher crane games, I’m sure accumulated over the years.
Nice artbooks on display. The guy in green gave me a props and fist bump for recognizing my Sabaton shirt. Yea boi.
After the artbooks it’s just more prize figures galore I suppose for the rest of the table. Hmm..
I remember in years past there were a lot of tables showing and selling prize figures but for some reason it seems like there is alot more than usual.
It’s early so it’s good to see the nice wide walking space. This right wall will never be the same since Harry T’s is never coming back to AN.
Every year I see more and more of this, desperate artists that couldn’t get a table in the artists all say fuck it, I’m just gonna buy a dealers table instead, don’t want any of this lottery bullshit corruption nonsense. I hope they made enough money to break even since these tables are not that cheap. At least the got the attention of Kira and Misa here.
There was alot of dealers which were run or manned by just one person, as if they were just selling off their own goods that they had won/brought in Japan or collected over the years. I suppose you can say their own Nomonochi kinda thing, except for all three days.
I mean, you can’t get any more retro and garage sale than this, selling of VHS tapes of Ranma 1/2.
While in general there was a lot less empty tables than last years dealers, there was still a few that were empty like this. Either no one wanted it or they packed up before Sunday. Hah.
Wow, quite a big selection of Miku prize figures. There are some people who exclusively collect Miku figures and such so this is nice. Most of these prize figures are roughly being marked up for double the normal price which is kinda expected when you shop at a convention.
Ah yes, Shilin Huang is still at it, it’s been so many years and she still comes to AN, that’s nice. Most of these big artist alley artists like Sakimi-chan end up dropping AN so it’s cool to still see her selling her art and books, although in dealers now, being a pro I guess.
More prize figures, this table location always has it. I’m surprised that with so many places selling prize figures they haven’t started a price war, I guess there’s an unofficial rule to not mark shit down for prize figures I suppose among dealers.
Nice colorful cute goods. Shit like this could be considered prime for the ‘crafters corner’ of the past in artist alley but starting this year AN has banished it allowing all artists to sell clothing and other material goods that are not paper.
More artists made clothing in dealers. You see a trend right?
Handmade crochic shop of stuffed stuff.
Pop up books and other arts and craft fare. I can’t really tell if it’s anime related or not, but whatever.
More handmade craft goods on the right and a very tiny girl cosplaying as some Genshin Impact character, not sure which one but it’s pretty well made. I was looking at her a few times wondering if I should ask for a photo but being in the dealers room, didn’t feel it was the right time. In retrospect, I should have asked anyways based purely on how amazing short she was, and I am pretty confident she wasn’t a kid, just really short lol.
This online store called Spacetime was apparently one of the sponsors for this year’s AN, so they get a special table in the front. I think they sell like little wood/plastic crafts and other stuff of that matter.
Nice empty table. Either they gave up and packed up yesterday or they just slept in today. Ha.
Nice shirts and stuff, I’ve seen these shirts around in past conventions, especially the no waifu no laifu one.
An interesting collection of goods and plushies.
Very nice bento lunch boxes for kids and shit, but vastly overpriced. Like $65 dollars for such a small box? Man, you can buy that shit in japan for probably less than 2500 yen.
I vaguely remember this dealer last year where all he had was albums full of cards, just cards. Looks like he expanded his arrangement now and it looks better at least.
Not entirely sure who these dudes were but they were selling some nice boob mousepads/pillows/art with a focus on the vtuber guests at AN. Trying to be meta with Shylily and the many other independent vtubers they were invited to AN that I have no idea about that are not Hololive. Noice either way.
On the side a cut out of Shylily, the only vtuber of real note as a guest at AN. Better than nothing I suppose.
Oh shittt, they have ebi cat for sale as well as cat shark plushie. Looks like someone has been to Japan recently! That, or they someone ordered online from the shop/maker that sells them. Oh boi.
The cat shark plush is considerably bigger than the ebi shark at $90. I am pretty sure the big one didn’t cost that much, probably double the price I think.
Another nice shops featuring miku plush and figures. Part of me thinks that most of these kind of shops are just surplus goods from Japan shopping trips from the past or they just order too much stuff online and want to sell them off.
Nice shop sellling little DIY models of buildings and stuff from Japan, cool. Featuring stuff like takoyaki store, ramen shop etc
They are pretty affordable but the problem is that you have to paint them I think even tho they include the paint, too much work for me. They even have a easier to make lego like kits which is much easier but yea, not the same, still coo tho.
Too many prize figures. Only desperate people buy the ones that are already opened and assembled.
Nice plush and funny hats.
Cloud and Sephiroth looking pretty chill, kinda expensive tho.
I remember this shop from last year, nice looking stuff too gaudy looking for me.
White blood cell moving by sight unseen to no one.
This store was a bit interesting in that they literally brought wholesale cases of gachapon toys and put them in boxes for people to buy. Or rather, you ask the store owner which one you want to buy and she gets you one from the proper box from inside. Hmm….not quite the same experience without the actual machines tho.
The store seller actually got up and started talking to me since I actually recognized what she was trying to do; I guess not many people recognize that these are supposed to be gacha. She said it was kind of an experiment and not sure if it would work or be popular in a very thick french accent. I told her it’s a nice cool idea but it’s not the same, she needs to get the machines for people to actually buy it. She said something about price and coin, not sure how it would work since these are obviously much more expensive than in Japan, most of these are like $8 a go, which is pretty expensive. In Japan most gachapon machines range from like 200 yen to 500 yen. Not worth but at least she has some of the newer series and items.
Looks like someone has visited Japan recently this year! I have the same Idolmaster swimsuit Rin and the casual clothes Chainsaw man Power both won from crane games. Looking at their other items, they seem pretty recent too, noice fellow Japan traveler.
Wow, I have this exact same blue snow Miku plush too. That means these guys visited Japan way back, even possibly 2014, that or they brought from others or online retroactively.
Not sure what these are but they are Genshin Impact mainly.
Nice Genshin Impact banner promoting this stores beer pong game or whatever. Kinda bullshit in my opinion but at least it keeps things interesting.
I believe I saw these phone case maker things before, not sure if last year or in 2019 but yea, they here.
Oh shit, looks like this shop decided to go big and bring some big displays to show some of their nice figure merch and stuff. Noice.
For a second I thought there was glass here but there was none, a bit disappointed but I guess bringing glass is too hard to do here.
They are pretty on point with the figures they are displaying, most pretty recently releases with the past couple of months with the bare leg bunny figures from Freeing. The retail cost of most of these figures is about $250-300 so if you can see the price, they are considerably marked up because yea, convention tax I suppose. The shipping cost for just one of these bunny figures alone could range between like 50-150 dollars each if coming directly from japan and shipping method. Add duty and yea, the shop roughly only makes about 100-150 profit lol.
Am I in artists alley or what? The line between dealers and artists continues to be blurred.
Seen these guys before, selling nice neon like art on metal and acrylic plates, nice.
Ramen-san looking pretty flat here. Interesting selection of plushies tho.
I don’t always buy ceramics, but when I do, I get them from AN dealers hall. Yea, you do you.
“Black Man, waiting in front of Gacha” – Dat Dude, somewhere in AN 2023
I never did really see what the exclusives where, I think bootleg like gundam kits of hello kitty or some shit?
Nice banner on the outside of Beguiling’s now special closed off manga/book area.
This kinda reminds me a bit of AX where you had to like line up to certain booths just to get inside, like Fakku booths.
Once inside, there is alot of shit to browser. They also make masking mandatory which is fine I guess.
They always have so much stuff but when they set it up this way, it makes it seem like they have even more stuff, maybe they brought even more inventory this year?
Our boy Mark-san found us sometime earlier and chilled with us in our browsing of the area.
They had a very large table here displaying only Fakku 18+ books, noice. This was alot bigger than before for sure than in previous years. Part of me thinks that they closed this space off is because of their adult books, but then again other vendors don’t care so yea, maybe it’s just easier to manage for Beguiling.
Nice shirts and merch as Animebae, some clothing line or shop. I really like their designs, especially the ones in the lower left. I went so far as to go to the checkout and buy a couple, only to be told that those designs are only available as long sleeve shirts. Sadge, what the fuck? Who the hell sells only long sleeve shirts? They should have their designs on all other clothing formats, to leave out the most basic shit, t shirts, what the fuck were they thinking? Ended up not buying anything. Too bad, maybe next year when they are less retarded and start making all of their designs available as shirts will they get my money.
Our standard doujinshi vendors shop is always back, minus the yelling dude that you always see.
For a moment I thought there was someone inside, turns out there wasn’t.
Nice clothes, too girly for me tho.
Looks like Assassins from the Simpsons, aka Guilty Gear Strives “That Man’s” footwear drip of choice.
I don’t normally ask cosplayers in dealers for a photo, but when I do, it’s gotta be Suletta from Gundam Witch from Mercury.
Dat signs tho. Got some nice shades for sure tho, fr fr.
Nice to see Navito World back at AN, they were absent last year and left a huge gap in terms of available scale figures that are not prize figure cheap stuff. They also have a very nice display area now, much better than previous years I would say.
Terry Bogard approves of their goods as well. I actually had a conversation with the Navito World guy standing on the left when I came back to dealers as the end of the day since he gave me props when he noticed my Sabaton shirt. Told me that he discovered the band during lock down in pandemic times and he really got into it. He asked where I got it from, and told him online from their official store, he was like ah man, noice. I chatted a bit more about shipping/merch stuff and whatever but it was always nice to talk to someone who also appreciates the greatness that is Sabaton.
This could technically pass as artists alley pro I guess. Eggunio.
After going through most of dealers we make our way for a quick run through of artists alley. By now it’s beginning to get crowded, it’s just past noon I think.
Nice art of dudes I suppose, not for me.
Oh look, nice Holostars tempust version 1 square prints. Too bad they were too slow/lazy and didn’t even draw the version 2 squad or whatever they are called. That artist on the left looks so sad, why such a huge blank white area?
Some good some, not so much, mostly not so much. Nice Elphet on the top right now, although probably a few years way too late.
Ark Knights and a bunch of other stuff I am not so sure about.
The lanes begin to crowd up for sure, cause you know, in the words of my Azurlane Guild Master of his opinion of last year’s AX in which he attended: “Dealers is trash, Artists Alley is where the real Merch is.” Hmmm, I suppose it depends on what your looking for I guess.
Haven’t seen alot of these artists before, which is always nice to see. The variety of series is very wide, from demon slayers to Persona.
Clothes in artists alley? You are now fully welcome to sit among all the rest of the artists, you guys are now free. Yay.
I don’t know anything from this artist except for maybe spy family.
Don’t know much here, colorful tho.
Some demon slayer I see but largely unknown art to me.
Nice white cat girl costume. Can’t be sure but maybe this is Vanilla from Nekopara maybe? Crazy random artist booths for sure in the back.
I’ve seen this Money print for a number of years now, even before covid. Old timer huh.
Nice art, a few hololive, demon slayers, spy family and even touhou stuff, really diverse art. Thought about it but ended up not buying anything from her.
Another artist I thought about buying from too, especially the Bochhi the rock, Marin, Oishi no ko and Nier 2B art. Ended up not buying tho.
Oh wow, this booth made full use of the relaxation of material goods restrictions for artists, full blown pillows and other fabric wall scrolls. Pretty nice art too, good shit with a very wide spread of series and shows, ranging from hololive, genshin and a whole bunch of other stuff I am not sure about but looks nice regardless.
The art from this booth was pretty good, I thought about buying but the subject matter wasn’t quite to my liking, he had drawn several hololive members but ones that I am not that big a fan of like, Mio, Fauna and Botan. He had a book that I skimmed through and it was more of the same. He also didn’t make optimal use of his display space, which is a shame since he would have had more sales if he put more of the art in his folder up. Maybe next time.
Very pink and broad subject matter, not really me thing or style.
At this point in time, I came to a general assessment that this year’s art, while lots of new artists, was overall weaker in terms of quality that previous years, specifically pre-pandemic times. It’s not that I don’t know the source material, it’s just that the art just doesn’t stand out as much as as it used to or from more better artists.
A few of these are really good but most are just plain portrait like which is too boring I’d say from a technical level. Don’t know dem chink Chinese like characters are from so that doesn’t help either.
Wide variety of girls but again, more portrait like art, more so on the right most display. The one on the left is considerably better which does not rely on some yandere looking faces to attract attention. The one on the right is also selling for $25 per print, which is more than the usual $20 that most prints go for these days.
I like that even tho it’s only been out for a couple of months, Oshi no Ko’s ai is already a popular subject matter, even tho the manga has been around for a number of years, shit only really gets popular when anime is made.
This is a really good artist that I brought from last year I know, not sure if it was from AN or AX but either way it’s nice to see them back with lots of new stuff from hololive, oshi no ko, bocchi the rock and even gundam if you can see on the left. Looking at this table now, I kinda regret not buying some art from this artist this day, shit, ah-well. I think it’s because this year’s layout of artist alley is kinda not good for browsing, you can easily lose track of things. On my second and final browse of artists ally at the end of the day I couldn’t find this table again and ultimately didn’t buy anything…ah-well, maybe next time.
Very mid art trying to capitalize on Shylily being a guest. Most of the series and games here are dated, this guy/girl definitely didn’t draw much during covid or even post-covid times. Might be time for you to retire or make more new art.
Artist on the left is better. The one on the right the style is everywhere, also in terms of composition, it feels like each art was draw by someone completely different, whereas the left I can tell it was the same person/similar style.
I remember these tenta.co guys with the nice octapus plushies, welcome back.
Very very nice art, very concept cityscape technical. In retrospect I should have brought from these guys two, but I honestly forgot about them, same issue as before, I forgot where they were located. I think this might have been in the ‘pro’ area of artists alley, which is kind of bullshit when you have pro artists sitting in dealers room already.
The not lego display company is back with a far less impressive display of whatever.
I remember this artist, nice but not for me again.
Wow, this boi still at it. No shit, this guy has been around for at least like 6-7 years doing conventions. I think it might be time to retire abstract simple pokemon man.
Really nice work on the left, hololive good shit. The right most artist, not so much, way to bait. The artist on the left was also significant cheaper for buying two prints, which matches perfectly to what I wanted. Ended up getting two prints from this artist, noice.
Wow, they certainly upped their scale Gundam at AN this year. Last year it was like about human sized for OG gundam but this year they brought apparently a 1/4 scale, looks great.
It ain’t Gundam Unicorn in Odaiba, but it’ll do. Noice good shit. Probably the best Gundam display that AN will ever get.
Not bad art, some pieces far better than others but then again, some are radically different in quality and effort/style. I like consistency, this artist or artists could have arranged their display better to convey similar grouped art styles, instead of everything everywhere which is harder to scan.
It’s heating up here in artists alley. Notice that most people don’t give a shit about masking anymore, including myself.
I like pastel colors but it’s a bit too faint for me, not for me.
Anime was a mistake artist is still around, maybe it’s time to retire grandpa, it’s getting old.
I brought from this artist, just one print and you’ll probably never imagine which one.
Nice cosplay by the artist but very portrait heavy art, pass.
Oh hay, it’s that white cat cosplay girl again. The photo of the art is pretty far away but you can tell it’s mainly just portraits, pass.
Very big selection of keychains and such, I suppose to make up for the less than stellar art prints. Nice to see some FF7 art tho.
A few good ones here but mainly mid level art.
Welcome home, or rather, welcome back. Another artist that might want to retire despite the art itself being very hood. To this day I have still not brought from this artist.
The right is on point with latest shit, the left, no so much with extremely Chinese looking shit I have no idea about and a couple of zelda art.
I’m feeling like it’s getting to a point where every artist has at least some hololive prints, 1 oshi no ko, and genshin impact and some other stuff that the artist actually likes, personal choice.
More evidence of artist alley the clothing shop.
The artist has got some nice husbando shirt. The art on the right is pretty unique but not my thing
A look at the other side, noice.
Nice hat. Nice shirts for sale too.
Nah.
Lots of shit going on but it’s not really clean, each piece kinda crazy.
Portraits and plushies, not bad, the plushies I mean. I appreciate that they managed to draw the new Cammy design from SF6.
Leaning in heavy for the funny and hololive memes to make up for the lack of drawing ability which is ok here. They trying. That Iroha art however is pretty lazy with a pure photo used in the background, at least pass it through Midjourney or some AI image generation tool first or some filters.
Art on the left is better. I like that OMGKawaiiangel art tho, not entirely sure who the other girl is tho.
Overall very good art but the problem is the cost, I think this artists lowest thing started at like $25 for a print and all those wallscroll things went for like $60 or $80 I think.
Kinda crazy going everywhere.
The art from this artist is pretty good and well balanced but not quite enough things I know about to buy. Pass.
Once again, very good art but not enough that I know to make it worth buying from.
I remember this artist, they were the ones that had the Guilty Gear May cosplay. I thought about buying now that they had the bridget art, but the more I looked at it, I didn’t really like it. Pass again, maybe next time you’ll get me, but not this time.
After a considerably amount of time wandering artists, let’s check out that gaming area, aka rest area with seating.
Nice Bob Ross cosplay. Afro needs to be bigger tho.
No one looking or manning this booth, kinda eh.
Oh shit remember these guys, one of the few main sponsors of legendary con known as Kimicon back in 2018 lol.
Beyblade tournament looking kinda sad. Not kiddie enough.
Oh shit wow, some company ended up bringing over some crane games to promote their crane game shop. Noice.
The prizes in the machines are all plush toys so yea, it is what it is I suppose. They operate a similar system where you buy tokens and you an either win the prize inside straight up or if you want, you collect points and can exchange them for other stuff.
Wow. I have no idea why all of a sudden the massive explosion in crane game interest and places to play them. Is this everyone wanting to go to Japan but can’t, so they make these shops to satisfy that demand/itch? Does everyone really want the Japan UFO catcher experience? I kinda can’t believe this you know. Too bad the prizes are just plush, which sucks.
A sample of the other prizes you can exchange and earn points for I suppose. Kinda shit.
The gaming area is certainly alot more populated than in previous years, which is great. Even in 2019 this place was basically a dead area where you just sit down to rest.
Some more samples of the kind of prizes from these crane machines. Not bad stuff on the far left tho with known IPs.
Kinda shit to be honest from these two machines tho.
Despite being semi blown up, Dolly’s is still around, I think they have like at least two or so locations so it’s good to see they are still operational after the Fahmee fire destroyed and ruined everything in their Scarborough location.
Battletech and what I can only assume are some Saber cosplay and some other unknown that I am not sure about.
Ah yes, daniel-san and myself do what you normally do in gaming area, take a rest. The Genshin bag in the background I think is from last year’s FanExpo…I think.
Still looking healthy, don’t feel too tired at all. That Gfuel install energy drink that I brought with me works wonders to sustain yourself with awareness and energy.
We are about roughly more than halfway through the photos still to go. I don’t really understand people coming all the way to AN and sitting down for like half an hour just to learn how to play some game that may or may not purchase. The expression on that sellers face says it all, they are not having fun.
After about a 15 or so minute rest we decided to continue and I see this nice sitting down Blend S maid cosplay, noice. I’m glad people still remember this show even tho it’s been already like 5 years already. Fuck. Has it really be that long already?
Making our way out to get something to eat outside I come across this ballin Bridget cosplay, noice bro noice. You can actually buy this hoodie online from Arc System Work store, it’s pretty expensive. I like how he just didn’t do that and got a blonde wig and a matching shirt too. Good shit.
His wife left him huh, with art like this, I can see why. The worst part is this guy probably knows he’s one of the worst artists and prices his stuff appropriately…I mean at least your self aware but it’s still kinda sad. People like this shouldn’t even get a table, AN needs to do at least some curation.
Now that we are outside, you know what that means? It’s cosplay time, or at least some of it. Nice suit and gear. Very nice shield.
First Aid post, doing nothing, as usual. The guys walking by don’t get it either.
Very nice Gura cosplay from Hololive, very nice indeed. Even some effort was made with the shoes. I have no idea what the green guys in the back in suit are doing however.
Black people like anime too. Tanjiro from Demon Slayers. Pretty good effort, nice sword too.
Not sure but probably some oldschol mecha anime, Mazinger or some shit like that is my guess. Good shit.
We decided to try out this wood oven pizza after seeing it several times over the years. Line is pretty quick since the pizza cooks so fast.
After years and years of food problem, AN finally got it right with their food truck solution, about time. Looks like even the Eva crew like it lining up for burgers and stuff.
After a short wait, I got my pizza, the “Naruto” pepperoni pizza. Shit’s pretty good. Even at a very overpriced $18 per pie, I’d still think it’s not bad to be honest. Considering a slice of Pizza Pizza is probably like $8 or $10 dollars at Fan Expo, this is like a king’s luxury in terms of quality.
Daniel-san got the “Luffy” margarita pizza. We both exchanged a slice and while I can say the pepperoni is pretty good, the margarita is better. That basil is fresh and very fragrant, simplicity at it’s best.
After eating our pizzas curbside right beside the parking lot shade, we decided to split up a bit. The Quick Ninja decided to go meet up early with his online game friend that is visiting Toronto for AN while I opted to walk around the outside area and take some cosplay photos, ah yea boi.
I don’t know what this is but anything that requires a full body suit and hard armor requires applause and effort.
From a distance we see One Punch Man Saitma again, a hero from the distant past, maybe it’s time for him to retire this cosplay, he’s been going to AN for the past 3-4 years with the exact same thing. Certainly there must be more other bald characters in anime and games.
Here is a large gathering of Tokyo Revengers cosplayers. I didn’t know this show was that popular. I think behind them someone even rode on in on their motorcycle. Noice.
Ohhhh shittttttt!!!! CCP Xi Jinping communist china gang arrive!!! I like how they intentionally stand right beside a trash bin.
Really putting out all the stops with the full communist military uniform, covid sanitation suit and Winnie the Pooh emperor regalia, not to mention the flag bearing the emperors likeness.
“The sanitation inspector gives the Emperor an update on the covid19 lockdown suppression tactics.” – Sometime in 2020
I can’t really tell if the emperor is a girl and a dude. Maybe trans, who knows.
The emperor greets me directly. I feel blessed and have the sudden urge to visit mainland China.
So brave, so wild, truly mad lads indeed. Most definitely originally from HK or Taiwan these bunch are for sure, so brave. They attracted quite a crowd around them and the experience is even heightened since they had a jukebox playing so old ass communist traditional Chinese opera sounding song in the immediate area wherever they went. Excellent choice. Wow. S+ Tier cosplay.
Stepping away from our CCP friends I take a shot of the usual street in the front, nice people just chilin and the usual on the grass.
Oh damn, Senku here from Dr Stone looking pretty baller here. Gud shit.
Wow, excellent Suisei Hololive cosplay. Very good job indeed. The benefit of Suisei’s clothes is that it just base looks nice, nothing to crazy or fancy, no need to make like ears, tentacles, or other wings or weapons shit. Noice.
Brown/Black Gintama. That’s about right, noice shit.
Our traveling CCP brigade finally met it’s match with some assassin from some creed taking offense of their disrespect of Winnie the pooh. Mad lads indeed.
Pretty good Testament here. I always gotta prop and take photos of guilty gear cosplay when I see it. Only thing missing is the scythe weapon and the cage with little mini succubus faeries.
I can’t be sure but I think this is Monster Hunter and Ark Knights on the left. That or I’m completely wrong and is some other gacha game I have no idea about. Either way, really good shit.
I can only assume that this is some hybrid Eva Asuka or then again, someone that looks very similar to her from some Ark Knights like urban drip gacha game. Collab or something, I’m not sure, cool tho.
These two girls certainly have quite the ASS-ets on display. Since they were more than happy to be shaking their ass cheeks and thighs between this black dude I can only assume these two are some kind of Only Fan creators. I mean, if your gonna do revealing cosplay and promote yourself, AN would be as good an event as any I suppose.
You can imagine the large crowd of people surrounding these two, very big SLR pro cameras and the like. Not pictured here but when they started kissing each other, I knew for sure these two were like doing porn or OnlyFans lol.
I have no idea but it looks nice. I can only assume Genshin this time or even that new one Honkai StarRail?
I’m not entirely sure if this is from a particular game/anime or something, just looks like some nice Anubis Egyptian shit, looks really good tho.
Pretty nice Laycus Clyne from Gundam Seed. Good so see the classics from my youth still being represented. Good overall, but I kinda wish more of these Asian cosplayers smile a bit more or something.
I have no idea but I assume Bleach and one of the more recently villains. Whoever makes big props and weapons like this deserve props.
Making my way to the hotel side of things.
Even though I already ate pizza for lunch today, I just gotta at least see how the good old Japanese onigiri place and snack place is doing.
Seem to be doing alright, although nowhere near as busy as in the past. I guess most guests have finally got the message and noted that there is more food at AN than in this building. They also stopped selling boiled hotdogs and shit in this area too, which was stupid to begin with which I can only assume as an attempt by the hotel itself to make more money.
Pretty short line indeed and some interesting cosplayers waiting as-well. One of the first Love Live cosplayers I’ve seen today and some other shit not sure about.
The level of crowding in this space has gotten way down over the years, which is great. Ever since AN finally opened up that North building, the traffic has steadily decreased here. Or rather, most people had no reason to go here anymore since all the big concerts/cosplay shows/AN Idol moved to the North building.
Going in to see the hottest usual anime AMVs in the usual space. Yep yep.
Yea…it’s pretty dead in here. I stayed for literally 1 minute before noping out and leaving. I have better things to do, like take cosplay photos than wait here and watch a english redubbed cowboy bebob AMV to the latest youth tunes.
Chilling on the ground is the norm, but since the hotel is not as populated as before, it’s actually pretty nice to visit and just walk around.
Some Naruto guy, nice weapon with the manga pasted on. Good shit.
Oh look, we got the whole Chainsaw man team here. Lookin pretty good.
Chainsaw man cosplay is so easy that I think that most cosplayers avoid it and try for something less mainstream and more obscure anime/games. All you need is a shirt and tie and your halfway there for most characters. It really helps that they are in a crew because otherwise they are really hard to pick out from a crowd.
Team fortress crew. This game has been around for ages but it’s still played by diehards I guess. You know what game I didn’t see any cosplay of? League. At least to my knowledge.
One Piece guys. How come nobody wants to be Luffy?
Nice job on the Kakegurui cosplay team. They were waiting on the side for something/maybe just resting but of course they can strike a pose. When they brought out the cards I was like oh shit, you guys going all the way huh. Gud shit.
Oh shit, if it wasn’t for that art of Rengoku that they brought I would have easily missed this crew. So good, they had the Coffin Dance music blasting as they were walking around with it, very creative and choice song. Very ace. S tier creativity.
Excellent Saber Alter dress edition. Too bad no sword tho and once again, why do all these asian cosplays don’t smile? I guess they must be damn tired I guess, at least for Salter it’s kinda in her character. A+
Bezerker Guts needs help getting his shoes tied.
There we go, good as new. Good boi. Very badass armor and cosplay. A+
Nice Tifa cosplay, she has the whole thing going on, from shoes to even the buster sword, although Cloud is nowhere to be seen. Too bad I got a photo with her eyes closed, ahwell.
“Zordon, holdup, gotta take dis call — yo, ayo it’s ya boi red, how’s it goin Billy!~”
The Nezko is pretty good but the Tanjiro is a bit questionable. Not enough forehead and scar. This pose is not really a Tanjiro thing either, more like sleeping yellow man. Tanjiro should be yelling cause that’s what he always does.
Oh shit, super god idol Ai from Oshi no Ko makes her appearance and it’s pretty damn good.
Great pose too, I should have asked her to do the upper two hand thing that Ai does in her official manga cover art and etc. Top tier cosplay all around. S+
Wow, nice job on the Chisato Lycoris Recoil cosplay. A bit sad that she didn’t have a friend that could have done Takina, would have been dope. Should have had a gun too but yea, too much trouble and work I guess to carry around.
This Saber Astolfo was on his way back to his car with his friends I think when I asked for a photo. He took the effort to put on back his black gloves and do a double peace sign, that’s dedicated man. Good job lol.
Finally got to the North building to check out some AN Idol finals action.
Kinda sad how they were having some technical difficulties with he mic and audio but yea, at least it worked. Too bad they couldn’t get the screens or camera working, they have like 4 big screens they could have used, in the past they used it but I guess with the tech problems, they probably said fuck it. I stayed for about 4 or 5 performances, about 20 minutes in and I had my fill; I was rested so headed back outside.
“Of all the places where they could have sent me, why here?” – Turban security guard reflecting on his life choices
It’s Garfield. I have no idea why anyone would make this, lest a company but here it is in all it’s glory.
Last year I saw a whole bunch of Itasha parked outside, this year, not so much. Just this one BMW sporting stickers and rims and shit. Nice, but kinda didn’t go all the way.
Back inside the main hall I decided to do another run of artist alley with the intent of taking photos of the booths that I might have missed and maybe do some buying. I had forgotten my tube but that’s ok. Nijisanji vtuber Selen in the only Nijisanji vtuber that I know, and it’s purely because of connections with mumei since they knew each other before and her collab with the Holostar boiz playing some FPS, Apex I believe. Pretty cute but is it for sale? Not just a bail fund?
The best art here is the Ai but everything else is kinda inconsistent and different styles, I guess share with a friend booth.
Too gay, not really feeling this art, especially the rightmost one, mediocre with the spy family. No one is going to buy 3 separate prints to get all the main characters of spy family, sadge.
I went back to the guilty gear artists to take a closer look at her key-chains. Very nice selection but once again, no purchase from me, not really my style.
Who would have ever thought that I would see Pekora and 2B waiting in line to buy from the the same artists. Noice.
Excellent Hololive merch here. Kinda expensive but you do what you gotta do for your oishi I guess. Ended up buying a few Hololive pins. Nice that they even had Nijisanji stuff too, don’t know any really tho.
The artist/seller of aforementioned booth. Good shit, truly cultured in the vtuber meta. Her customer before me however, not so much with the DBZ Jiren clear file, like wut?
Nice art and more Gura and Selen art. I thought about it, but opted not to, they don’t’ have enough good prints for me to be worthwhile separate stand alone purchases without a deal.
Pretty nice art, too bad I don’t know most of the source material. I’m guessing that means it’s all Genshin right?
Nah man. Did people actually like the 3dcg new Trigun for youth? Wow.
More charms and more return the capsule gacha. I mean, sure.
No direction, just everywhere full of stuff that I largely don’t know about except for a handful.
Pretty nice display. She has stuff that’s like hello kitty or whatever kinda merch? Is that even allowed? Not like the rules mean much anyways.
This artist seriously got some good culture going on with the Idolmaster Cinderella girls and also even some lovelive, the newer ones. Noice.
The charm game has definitely increased, it’s like if you don’t have key-chains, pins or whatever on your table, your just not making use of the space.
The table went full blown fuck it, I ain’t even gonna sell anime shit, just my pottery and flower bullshit. Super out of place. This type of shit should not be allowed in artists alley, especially if it’s not even remotely anime related.
Well now, this is certainly a very interesting display rack of keychains filled with hololive and related vtuber Instagram like window charms. Even more interesting is looking at what ones are sold out. Hmm…interested indeed. I actually stood there for awhile and ended up buying one myself. I spoke to the artist and commented that she sold out of Irys and several others; apparently she underestimated the popularity of certain talents; she made more of HoloMyth and I guess less of Council and Irys, even more so of the Holostar En boiz. I then said that yes, Irys and Council have been working hard the past few months, streaming alot and commented that all of Myth their stream frequency has dipped considerably from the past few years. She said that she learned now, and will make more next time. Hmm..
Pretty nice art, especially the car ones and mashuu but I don’t really like the square print format, it’s kind of bullshit in my opinion. Maybe when the artist learns the beauty of rectangle paper sizes will I might consider buying.
This artist pretty on point with all the Hololive, Genshin and Oshi no Ko art, pretty recently drawn too I guess but the quality to cost ratio is just not there, almost, but not quite. Maybe next time.
Wow, major fail on this table here. Just stickers? What the fuck did you come all the way here just to sell stickers? Up your game bitch and make some charms, prints or some shit, your just taking space someone else could have had.
These are pretty nice looking charms from Hololive and Nijisanji and Vshojo and other vtubers but still too similar to ones that I brought last year at AX and even AN. The price is ok but seems a bit odd how they don’t have Bae, Irys or Kiara unless they sold out. Hmm..I guess this artist prefers Nijisanji more. I ended up buying a couple of prints from them however, art is pretty good.
Genshin, hololive, chainsaw man and oshi no ko. Yep.
As it slowly reaches closer to the end of the day, the crowds are beginning to thin down considerably.
Birdwomen. Sure.
I remember this booth, not sure if from AX or AN, maybe both. These guys really do travel to all the cons man, wow.
Some bait ass Japanese shirts with like a samurai helmet and pictures of castles and shit. Man, why are you wasting your time, this is an anime convention, not the gift shop at Narita airport. Dude was even selling photos and prints of like postcard level photography or renders, man.
This seller and buyer were talking about the quality of goods of the clothes, some shit about how he gets the best quality and prices cause he knows some people or whatever, you know, standard corruption. Of course. Too plain, not really my thing.
These tables are getting more and more elaborate, I like. Not so much the content but it’s still cool to see.
Clothing shop and more ghetto gacha. I mean, when your in Japan you still bin the capsules for recycling but for here, it’s actually because they don’t have any more capsules and they NEED to reuse them. Jokes.
I have no idea what these are but I like the name “Star Carrier” and “Dream Eater”. Is this some horoscope shit? I have no idea.
Wow, looks like Papricots upped her game this year with a bigger table and more display. Noice.
While I was standing here taking photos of her her merch and mouse pads, this brown guy behind the table started talking to me. “Your name is Matt right? You look familiar.. I don’t know if you remember me but we might have worked together in the past; at Engage People? Do you remember? My names Nikuji; do you remember me?” I stood there for a little while looking at this guy’s face and yes, I vaguely remembered him, wow, so it was, it’s a guy I used to work with at Engage People, like 4-5 years ago. Wow. I told him, yes I do kinda remember, it was a long time ago but yea, I remember him. We chatted for a bit about some of the more ‘interesting’ people who worked at that company during that time and what are they doing now, a little chat about Bitcoin and etc since it was really big at that place. Papricots also started talking to me about bitcoin too since we were talking about it; wow; apparently Nikuji is Papricots boyfriend, wow, never would have guessed that one lol. After commenting on her new merch and overall jokeness of it, I bid them farewell and was on my way. Wow. Now that I think about it, how many other people might have recognized me and didn’t bother to say anything? I can’t remember people for shit lol but apparently everyone remembers me lol. Small world man small world.
After my nice chance encounter with a Ghost of the Past I continued on my way at documenting this AN’s art. Not bad, but not my thing this one that is.
Walking around I can’t help but stop this Sugimoto from Golden Kamuy. Lol jokes, especially the gay sketch pad. Pretty good shit.
I didn’t really see them nor did I care all that much but apparently there was a battle bots or robot battle going on here, kinda like Robot wars with teams and shit. Noice.
This artist is really cool, very stylized art.
These big collage type prints are really cool to, themed with like all the characters from Naruto, DBZ, sailor moon, pokemon etc, really well done.
The remains of that gallery Momoji auction place that nobody really cares for anymore.
Last half hour or so I decided to go back to dealers for a final walk of some rows. Didn’t see anything in particular and it was really beginning to empty which is when you know times almost up. Somewhere around this time Quick-san and Mark-san found me again to continue our final look. It’s during this time is where I had that conversation with the Navito world guy about my ace Sabaton shirt lol.
Kinda meh shirts, I could make them, I mean, I HAVE made t shirts like this before myself. Kinda low effort, I don’t think anyone would want to buy these, it’s just pure graphic design. Overall trash clothing from this dealers seller.
Ah, with only a few minutes left before everything closes up we all go back outside to see the sun. Crowds have slimmed for sure.
I say farewell to Mark-san and me and Quick-san go back to our car for the long wait to get out of the parking area. Man it was a long wait, I think over like half an hour just to get out. I wasn’t sure what we were going to eat and after changing our minds a few times during the car ride between kbbq, sushi and some other ideas we ultimately decided on sushi, cause you know; it’s anime day, it’s only proper.
We decided to go to Sushi Legend, it’s been about a year or so since the last time I was here. Looks nice. After about a 20 minute wait we were called to our table via text message. Noice.
This would be like the first time I had sushi since I got back from Japan, even though it’s not the same, shit’s still good. You order from your phone via QR code and website, just like many places have adopted recently.
Ah yes, the famous shark fin soup at Sushi Legend, hence I dub this place, sharkfin sushi. Pretty unique, hence while all the food is good from this place, this soup always comes to mind and overrides all my memory of it.
Their grilled chicken wings are pretty good shit, even the eel fried rice that I ordered at the end to finish things off. Maybe it’s just me being hungry but the quality of the food from this visit to Sushi Legend was considerably better than the last time I visited last year. Everything came super quick at lightning speed and the quality was great. After this visit I would say that they are on par with Matsuda and maybe on a good day, maybe even better; I guess it really depends when and at what time you are going to eat. Good meal to end the day.
Back at home let’s review the merch I got for today. Not a whole lot to be honest but it’s still some stuff. A shirt from Noms, a few hololive pins and a Bae charm/keychain from artists. I brought some small mini figure of photo kano. I have no idea what it is but apparently it’s just a line of mini figures of cute schoolgirls doing poses and shit, sure.
And here are the prints that I ended up getting for today. Yep, alot less than my haul from last year’s AX and even last year’s AN, but I suppose it’s to be expected, I just came back from Japan and will be going to AnimeNYC later in the year, maybe more cons we’ll see. On the left I brought the print from the artist that did the official anime north 2023 vtuber guests poster, yes, I don’t know almost any of them besides Shylily but my reasoning was that, this was the first year that AN recognized vtubers as an actual thing and tried to get guests, even tho they are indie nobodies; that’s worth some commemoration and recognition in my books. In keeping with the vtuber theme, the center print is Korone from Hololive and Ina on the right. Very nice art and prints from the same artist. After going through my photos, I realized that I could have brought a few more prints and stuff from artists, but that’s ok, they might appear again at AnimeNYC so yea, no rush. lol.
Opening up my little gacha mini figure and I get little twintail sailor uniform girl. Nice, pretty cute. I mean it cost me like 14-16 dollars I think, massively overpriced but it’s cool. Things these size and quality are what you see in Gacha machines in japan for like 300 or 500 yen, so yea, definitely not cost effective especially with the convention markup but it’s ok, I like gacha.
And with that said, that about wraps it for my Sunday Anime North 2023 experience. Overall, this year’s AN was considerably better than last year’s which I think was probably one of the worst AN’s in recently memory, probably the worst in like a decade no joke. In many ways it seems like this year’s AN was like a refresh, a clean slate in terms of trying to get away from all the bad press and the feuds/bad blood with the artist alley/dealers and corruption, stupid rules and whatnot.
They finally banished crafters corners and merged them with everyone else, something which people I’m sure have been wanting for years, even prior to the covid hiatus. I also noticed that most artists don’t give a shit now and put labels on all of the series and games/anime when they have keychains or other stuff, something which AN management was extremely anal and bitchy about in the past, to not say actual series names and animes, cause I don’t know, copyright? They don’t seem to care anymore, and that’s a good thing. The actual quality of the art this year however in my opinion was worse, both in terms of subject matter and also quality, I’m not sure why but while there was still alot of good artists, alot of the new artists have very portrait-like art of single characters, which is pretty boring to me.
Dealers has improved considerably over last year, most of the spots are occupied and the return of more manga vendors is welcome. The figure game has increased substantially with more prize figures than ever before, which is interesting. Navito world being back also helps too, which is nice. For both dealers and artist alley we see the continued emergence of clothing and weeb drip being a hot thing as well as other more trinket craft-like goods which is generally ok as well as it’s anime related. Only like one weed dealers table, hell yea, what a waste of space last year.
The cosplay game, once again maybe it’s because it’s a Sunday, is still not quite back to pre-pandemic times but even then, there’s just not as much cosplay and hype people doing cosplay, no more dances and other dumb shit people used to do which was kinda jokes and part of the experience, the newer generation youth gotta step their cosplay game up, veterans can’t be the only ones cosplaying. AN idol stage/setup was worse than last year due to technical problems, but the overall convention was far more organized than last year, especially since no more covid vaccine checks and such.
All in all, was going to AN this year worth it? I’d say so, it’s alot better than last that’s for sure, and while I lament that AN will probably never get any real industry support; I think CrunchyRoll wasn’t even here this year, maybe that’s a good thing. I feel that AN organizers are beginning to realize that AN will never have industry support so they are going ALL IN on being fan run and focusing on having a great artist alley and good cosplay, which at it’s core, what makes a convention a convention and not a glorified shopping place for anime goods in my opinion. They had some concerts and stuff from a band which is great and invited alots of vtubers to the convention, even though they are all indie, at least they acknowledge that vtubers are now the new meta shit, they have to; it’s not just anime, games and manga anymore, it’s vtubers now.
Would I go back next? You bet your ass I will. At this point it’s basically a tradition for me, almost akin to Christmas or the CNE, it’s just something that you gotta go to at least one day, cause you’ve always have, for better or worse even if one year turns out to be shit; luckily this year, turned out to be one of the better years. Let’s see what happens next year, if AN progresses to living up to it’s name as the premiere “fan-run” anime convention or if they regress back into corruption and being lazy and content.