So after a very productive and great first day at AnimeNYC with lots of merch purchases and the Hololive world tour concert over for me, today my area of focus is the artist alley or rather, the area in the con for artists, which is quite large this year. But before that, let’s start another long day today with some breakfast.

Once again, I decided to go to Finns bagels as I did last year, I thought their bagels are pretty good and worth it, plus freshly made with all sorts of options and sandwich choices.

All the workers in this place are Mexican and speak Spanish, much like many other food places that I have found in NYC.

My bacon egg and cheese bagel on everything bagel is ready. I should have not asked them to toast the bagel as it is freshly baked already, so toasting it made it more crispier and harder to bite/chew. Overall top tier bagel and sandwich, with the iced coffee I got I think this was roughly $18 dollars I think? I can’t remember since I just tapped card but I feel that it was worth it, good shit.

Making my way back to the Javits center, nice and early to line up to get in.

I don’t know about you, but isn’t Demon Slayers a bit to violent for these little kids? Guess not, baby’s first anime confirmed, just saying. It’s a gateway anime confirmed due to it’s high quality and solid shonen formula.

After a not that long wait, the con opens at 10am on Saturday, I once again go through past the Hololive booth, it’s basically impossible to avoid unless you want to enter from some side gate or such.

Art on the both of Sad Girls Company Phase Connect, their designs look good enough I suppose.

Although the scale of their screen and presentation is a order of magnitude smaller than Hololive by comparison. Well at least they have a screen at all with their vtubers doing stuff during the con. This was early in the morning and the talent was asking how was her volume and doing other mic checks before crowds and traffic increased, interesting.

Senpai Squad is here, I remember them bringing cars and shit at AX and working closely with Vshojo.

Noms with a very large table indeed. I know all about them you can say. Noice.

This booth had a collab red hoodie with Sol designs from Guilty Gear Strive but it was already sold out on Friday I guess, wow. Sol must be popular after all.

This vendor/booth was selling some hapi’s that I see some people wearing for Hololive. Looks like they are also sold out of physical stock, online only orders, too bad.

Lots of people buying art from this artist and booth, a very wide range of swimsuit and such from all the popular games and animes/vtubers. I even brought some. The going rate these days at cons for prints at least here is $25 per print, buy 2 get one free so 3 for $50, expensive but not bad I guess. USD tho lol.

I went straight to the artists area first thing I got into the main hall but it seems like traffic is picking up as more people get inside.

A very interesting selection of keychains to say the least, most notable are the mini boob mouse pad ones and the selene/dokibird (new design) side by side. I wonder what the other empty slots once were. Maybe holo advent?

I think I brought a pillow cushion thing from this artist last year, nice stuff. Maybe I’ll buy another one on Sunday depending on her stock, it’s good.

No one wants to work at the Big Gay Ice Cream Stand?

As expected, lots of Frieren cosplayers this year, more than usual now that the anime is over, I wonder if or when they will have a S2, maybe many years from now.

So many artists have such packed displays and shit, really good stuff and no wasted spaces for such a large area.

I dunno man, kind of shit. Real life cars and 3d models in them? Not even draw. I don’t know if this is better or worse than AI generated anime art or not, maybe this is AI generated?

Our baller artist that I always see at AX and most recently at EVO. Must be doing a killing in business, his shit is so good, nothing new for me to buy tho, I already got what I wanted at EVO from him.

This particular artist is a big Neressa fan, I think she manages and organizes some of the custom fan merch in the fan discords for other talents maybe. Noice.

The people behind the booth are neither the artists tho, even the nun marine cosplayer, both are friends of the artist, who is actually standing off camera just talking to this mad lad KFP fan/Kiara fan of Hololive. They say KFP is a cult, I can see why lol.

Lots of interesting key-chains and display art. This person browsing I thought was a dokibird cosplayer but it was not, same colors tho.

For the ladies, choice of pillows of Terry and Dante, not sure who is the left tho. Should check this booth again since I just noticed they have ore fighting game stuff, like the Bridget small thing.

First show of the day at the hololive booth is a karaoke talk live stream with Flare and Polka. I came at a weird time where they were just trying to stall and talk with the audience while they were trying to fix their 3d models as they were acting up, jokes.

I got reservations to the Hololive Justice panel in the afternoon so I went there to camp again to have good eats. Nice Bijou hapi again. She doesn’t even have idol clothes yet, so how are people making this assuming that this will be her clothes? What happens if it’s wrong when the time for it actually comes? lol.

Proof of sitting in the packed house Hololive Justice panel, first in NYC. No cameras or photos/videos allowed again.

The panel just finished and people are heading out now but I must say that was probably the most fun and entertaining holo panel that I’ve been to. They were doing a trivia game with the audience and they took turns answering questions about New York and or each of the talents ‘lore’ or personal preferences, stuff you would know if you watched their stream. Whoever loses, they have a digital spin the wheel for a punishment game, ranging from saying cringe lines, acting like tsundere, acting like a imuto, saying ‘ara ara’ etc, pretty jokes shit. Funny, interactive and very entertaining, they also had a live MC a rep from the convention to moderate the flow and such which helped alot. So much better than Advent panel last year which was so ad-libbed and slow/boring. Good shit, Gigi powered and semi-carried this thing.

Very big Fauna fan exiting out. In fact, there is quite alot of Fauna fans this convention, Fauna, Mumei, Bae, Kiara, Ina being probably the most seen, either sporting their merch or in full cosplay; for Mumei and Fauna, more often than not, their casual or goth clothes, since it be popular I guess. Kronii fans have been kind of absent lately, I guess they all moved/converted to advent or justice fans.

Miku’s gotta eat too, so I’ll have the same thing she is gonna have.

Gotta get me some of Lisas Dumplings hell yea boi. Gotta eat some dumplings overpriced shit hell yea.

7 for $16, this is probably the worst value to money ratio thing you can buy in here maybe; they didn’t even have classic pork and cabbage, sold out, so I got beef and onion filling. Not bad, but honestly, I couldn’t tell if these were fresh or frozen. People in the back seemed to be making shit but who knows. The Seagram ginger ale is a bit less sweet than Canada Dry, but either way same stuff I think. A meal is a meal I guess, I was still kinda full from the morning bagel so this is fine the amount.

Compared to last year, they have the full use of the convention space. So what did they use it for? To open a gaming area, both video game and tabletop games hmm.

The area has like indie game makers and small companies showing their games but also a small arcade of free to play fare like music games and the like.

Old school Japanese style arcade cabinets. Gud shit, they don’t make them like they used to you know.

Initial D Arcade Stage 8, this game has been going forever and initial d will live forever for those that remember.

I think this is mahjong? No auto dealer machine? Sure I guess.

Had a area with console fighting games like strive and tekken. I am a bit annoyed that the most popular area with the most people playing is the smash tables; not a real fighting game. Fight me on that.

After some time in the gaming area I went back to the main hall. Phase connect fans waiting for their oshi or whoever is next I guess. Looks kinda sad since there is so little people there, but you gotta give them some respect I guess for being there.

A very nice wall art for a local gundam shop it seems called gundam planet, cool man.

Unlike last year, Genshin Impact/Honkai Starrail creator Mihoyo had a booth and merch to sell stuff at to the rejoicing of fans I guess.

Very nice keychains and chiblis, should go back and buy something from them.

I guess I know what Lisa looks like now. They had several outposts within the con floor as-well for express distribution.

Goodsmile showing off some of their stuff and goods.

Miku has long been a favorite of anime figure makers and collectors for the better part of the last 15 or so years. Even tho vocaloid isn’t as popular as it used to be; since vtubers have complete taken over that market share; Miku is still a top favorite for figure makers to this day with unique designs and new stuff coming every month via prize and scale figures.

Frieren really is popular isn’t it. Even though their designs are honestly very simple and basic.

So sad, they made this nice figure of Aqua from Hololive but the is going to be graduating/leaving in just a few days from now. Sadge.

Decide to sit down in his open area for a bit and fix my tube of prints when this Megumin cosplayer sat down in front of me. I find it jokes that it was a Megumin cosplayer, tried from Explosion maybe?

This guy prides himself as a traditional artist with pencil lines and shit. It’s interesting but I feel that it’s out of place for this convention, more suited to comic con or the like.

This company spent a massive amount of money for such fancy displays that are light up and shit you would think it’s a mobile game or anime. Nope, it’s just a table top physical card game lol. Absolute waste of space and not really needed, false advertising.

Ichiban Kuji has a booth but they don’t really sell the actual lottery process, you can just straight up buy some of the figures that show up in crane games in Japan outright which is a bit strange but sure. They also carry some stock from figure companies that are not associated with Goodsmile so yea, here they are just a figure shop, weird but whatever.

Some of the figures you can buy at the Ichiban Kuji booth, these are not all prize figures, most pictured are scale figure and cost like 150-200 each, so yea.

Nice FF7 Remake/Rebirth Barrett, what a baller. Not swole enough but still good shit.

The gashapon area is really popular, lots of people getting them tokens for real.

Even devil Miku cosplayer can’t resist the joy of gacha.

One of the main guests of honor at AnimeNYC, three of the talents/voice actors for one of the most recent Love Live anime projects. They are hard to see but they are doing autographs and such at the bandai namco booth, not the regular AnimeNYC autograph area. You are not allowed photographs as shortly taking this photo I was called out by several staff members saying no photos here. Sure lady, sure, if you really wanted no photos, you should have done them in the autograph area for more privacy and such.

As the day winded down, they had Hachama and Roboco do a live stream about cooking some shit. The area is noticeable much less crowded now; most likely because all of the people normally there have left the con to travel to Brooklyn for the Breaking Dimensions concert, it takes about 1 hour by train to get to Brookyn from the convention center so yea, too bad for Haachama tho.

Nice 2B and A2 cosplayers, with some random dude in the middle, sure, just taking photos you know.

I lined up in the same hall area as before and got into the FGO panel with Albert and such. They had Kana Ueda (Rin, Ishtar) and Minami Tanaka (Nitocris, Satsuki from the new Tsukihime remake) as guests for this panel and it was alright. As per usual, they went over like half an hour and it was largely material most people knew already due to clairvoyance EX but yea. My impression is that to get voice actors to come to a convention, you gotta package it as a paid vacation since based on what they were saying via translator, they spent the last 2 days just doing tourist bait things lol; so for them it’s like vacation and maybe 1-2 hours of panel time; not bad I guess for a paid vacation.

Once the panel finished I made my way out and went back to my hotel to drop off my tube and other merch of today, clean up and head out for dinner.

On my way to my desired location/food I walked pass Penn Station, they have so many exits and entryways to this station, it really is one of the main hubs of Manhattan.

Which is also connected/is the Madison Square Garden, the place where so many NYC sports teams play and concerts/events are held. Noice

 

After walking not too long I made it to my destination, Ichiran ramen, the famous private booth to eat ramen for one. Made famous by every tourist video and marketing material about ramen or trip to Japan guide since like ever. NYC has two locations.

Despite finding it, which I thought would be the less busy location, I quickly discovered that there was a huge line to get in. Shit. It is AnimeNYC weekend after all and just base bait tourists such as myself wanting to try this. I waited at the very long line for roughly 10-15 minutes; I then heard some people in front of me saying ‘well we’ve been here for 40 minutes now, and we hardly moved, maybe we should get something else to eat?’ is when I decide man, it’s just not worth it; and left the line. Fuck it, not today, not this time I guess.

Searching for another ramen spot is not hard via google maps. A short walk away from Ichiran midtown is Koreantown, which to my surprise, was extremely busy and bumping man, so much different from what I am used to when I go to a “x town” in a city.

This couple for blocks/streets has so many Korean restaurants and such, a H-mart and other Korean goods/bars or general Asian like food. I kinda couldn’t believe it.

I eventually got to my backup new spot, Koku Ramen spot a place with good high ratings.

Ohh, looks very nice and old school inside. Cool. I ended up getting seated at the counter.

I am not entirely sure if the place is Korean or Japanese owned but my guess is that they are Korean, being in koreatown after all. They had alot of different ramen types and some that are more Korean styled with hot pepper spice and you can choose a spice level for all ramen to so yea, probably Korean owned. All the ki tchenstaff however were Mexicans tho lol; only the servers/waiters were Korean/Japanese.

I got their signature Koku ramen, which is their version of tonkatsu broth but with some spice level into it and differing toppings from normal like bok choy, bean sprouts etc. I also got a side of karaage which is where I figured they were Korean, since it was a bit spicy and the mayo red sauce for dipping. Overall this is a pretty good ramen, better than most I would think with unique Korean twists to the traditional tonkatusu ramen. Good shit, and with no waiting in line for Ichrian like a fool, which will probaly be not as good as this bowl of ramen here. Would go again to this place. Ichiran can wait another time. The total cost of this meal, including the karaage is roughly $36 dollars after tax and tip. On the pricer side, but that’s because the karaage was like $15 alone but yea, still good.

They have these little booth areas to showcase various Koreantown goods and such, like at the CNE market area i guess, noice.

The sign wants you ensure that you know this is koreantown.

Walking and exploring the area more and I see a crowd waiting for some dessert shit. Wow. I go into the other place beside it; Hokkaido baked cheese tart and not get that.

Workers are white and a black women, wow, so different, not Mexican.

Was feeling bait so got Taiyaki. There is actually two in the bag, two for $8, not bad maybe? I can’t tell prices for sweets and desserts if it’s good or not.

I got the one they called blueberry cheesecake filling. Pretty good. It’s not freshly made, they just heat it up but it’s still good. It would be even better if they made fresh but whatever, still good.

Walking back to my hotel and I get into the path of the main normal tourist crowd, around Macy’s. It’s so busy Saturday night man, this city doesn’t sleep at all. Most pizza places only close at 5am, lol.

Walk pass the Shake Shake near times square, yea, that’s how close I am to times square and my relative distance from my hotel.

When I get back to my room I watch the half hour Breaking Dimensions livestream, the free portion in which they stream for free and it’s cool. I know what I am missing and it’s too bad I didn’t get them; I had a small chance to get tomorrows concert but it just want’s in the cards I guess as the timing was just not right and I want to do other things on my last full day in NYC sunday. Maybe next concert. When the free stream ended, I just switched to watching Koyori and her FF7 play through again nice.

Overall today was a solid day, not as crazy as Friday but more panel focus and less buying, although I did buy some stuff from artists today before it got busy. I’ll do another pass of the artists alley Sunday and see how it goes. Just one more day and one more panel then I can say I did everything that I planned/wanted to do. Almost there.