And so today is my last full day in NYC and the last day of AnimeNYC, these past few days seem so long but at the same time so quick. I suppose that’s always the case when you are on a trip, time is so precious you make sure that every hour and minute count I guess. Let’s see how things went down today.

There is alot of good bagel shops in the immediate area, I mean that’s why NYC is famous for bagels after all and this one is particularly popular/busy based on google. Liberty Bagels, the logo and name sound so American, I suppose that’s also why it’s so popular.

For a Sunday morning, it’s pretty damn busy, I don’t think it’s just con people either coming here. The shop itself is kinda small but they have lots of signage for there menu offerings, which is quite large. Nice pictures too for some of their more popular items too.

It’s a bit like a starbucks, when you order you pay and they ask you your name/last name. Then you just wait around till they call your name. These guys in front of me waiting are quite evidently here for AnimeNYC too.

After a short wait I get my order and coffee. I got what they call the “New Yorker” a bagel with egg, hashbrown and brisket slice. Pretty good shit, I didn’t have this one toasted so it was much easier to chew and bite fluffy, the brisket is quite good, but it’s not like a BBQ smoked brisket, just brisket from a deli which is still good but not really smoky, the eggs and hash-brown are solid. It could have used some like mayo or sauce to go with it and tie all the elements together, as they are now, it just feels like i’m eating each item by itself which just so happen to be between a bagel. I’m sure maybe some cream cheese or even American cheese would have helped if I asked for it, ah-well, still good. Overall, this bagel sandwich and coffee is the most affordable yet, total being even with coffee and tax like $16. Wow, no wonder they are popular.

I showed up a bit later than usual and this time I don’t get to line up inside, I have to wait outside I guess till the doors open at 10am. Strange how they do things differently each day, hmm.

Last night at the FGO panel Albert and Kana Ueda told everyone to go try the Archer vs Gilgamesh experience since they say it’s cool. So that’s exactly what I did first when I got in, lined up for that shit and got a timed ticket entry for the hour, noice.

This Aura cosplayer wanted to get in but the staff told her that they were out of timed slots for the hour, to come back in an hour at 11am. They give you a little paper ticket for different time slots I guess. Good thing I got in early.

While Aura missed out on the first day entry time-slot, looks like Frieren is pretty happy about that and got to experience the archer vs gil experience first hand early. The experience is only like 3-4 minutes and only 4 people can go in at a time, which seems really small numbers, that’s because it is. Let’s just say that when I got in, there is no cameras or recording, it feels quite literally like a tutorial for a motion capture hand/arm gesture VR game, just when it was starting to get interesting, it was over lol. What the fuck lol?

I saw through the previous days at the convention people had FGO bags with art done by Namie, former Hololive vtuber Sana and I wanted it. Problem is you have to do this gill vs archer thing and then take a dumb ass photo like the one above and share it on twitter or instagram. I opened my twitter account that I only use for conventions, took this group photo that these randoms were preparing as a group in bulk and shared it, I told the guy I shared a photo and asked if this is fine; it was. lol so I got my bag with this.

All this work just for this nice looking bag, man so much work lol. At least it’s the plastic fiber type bag and not paper.

Walked by the gacha booth and they kinda made some interactive wall part thing of left over capsules, jokes.

This booth that I only found now is some company that is trying to be like a Pushine or like white people hello kitty or some shit with mascot cat and related media franchise, or at least they are trying to be. They had their mobile game and a giant crane game where you can try and pick up a tshirt and other shit for free. If you play their mobile game beta test on their ipad there, you gotta get at least 30 points to get a shirt, I lined up and failed lol. Shittt. It’s one of those speed runner type games where you dodge oncoming traffic and collect coins and shit. They let me try like 6 times but I failed so easily, it’s like swipe controls so like wtf lol. He said to come back later today and try again lol, sure bro sure.

Walking by the Omocat booth and checking what’s the sold out items this time. Hmm, interesting indeed.

Phase moved their cutouts right in front together in preparation for their concert today which I will not attend because it costs money. I find it jokes how they put Mint front and center, she isn’t even part of the company lol. Trying to attract as much people as possible I guess, they know their position when a Indie takes the top spot in your cardboard cutout game.

I thought Naruto was all about ramen? I don’t remember him ever eating Okanomiyaki? Maybe in the future he does.

Everywhere I go I see these bijou holo hapis, even picking up some okanomiyaki, it’s pretty early too, not even 11am yet I think.

This women is Japanese, when she was explaining the wonders for fruit sando to some interested rando. Her accent was quite evident.

Thanks to this photo, I realize why I like grape cake from blooming garden bakery at home/formerly congee town, it’s basically just a big grape fruit sando, but in cake form. Wow. I get it now, only in cake form tho.

Wow a couple of Umaru-chan cosplays checking out some bentos, wow, it’s been a while since this show/anime came out, I’m surprised people remember it still.

The bentos look alright I guess. I don’t know the prices tho.

The same two takoyaki places from last year are also here, but they are the first booths in the corner, jokes. Good old Karl’s Balls, epic name man.

This particular artist is very popular because she has only vtuber prints and merch. In particular she has lots of art for Kiara, Fauna, Mumei and Shiori/Neressa from hololive as well as some indies like Mint, which are known to not get very many art and have risen in popularity over the past couple of years.

Where I am standing is where the line begins for this artist, wow that long huh. I guess she truly is suffering from success, I mean I too am also in this line to buy something from her lol.

The long length of her line gained the attention of staff and they yelled at her to fix and organize it because her line was blocking the flow of traffic etc. She walked out of the booth and asked everyone to snake around, which is where I am standing now. She also had these plastic sheets to make ordering quicker, just circle the things you want and etc. Noice.

Once I got my stuff from that artist I headed to the Fubuki and Mio panel/party. Pretty good shit, they hosted another similar game with the audience as to justice and other punishment games between them and the audience with the help of the onstage MC and translator. They also did a karaoke for like 20 minutes too at the end which was a surprise. I didn’t bring my pen lights today but the guy sitting beside me gave me one of his for this panel so I can join in, nice guy. He said he attended both Friday, Sat and is going to attend later tonight’s Sun concert, mad lad.

Walking out of the panel and heading back to the main hall to finish my final walk through I see this great Gura in idol clothes. Great job with the cosplay, she’s also pretty short too so I guess that’s on point to for accuracy. Noice.

The hololive booth didn’t have any active live programming at this time and just played music videos of their talents songs but there was still a crowd regardless.

I am not sure what this guy’s flag is all about or who his oishi is lol. Giving mixed messages here with the fuwamoco flag and hat which I think is a sapling thing, Fauna’s fans?

So in the end I did go back and buy another one of these cushions from this artist, just like last year for suisei, can you guess which one I ended up buying? lol.

The pro suisei artist is also here at animeNYC with a clear lack of Aqua merch and alot of the key-chains gone and sold out, hence nothing there anymore. Aqua’s graduation stream is in a few more days, sadge.

The early bird gets the worm I suppose. Justice only debuted like 2 months ago and are already a pretty big success based on this image. If you have merch of Justice talents, you will do well. What’s interesting to me is that while Elizabeth has the most subs on youtube, her key-chain is not sold out yet, which kind of proves my theory that Gigi, Ceci and Raora are much more popular despite having lower sub counts than Elizabeth, as concurrent stream viewers truly is a better measure of popularity than sub count for a channel; similar to the popularity of Fauna and to a degree Shiori too.

Our artist today I guess is out and about to check out the rest of the con himself so got his two fuwamoco cosplayer friends to manage the table. Honestly, I think his table looked more busy when these two are here, the cosplay strat totally does works lol.

Elizabeth of Justice is the last live programming at the booth for AnimeNYC and she did a great job of doing what she does best, sing songs. Her choice of songs are pretty classic white people fare but I think over time she can get more holo and idol songs into her rotation. Gud shit.

This pile of plushies is for sale, all for $10 each, notice that brackets tho that Hololive plushies not included. lol. Of course they are not included, that is like the only thing people might want to buy. These roughly cost from the official hololive store like $33-36 CAD so in USD it’s even cheaper, I saw another booth selling these for $80 USD. If your desperate I guess.

Noice, a random Ram cosplayer from Guilty Gear Strive, good shit. Her friend was also cosplaying the new Abba but I forgot to ask for her photo, ah well. There is a few guilty gear cosplayers I saw but they are either too busy or on way to someplace, saw like 2 Testaments, 3 or so Bridgets, a Ky, this Ram and Abba.

This particular artist is quite famous/popular, she has had several of her designs made into figures and has done illustration work for Hololive and other vtuber companies, she even designed several vtubers herself. Maybe one day she too could be a vtuber, if not already one herself.

Some fashion/clothing brand had this statue on their booth, cool but why tho? Is this their mascot? Not really what I would except from a clothes drip company.

This vendor was selling official hololive merch and artbooks/doujinshi books of popular holo vtubers done by their mamas/designers/illustrators and others. Cool but they are massively overpriced, despite this deal, each book by a mama costs $50, $40 for non-mama works. So this deal is basically asking for $100 for just 3 thin books, crazy insane, but that’s what holo does I guess.

After my last run of shopping, I headed my way out of the convention floor and headed back to my hotel to drop off today’s merch purchases and tube. Even tho the con will be over today, I still have some things to eat/do before I leave NY this year.

After a decent rest and merch organization/luggage packing session at the hotel, I headed out to my next location, to get there I needed to use the subway, lest I want to be a lazy bitch and waste even more money on uber or take over an hour to walk there.

Penn station is one of the hubs as I mentioned and it’s very large, so large that I didn’t realize it myself until today underground, it connects several lines and is a connector for other private sky train rail systems that is technically not the ‘public system’. This reminds me a bit of union station but much larger and more like Shinjuku station or Tokyo Station in Japan. They also have lots of food and shops too as you an see.

Proof of existence, waiting for subway edition.

The area I am going is further south of Times Square area so a lot less busy and congested but still very much alive and active, with lots of tourists still coming for this area for one reason or another.

One of my reasons for coming here is this, Joe’s Pizza. Joe’s Pizza is famous for being the most standard and classic representation of a NY pizza slice and has many locations throughout NY and Manhatten. It is also most famous for the pizza joint that Toby Macguire Peter Parker Spider Man worked at in Spider Man 2. lol. This particular location is the original location that started the semi-chain in NY. OG.

Walking inside you can tell this place has been around for decades and has been unchanged for decades too for better or worse. Most of the customers as you might guess are tourists but yea, what do you expect. All Joes Pizzas places are busy when I see them, even the one in times square there is line out the door almost all the time.

So I ordered a plain cheese slice and pepperoni. $4 for cheese slice and $5 for pep. Overall prices are in line with others if not a bit more expensive due to iconic status, in terms of taste, it’s alright, it is still crispy and good, but a bit too greasy to my liking, which can be seen if you try to fold the pepperoni slice and eat that way like people tell you you should. Not bad at all but I think there is better pizza in NY these days. Joes maybe the OG slice, but it’s certainly not the best anymore in my opinion.

Walking after eating my slices and I see a basketball court with real people playing. Wow, this is like a scene from a movie I think, one that usually involves black people in NY, which may or may not be about basketball at all.

After another short walk, I get to my final destination for my travels, Hamburger America. This burger place is owned by famous burger scholar George Motz, something of a media personality who has made it his life work to explore and research the history of burgers in America and regional versions of the the most American food there is. This being his joint, I have heard good things online and watched a video review of this place recently, so yea, I was curious. Plus shake shack is in the airport and at home so if this fails, I got those to fall back on.

The entire place is kinda small but it’s modeled and designed to be old school looking both in feel and decor of like 1950’s or even 60’s burger places. There is roughly a 15 minute wait to sit at the counter, for the most real American burger experience. I waited.

For those who do you want to eat at the counter sitting in, they have take out counter in the back and more modern fast food seating where you just sit on whatever table is available when you get your food, no counter or service by staff.

Part of the experience here is to watch all the staff make your burgers up close and the ritual of burger making. The place has mainly 2 kinds of burgers, the Smash Burger and the Onion Burger, which is basically the same thing as a Smash Burger but they have pressed a lot of onions onto them and they caramelize. It’s apparently the hottest shit since it originates from Oklahoma. They have monthly regional burgers on the menu that rotate out over time but those two types are the staples of this place for good reason I hope.

After roughly waiting for 15 or so minutes after I put in my order with the server; my fries came first then my lemonade and then my double patty Onion Burger. Noice.

Look how crispy and juicy this burger looks, and man, it’s pretty good. Even tho it has just onion, cheese and beef, it works so well together with the buttered bun potato rolls. In it’s purest form, this is a burger, no bullshit like toppings, mayo, ketchup or tomatoes/pickles inside bullshit, just the basics. I have no complaints, it’s probably up there with Shake Shack as the best burger I’ve ever had, probably best burger maybe since George Motz is the burger man so I trust his ablty to make a good burger. Good shit, would eat again, and best part is, it’s not that expensive, the whole meal only cost like $25, that’s after tip and tax, really decent price for the quality you are getting.

After my meals(s) I go back to the subway to travel to my last destination.

Times Square. I mean, you just have to go here at least once when you visit NYC. It’s the center of the entire world more or less.

As the center of the world, the amount of traffic and people visiting here is crazy, this is a Sunday evening. I don’t think it ever goes empty even in the Fall before when I went before but in Summer it’s just another level of busy and shit happening on the streets.

Oh man, even the Mexican fruit sellers have made there way into times square. Shieet.

Proof of existence, Times Square pointing at Colacola ad in the back because it’s coke edition.

These women are basically naked with just pasties on and painted bikini tops and such. You don’t see that here when you visit in the Fall. I guess there stunt is the same as taking photos of Spiderman or Elmo, just don’t unless you want to pay them or etc.

With all the shit happening, I’m glad to see the NYPD is on the area making sure no trouble is made, but why do they look so sad. It’s like man, why do I have to do this shift and of all places, Times Square.

The gift shops in the area have gotten slight merch updates in their inventory. Hmm, so much Trump shit, there is even some Harris shirts already that is not in the shot.

Only in America man, only in America you can get away with shit like this, so jokes.

Feels like bad Photoshop shit or maybe even AI generated/assisted. Whyy?

Ah yes, I suppose this is the best picture of today that captures the essence the last day of AnimeNYC; random cosplayers still in cosplay visiting other places in NY, such as Times Square. It should be noted that all three are dudes too so that is jokes too. I saw a few Genshin cosplayers checking out the gift shops and a few peeps with Hololive shirts as-well in the area. This is AnimeNYC for real for real.

To end a long day, I pack my remaining items and merch for tomorrows travel back home and watch the free portion of Breaking Dimensions stream/concert then switch to whoever is streaming now, I guess it’s going to be Gigi, noice.

Busy last day today, chill but still busy. I ended up buying more things today, some things which I didn’t think I would buy, but yea, I just couldn’t resist. Eveything fits in my luggage and duffel back tho, yea, I need to use the duffel bag now, oh boy. Let’s see how travel goes tomorrow.