After considerable improvement over last year, I decided to go to all three days of Anime North this year, mainly due to the fact that I brought tickets ahead of time and was curious how things were on a Saturday, since it’s been several years since I went on that day. After a series of same old same old convention patterns here, last year’s Anime North for once seemed to be heading in the right direction with improvements in space, venue and other areas in which this convention has lacked or were non-existent, such as industry presence and notable guests.
With that said, let’s take a look at all three days of Anime North this year and how they went, at least from the perspective of one person wandering about the main event areas with mild cosplay interest this year. Despite attending all three days this year, the photos I have curated are roughly 450ish in number, which is only about 50 or so more than last year, which is interesting to note, probably because I took even less effort to chase down cosplayers and ask people and or other things. Once again a good bulk of the photos are artists booths and scene photos so I’ll try to keep comments minimal as much as I can or to a couple of words.
Arriving just a bit later than the 5pm opening of dealers on Friday, we got a decent parking spot near the North building and quickly got our badges inside at the North building and headed towards the main area for nominoichi.
Proof of team existence, food scouting edition.
He does not seem that impressed with the offerings, but must do with what is there unfortunately.
My sister opted to get some chicken burger from one of the food trucks. They had a Nashville hot chicken version but in the end she just went with the normal, it’s still just decent/mediocre.
A nice truck named Bob’s burgers, no association with the cartoon show I don’t think, not that they want you to believe so.
I ordered a burger from them for my ghetto con dinner and I could immediately tell that the beef patties were Cardinal Roadhouse brand frozen burgers, which are probably the best frozen burgers you can buy here as they were formerly the supplier for Harveys probably a decade or so ago, although no longer, which is why Harveys is shit now. They had condiments like lettuce, tomato and such that you can add yourself on the side tray area. Overall, not bad but what do you expect for a overpriced 11 dollar food truck burger. Dan ultimately had a hot dog from one of the vendors but I forgot to take a picture, it’s a hot dog, what do you expect.
Proof of existence, white ghost smiley motion on my ear edition.
Waiting in line at nominoichi while Dan uses the washroom and explores a bit of dealers room. Cosplayer on the left is probably from honkai star rail but could be wrong.
Some bocchi cosplayer and some others which I have no idea also in line.
We waited for roughly half an hour before open of nominoichi. During that time we also saw Mark there who had just arrived, I had thought he might have been inside already but I guess not, forgot to take a picture of him this whole con actually so use your imagination.
As nominoichi opens and we get inside, we begin the rounds of taking a look at what people are selling at what essentially is a garage sale of pre-owned anime goods.
Being the first time going to this thing on open I can see it is quite popular indeed. Last year I only went in after the Doki Bird panel and even then it was still busy.
A few shop keepers having fun cosplaying as Sakamoto and friends, nice shit.
While indeed busy, Mark says this year was not that busy compared to last year for some reason, maybe it’s because of the rain we got earlier in the day that spooked some people from coming this year.
A reasonable large selection of figures and other anime books and manga for sale. I wonder if they were ever opened ever.
I suppose all types of people enjoy shopping for bargains.
Nice beard and wheelchair crew leading the way.
Hm someone selling popup parades of hololive mems and suisei nendo. $125 for ame huh, kind of overpriced by quite a bit I think since pop up parades are supposed to be ‘cheap’.
Lots of different stuff here with oshi no ko aswell. Even some old shonen jump english mags huh.
Boss wheelchair midget bros doing their thing. I think he’s cosplaying full metal alchemist? Was he experimented on? Maybe that’s the joke.
Black dude cosplaying as star trek? I guess ok but not quite the right place maybe for this.
Nice old box of twisted wonderlad.
This particular seller had quite alot of hololive goods, mostly from event shops and ichiban kuji from japan. I wanted to take a closer look at the pekora puppet on the table but these dudes were just standing there doing gacha or some shit, left later without seeing the table at this point.
The famous madoka figure that recently had a reissue after like almost a decade. $75 for haachma, $90 for pekora and $100 for suisei? Kind of overpriced but sure, hololive tax I guess is real.
Random shit for women I think, nice hair/wig ears cosplay girl.
Oh shit nice, hololive advent neressa and bijou showed up here today of all places. Pretty good shit, had to ask for a photo inside this stuffy place, might never see them again and indeed, I didn’t see them again for the rest of the con.
Stuff for women and twisted wonderland merch. Apparently my sister brought a lot of stuff from this seller. Nice display.
Noice happi for hololive bijou, once again of the design that they never actually had for idol clothes based off assumptions.
Mongoloid eva about to jump me.
Inside nominoichi my sister was going to buy some shit but the seller asked her if she had ever worked at a ghetto low budget Chinese summer camp in the past, like 5-10 years ago. After a brief pondering she said, yep that’s me; the seller was a former student of my sister at the camp oh shit lol. Apparently my sister ‘changed her life’ by introducing her to anime and the existence of Anime North itself, which she did not know about at the time, just before entering high school I believe. Wow, and here we are all these years later and her student is cosplaying as her favorite holostars vtuber, gavis bettel and my sister is buying merch from her. Changed her life.
After largely just visiting nominoichi on Friday, we headed back out to end the day early. It was raining a bit, or rather it just stopped so all was good.
We actually tried going to a vtuber panel, unnamed, but when we got there about 20 minutes late it turns out that it was a no show. Too bad, maybe next time. Shit happens I guess.
Despite having no expectation for today’s nominoichi I ended up pulling quite a surprise haul, mostly hololive puppets that you can win in Japan from crane games and or other reseller places lol. I also ended up getting that Mikan school swimsuit figure by Alter since in my opinion it was a reasonable price, like $60 even tho the vendor guy was a bit surprised I didn’t haggle, I don’t do that shit. The pekora puppet was $30, while the matsuri and ayame together were $25, pretty good I’d say.
Merch and goods that my sister brought at nominoichi. Wow this is a considerably amount. Most of the stuff is twisted wonderland, aka disney kancolle gacha game except harry potter setting but villains, yea. Pretty popular in Japan for girls/women, but not so much outside japan, at least not yet since apparently an anime is coming soon which I can guess will boost it’s visibility. I am unsure which of these items were brought from her former student, but yea, nice. Changed her life.
Getting back home on a Friday was horrible out of the parking lot as expected, it look like an hour to get out of the parking lot so by the time we got home it was like 10-11ish almost, damn and I think we left at like 8:00pmish. Sleep for the night at family home to prepare for Saturday.
We begin Saturday morning arriving at a fairly good time, I think like 9am-ish, the main dealers opens at 10am so we have roughly an hour to kill to walk around and do whatever. Noice. We got a pretty good parking spot this time and learned from our mistakes. Dan didn’t get any sleep last night so he opted out to coming on Saturday, too bad.
Even in the morning we got some itasha cars on display. Base bait pokemon classic I guess.
That snakegirl monstergirl car that has been seen for many years now, a staple. I wonder who the owner is.
Goodsmile racing miku car.
Genshin car. Of course it’s a BMW too, hah, Chinese people love their BMW’s.
Nice Asuka car too, nice art and decals. Haven’t seen this one around I dont think.
First blue car is Lumi Kaneko, which is a phase connect vtuber. Another genshin suv beside it.
REM forever I guess.
Another miku car. I don’t understand everyone doing blue cars with miku on it, bitches wouldn’t it make more sense if it was a green car?
Hololive choco car, which I think was around last year maybe. Once again blue car, should be yellow or black car I think.
Suisei car, nice but I think he could do much better, need some shit on the hood and darker blue man, of all the cars that should be more blue, this should be the one, you blew it son.
Nice pair of lexuses of animes that I am sure I know but I can’t remember at this time. I think one of them is Alya can’t communicate in russian? Not sure.
Proof of existence 2025 sign panel Saturday edition.
We have time to spare, get breakfast at Tims lol.
Let’s get some of that Ryan Reynolds dead pool breakfast box. Comes in two versions, bacon or sausage.
Sausage version.
Bacon version. While it does seem like a bunch of shit all mixed together, for what it is, it’s not bad, it tastes exactly what is sounds and looks like and for like $5-6 dollars it’s decent, just not enough. If there was like 20-30% more food, it would be absolutely worth it. I think people would be even willing to pay double this price if the amount was double as well.
Swiss chalet trying to get in on the action again. Nothing about these written on the sign says to me this is a deal at all, $10 for spring roll? wtf lol.
Time to get back in a line up a bit before the main gate opens. I wonder who this hooded dude is.
I see that the hololive Irys fans are out and about, waving this nice flag of our girl. One of my favorites as well, self appointed ojousama of holoen but not really lol.
The gates are open, let’s roll.
I can’t remember but in previous years we go to dealers first but this year we did artists first since you never know, some shit might sell out. I guess for the next while I will try to limit my comments to simple words since there is like probably alot of photos, mainly just artists booths.
Good to decent art but not my thing.
Sailor moon with more fabric and material goods.
Needs more pastel, too base.
Decent to below average. Has Elira pendora and some Niji vtuber arts for sale, auto cancelled by others I would think.
Nice display blue.
Not my thing but appreciate elden ring and baldur’s gate 3 I think? Some genshin.
Nah man.
Nice effort but no.
Nice background arts but not the best i’ve seen, I’ve seen much better. Nah.
Probably only thing that might sell is charms, prints probably forget it.
Nice charms and stickers, more genshin shit.
Nice shoppers cosplay, I have no idea what they were from but they were a crew so that’s always good.
Not really, some kindgom heart prints? lol
I have no idea but they tried.
Very big busy table with so much shit, good but the actual prints are just mid. The smaller goods will sell tho.
Decent cute things.
Nah, big name sign not gonna help here.
Commit to selling charms and stickers, she knows what sells. Give up on prints is the direction many artists are taking these days.
Mid art and subject matter. Dandandan is super main and ultra mid.
Thunderbolt fantasy showing their puppets again this year lol. So odd that they put this in artists area tho.
Our boi ‘ragna’ doing his thing even tho he’s not that important anymore, should finish the latest season, apparently this series is going to be done done with this movie I think.
Subject matter is above average but the quality of the art is below.
Discussing prices and shit. Not sure if this is the artist or just shoppers.
Chibi art and plushies of thunderbolt fantasy hmm in causal clothes, not bad.
So many non print goods to sell, art and subject matter not my thing.
Nice table selling non-print goods, pretty good chibi stuff from all sorts of fandom like vtubers holoive and other shit.
I’ve seen this art before and i’ll see it again next year i guess.
Above average art and average subject matter but not up to my standards.
Top tier S rank subject matter but below average art quality. Nice Bridget ass I guess? lol I think more people would buy if the ass wasn’t so pronounced and in your face.
Mainstream gacha subject matter and anime but top looking non-print goods, nice straps on the keychains too.
Not really, needs some work.
Below average but mixed bag subject matter.
Interesting style on the right, bait for women on the left, both not for me.
Tourist level art. Good effort indeed.
Pretty good art but price is overpriced for the quality I am willing to pay for. Thought about the top left Frieren art but there was nothing else that was good imo so no.
Above average and a decent Frieren art but still no from me.
Nahh man.
Very good art, lots of hololive and vtuber art too, both of ame before and after as dooby but ultimately no buy from me, no art of ones that I really like.
Very good art prints, good holo subject matter and quality chibi non-print goods. I brought from them before, I brought from them again. Good shit.
Wow, lots of FOOD pins and shit, it really is a niche thing, you gotta be mad to buy some shit like a hot dog bun pin or rice cracker pin.
It’s only been like an hour or less and it’s already getting busy in artists. I remember the days when artists was pretty light in traffic. I guess more people understand now that artists is where the real fan merch is, you ain’t gonna find shit in dealers really if you have niche interests.
All in on pins.
Nice hoodie but not a pirate still, at least not here.
Wood coasters and mugs huh, getting more and more material goods are we now huh?
Mao mao buying some shit, art is shit tho so poor taste.
Umm, gurl who are you appealing to? God of war art? Vinland saga with onepiece shit and rando stuff. I dunno man.
Morgan cosplay doing her shopping too. I believe I have seen her at Anime Toronto that one year, a convention that will never happen again.
Center artist has lots of vtuber art and even Nimi Nightmare art, up with the times as of like 2-3 months ago which is pretty good. Right is also pretty decent. Left not so much.
These fabric box displays are pretty good for showing shit. She could have more stuff up you know.
Squid art not even here yet to open their booth. Weak.
Nah.
Not my thing, patterns.
Nice name but this kind of thing has been done forever by many others before.
Completely forgettable.
Oh shit some pretty creative charms here for hololive. They are small but they show a scene or famous moment from each of the hololive talents stream or event. Good shit, brought some.
Pretty good art with lots of holo and some mainstream subjects. Man there is quite a lot of ame art now that I think about it, people really just liked drawing a blonde blue eyed white girl detective Sherlock Holmes I guess man. Props for the Sana art even tho long dead and the Cecila art, one of the few that I’ve seen. Good shit. RIP Fauna, she had the most dedicated fans a loss for Holo for sure.
They had this huge store/section right in the middle of artists that sold indie vtuber goods. It seems pretty sketchy but apparently they are legit?
I asked the cash register guy to ask about what this store/booth was about, or rather what is this company. He said that they are a company that helps indie vtubers and artists create merch and helps sell/distribute their goods at cons and such. Er, ok, he still didn’t say the name of the company but I suppose that’s the intended effect to keep low profile. They do have some big names like shylily and snuffy and large wall scrolls, but a few goods like fuwamoco slippers that seem a bit sus, hmm. I dunno lol.Feels like underground bootleg shit that is unauthorized but who knows.
Anyways, here is some more forgettable mid low art booth.
Oh shit wow nice, guilty gear strive cosplay of ABBA! Pretty good shit especially her giant key weapon boi. Good shit, I always gotta ask good guilty gear cosplays that I see.
Godly Char(s), Quatrro (Char is disguise) and Full Frontal (Char vessel edition) oh shit. I asked where is the OG char with the mask, they said they saw one around, around, man, should be part of your crew. Either way, good shit. Nice to see Gundam UC representation, which has been upped lately due to Gqquccks.
Shylily standee at that booth. I dunno man, those plushies are nice but those fuwamoco slippers are so sus. I mean, hololive produces their own merch, why would they sell shit via these guys? I feel that they are kinda legit but at the same time, make merch that is like holo coded but not actually.
Fake flowers are all the range it seems lately.
So are ceramics and pottery goods. Hmm.
Not sure what this is, I guess kids area with some pokemon ball thing?
To the side of the questionable indie vtuber merch booth they have a setup and screen to actually do meet and greet with some of the vtubers that they support. Wow, maybe they are real after all but the location is super weird, like this is in the middle of the artist alley, not vendors or etc. I guess AN’s failure of have clearly desalinated spaces for ‘industry’ are showing here.
I have brought prints from this artist before in the past. Good shit, good quality and subject matter. I brought again, although I chose poorly at the time…
Here one of the indie vtubers is doing a meet and greet with some of fans, or more likely just some rando vtuber fans in general. I guess they legit. Not the best place and too early, everyone is still shopping and such, but ah well. This area would get varying levels of traffic depending on how it is that is calling in.
Repo keychains, all the rage right now as a better version of lethal company like games that everyone is trying to do now. Not bad.
More material goods and jars huh, ok.
Art is good but nothing that I like.
Old school retro 80’s style. It’s a vibe.
Below average and forgettable, but at least they have non-paper goods.
Nice table with good art and good subject matter of vtubers and some touhou. Auto S tier fan and content. I didn’t buy anything however from him, a bit expensive, getting a bit more pickier these days. Good shit tho.
Decent but not enough colors or saturation.
FWPBWP, For white people, by white people. Does not belong at AN, get out of here.
Very nice display efforts but it’s become very obvious that artists has completely changed from paper good focus to other goods like keychains, stickers and other non-paper goods.
Getting crowded now. Nice lucy on the left from cyberpunk edgerunners. I only know because she is going to be a guest character in guilty gear strive lol.
Simple but effective.
Selling prints for $7 and with that quality of art, with that face? This artists knows her place in artist alley budget discount bin.
Among the chaos of a very busy artists alley, I spot some nice Nekopara cosplay both Chocola and Vanila. Gud shit, S rank knowledge and subject matter.
Frieren is like, what are you looking at? Nice art, from both booths but not really my thing.
Peak form of main-steamer/shonen popular art. Pretty good shit, even the DMC one on the right, but not enough cute girls for me so nah.
Nice DMC Dante vs Vergil art. Who would win? One punch man vs. superman and goku? Hmm.
That giant ball from last year for vgen artists has been put aside on it’s own place. I guess they are still here but I would never have guessed. The ball looking kinda wrinkled up now too.
Spaced out, ready to roll. All is right with the world, even the random 2b cosplayer too because forever.
Unique, but not good.
These guys don’t even sell anime goods or paper goods, this is just straight up jewellery and earrings and shit.
Artist on left is good, thought about it but opted not to. Right is not for me.
Not for me, just straight up jewellery again. What’s up with that? Pearls and shit too maybe? Fake ones? man.
Attack on Titan lives, kinda. At least all those people who cosplayed in the past can still use it again if it still fits.
Interesting art but not for me, interesting cosplayers too. Isn’t that the hand man from heroes? Blue haired girl I think is league Jinx? I can never be sure anymore.
Big display truly but not for me.
Looks like someone got booked or something, maybe argument or some other shit. AI art who knows. Only the other artists know.
Himmel and Mashle talking and doing some shit. Random blue guy on the right too.
The artists in this picture are mid, Himmel and Frieren like it tho.
Mixed bag of good and bad, everywhere.
Genshin and china stuff I have no idea about, no consistency in style or composition at all.
Nice art but no idea character or if it’s like OC shit, nice stuff tho.
Lower end tier art and subject matter.
Good display, acceptable.
Not good.
Good shit, nice charms and acrylic stands and key-chains of vtubers, suisei, dokibird, nimi, gura (RIP) good shit.
So good in fact that I did a close up of some of the charm. I brought some, good shit.
Oh shit, it’s that girl that had all the holo frames, I am glad she is still doing it, even tho her favorite Magni is dead. Double down on everything, nice. Didn’t buy tho.
Left is not for me, gay, right is better but quality not up there.
All in on plush goods. The past AN’s were so bullshit, what’s with this crafters corner bullshit, this is how it should have been always.
Solid art and mint art, nice pillows, no idea who they are tho.
Unique, but not for me.
Flowers for Algernon.
Bad, they trying something but it didn’t work out.
Pretty good art but not my subject. Oh, I guess that cosplayer was Jinx, or rather, Jinx from Arcane now. I am not surprised that’s how it is now.
Brought from the right artist before, solid good hololive art. Sad sameame art.
Just everywhere, no idea what this person’s style is on the right. The left is better and has good subject matter, the first Medalist art that I have seen today and some holo art on the top and left, but not up to my standards, maybe another time.
Oh shit, this artist is ready for the eventual rebirth of Gura as Sameko Saba. This customer also looking focused too.
Cool, but why tho?
Material goods are all the rage, bags and even deskmats now. Artists has grown so much, that’s great.
Oh shit same artist from EVO, one of the few guilty gear and other fighting game representation. Brought from again. Fighting games and vtubers? She knows her shit.
Honestly, not bad.
Mao mao thinks so to.
Ah yes, this artist goes way back. I remember the days when they used to sell kancolle buttons, now they are in everything, vtubers, frerein and even some other top shit, didn’t buy this time but glad to see that they continued tabling.
Based hololive Sana happi and council, so sad but they are alive still and continue.
They have a nice selection of custom plush and round balls plush of all the popular vtubers indie and hololive alike. Thought about it, but ultimately did not get, I’d rather more official plush like friends with you holo line or larger pillows instead. Still nice regardless.
Was here last year I think, my sister brought I believe, pretty good shit.
Not great. Sonic top right why?
People selling mini clay figurines now too huh?
YOU ARE TEARING ME APART LISA.
Oh shit, fantastic artwork here, excellent scenes of food and shops combined together with other anime pop things. What’s more he even had keychains of his main art, something not very many people do. Good shit. He apparently is from Vancouver, his first anime north, noice. Hope he returns next year. I’m sure he may appear at his local Vancouver anirevo, not so sure about the Toronto one however.
Overall pretty nice art, plus ram guilty gear art as well but it’s a little dark, he used black for shading which is not great. Too bad.
Portraits aren’t really my thing, guy on bottom right feels the same way.
No paper here, just more charms and even shell plastic of old gameboy and gba with custom art as keychains now. Creative noice.
This poor man with a clear bag. He has plushies of Nimi nigtmare right besides the round fauna ball plush, also carrying/brought some gura pillow or thing. Sad but at least his oshis are still alive in some form or another.
From a distance this art catches the eye but the closer you look at it, they all seem to have sameface? Perhaps they used some AI for the faces or something, not great looking. The general feel was that people were also avoiding this artist too, no immediately recognizable characters, all ocs?
Got some gundam gquicks going on, up with the times but quality not great.
Some bullshit conceptuals.
Screams drawn by white women and of course it’s true. I am not so sure about the pepe charms. Isn’t pepe considered a international symbol of hate? Or did that fade away and was forgotten about>
Nice ideas for the blade runner ame and the fuwamoco car album, great ideas. It’s just that the art isn’t’ that good.
Basically a store at this point with shirts and shit.
I can’t believe this was allowed. Bunch of black women doing on demand portrait commissions. My guess is that they from Quebec, considering they have their banner in french too.
Full body cosplay suits still going alive.
Flowers for Algernon 2.
But wait, my sister knows this person, it’s her old friend from back in the day in OCAD. Another person in which she ‘changed her life’ perhaps for the worse by outselling her by a large margin when they tabled together for the first time, back in the day at Fan Expo.
The face of recognition, of the one who ruined her convention artist alley career aspirations. In the end, she couldn’t sell her anime art/prints and ended up making and selling fake flowers at conventions and events to make money. This is her real job apparently. Her only job, going all in on fake flowers. Her bf/partner also apparently went to ocad too, but turns out he wasn’t very good at art either.
Proof of ‘Kathleen’ existence, the oh shit, the legend in the flesh edition.
Buy her shit, she needs money.
Preparing a selfie together as proof that my sister and her are good. Man, my sister just meeting all the old friends and people that she changed their lives at this AN this year lol.
Nice style, not for me.
OC Gacha lol. Only for chinawomen I think or actually no one really. It’s one thing to sell OC art but it’s another thing if it’s like generic Chinese looking characters and shit that totally could be generated using AI these days. I wonder if they sold anything.
Archer doing the rounds.
Pretty nice display and plush goods. All bread stuff and animals, good shit.
Dis how we roll now in artist huh? Material design, no anime and paper anymore huh. Plushie designer huh.
Before we knew it it was already past 12pm, we had spent like over 2 hours in artists and we didn’t’ even get to dealers yet doh. Decided to go out and get some lunch food. Dante is popular this year, same as Jinx cause arcane.
What’s with the sonic and knuckles folks this year? They had a panel or some event i guess about sonic plushies, I can’t believe that is actually a thing but sure. Only for the true autists.
Lining up for some curly fries and cheese curds I guess.
Saw this nice hololive suisei and fubuki cosplay, noice. Good job dudes, good shit.
Carbs and cheese fried, what could go wrong?
I actually fucked up my own order, I wanted just curly fries poutine but I ended up with curly fries with fried cheese curds on top, no gravy, doh. Ah-well, it tasted like grease and fried. Decent, but honestly would not recommend again.
My sister got a friend cheese curd on a stick, like a corndog but not. She said it was ok, would be better if it was a hotdog tho. I am sad that this year naruto pizza guys didn’t show up this year, guess they either gave up or didn’t bother.
Lots of dantes this year, cause of the shit netlfix anime. At least the ones here know which dante is good, dmc3 and dmc5. Add some leon in there cause why not, close enough for capcom after all.
This area also had the photo shoots for like the FF7 or just final fantasy in general cosplayers too. Didn’t want to bother thing, had to get to a panel/event after all.
So we went to the Phase Connect vtuber concert. I wasn’t expecting much, it’s not like it’s hololive or truly live live but I just wanted to see what kind of vtubers they have, since they are a Canadian company based in Vancouver after all.
The attendance was kinda sparse but there were still fans doing the penlight thing just for fun, all hololive fans dying for something good and real which will never come to this city. Anirevo Toronto, you are the only hope for that now. This one on this screen was Kaminari Clara a bunny girl, of the jp branch of phase connect, which is kinda strange but sure. She apparently speaks full fluent English, Japanese and French, which basically means she is Japanese Canadian, noice. Pretty good.
The next one to sing was Chisaka Airi a fox girl, she talked for a bit and was like sick with coughs and shit, jokes, decent singing but not great. She apparently speaks English, Korean, Spanish and learning Japanese, which basically means she is Korean American. Funny not bad.
This one is Eimi Isami, she is a hamster, which is kind of unfortunate but you gotta do with what you are given I guess. Despite not saying a word of MC or English, she just sang like 3-4 full Japanese songs really well. She had amazing facial tracking and mouth movements, probably some of the best i’ve ever seen honestly of any vtuber model. She apparently is a fraud and doesn’t speak Japanese at all really based on her channel, she only speaks English but can sing Japanese songs really really good, excellent fraud.
This one is Hikanari Hina, she is some celestial elf or something. She can sing pretty good, english songs which were kind of like EDM dance stuff. She is probably a white girl for sure, but who knows. Not bad. May or may not be British or American, hard to tell.
This one is Kaneko Lumi, I believe someone had her image on a itasha car earlier today in the morning. Noice, she just came and sang some songs, no mc which is unfortunate but yea. Her vtuber wiki says she came from another agency and she kept her name and IP, similar to suisei in some regards before joining phase connect, cool. She apparently can speak English, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin, which basically means she is Chinese American, nice.
The last one to go was Utatane Nasa, a sleepy dragon girl. She tried her best in English but she only mainly speaks in Japanese in the JP branch I believe, decent to good singing. All in all the event was ok, subpar by many standards but it was at least something to watch i think considering this AN had very limited and no guests basically. Better than nothing I suppose, even if the singing was prerecorded. I just wanted to see and be introduced to other phase connect vtubers.
Noice, outside the event hall we have this nice neuro-sama and vedal cosplay thing. Good shit, AI vtuber is jokes good.
I believe the man in the hospital coat and red fox mask is cosplaying as GTA Hololive Fubuki’s hospital director character. Gud shit, peak content and cosplay.
After the panel/concert we went back into the main area before dealers in which we call ‘artists 1.5’ or ‘.5’ since it was where gaming was in 2023 but since it moved to the north building, the space is now a bunch of additional artists booths and some random industry booths/shops of questionable placement/location.
Truly artists 1.5, it is unclear if having a booth here is better or worse in the main artist alley area.
Seen before I think, nice food.
Quite the elaborate display, too bad it’s in .5 artists. No prints, just stickers and non-print goods.
This pokemon guy has been going strong for like 10 years now I think at least. By Any Means Necessary drip.
Artists 1.5 also has some ‘industry’ or other bullshit stuff like tables promoting other events, like cars n anime.
Some holo stuff, mid quality tho. The plushies on the top left are official hololive plush line called ‘friends with you’, I assume they are not for sale.
If you fan of arcane league show, but not the game league, I stand by saying C tier fan, art too.
Plush things, what art?
Auto A or S tier cosplay, Alice Margatroid from touhou, gud shit. Not sure who the man with green hair an anchor is tho.
The bullshit archers thing is in 1.5 now, better spot, because who cares.
Wow, goodsmile company has an official booth/store now at AN. Wow, AN has came such a long way for them to finally get some industry figure manufacturers to come to this shit fan run convention, I feel a bit sad for them that they are put in artists 1.5. Like what is this area actually called? Formerly gaming area?
Decent but not great.
Colors and shit yo.
Fake plants and cactus yo, not bad, better than flowers in my opinion.
Small shit and some food, not that great.
Pretty decent art, lots of vtuber representation too and popular animes.
Her table location isn’t that great tho in 1.5. Maybe this is actually better tho? With less traffic and more walking room, people can see your see and browse easier now maybe?
Solid but too distant views.
Weak.
Actually really good art, top notch but it’s all china gacha games that I don’t know about. Nice cosplay from the shopkeepers tho.
Kind of everyone with just one dokibird art? Do you even watch vtubers or just in in for the drama and the popularity? Soul eater art? Mainer.
Pretty good art but of stuff I don’t quite know for sure about.
Oh shit the police are here with a table! They have some freebies but I was too scared to go up and take, weird but sure.
Inside the goodsmile booth, when we came it was surprizingly empty and barren. They don’t have any of the offerings or limited edition stuff for sale which is odd. You have to go and scan a QR code to see the menu. I think they should have at least paper handouts.
Some of their stuff on display. Snow mikus and other types of designs, it’s a thing for a long time now that continues which is nice.
Robots and shit.
Get the fuck out rogers. Guy is like why are you doing this to me, looking at me.
Some bullshit I guess.
Stickers and pins magnets I think, ok but whatever.
Decent but i’ve seen much better. Props for the Ginko art tho.
Lego and fake lego megablocks. They used to have this in the artists/dealers area before? It belongs here in .5.
Gunpla store was moved here, makes sense I guess with goodsmile company shop.
NU Gundam is top tier but these transparent see-thu plastic kits I don’t really like, looks like shit and cheap imo.
Wow, strike gundam recolor shit sold out? I find that a bit surprising but sure.
They have a place to build gundam kits for fun I guess, I waste of space and time imo for a convention but sure, people do whatever they want.
Claw me baby, with slightly better looking toys inside instead of pure bootleg china shit. Now bootleg of better shit.
Tamashii nations got a store in 1.5 now, like I said, this place is really weird, it’s like everything mixed in one because they had no space anywhere else and weren’t sure where to put them. Fuck.
The system and controller that everyone had but in the end was kind of mid novelty for actually playing real games. Good cosplay tho.
Oh shit Ram and Ky checking out dealers room, just like us fr fr. My guess is that they were here for tournament or just for fun, cause guilty gear is cool again thanks to the anime.
In dealers now, really? Fancy oven mitts? Sure I guess?
It seems that there is more dealers selling manga again which is nice to see. The past two or so years it was like so dead, like only a few selling paper.
They really changed up the layout of dealers room this year. Very vertical rows it seems.I like it, makes it much easier to browse and navigate the space.
Line to get inside Hobby Panda, I believe they were here for a few years now but this is the first time i noticed them, guess they doing something right.
Nice boat figures and others. It’s hard to see the labels and prices but they are massively overpriced from amiami by like double at least.
The round looking bird plushies are nice.
Lots of figues and prize figures dealers are selling. Much more than previous years it seems.
Hm, not sure i’ve seen this seller before. Nice to see new guys around with support for a large range of products.
Wow, official gacha machines from bandai and or their proxy company. Cool, but the price is quite expensive, like $3 per token but most of the machines it costs 3-4 tokens, that’s like $9-12 per gacha try. Damn too expensive for gacha. In Japan the highest that I’ve seen these go is like 500 yen, which is like 5 dollar cad. Scam. Nice but too expensive man.
Nice cute plush things.
Once again, artists that can’t be bothered to be in artists alley end up here, dealers cause they don’t care and have the money. Not sure who the cosplayer is cosplaying however.
Not for me colorful tho, like kidz clothing.
Oh boy we are approaching my favorite store in dealers which is more or less someones/the owners 3 day nominoichi. It is very obvious that all of these things were someone’s personal collection at one point and or hoarded/pre-owned.
My assumption is that this couple here are the owners of all of this merch, and or their relatives/son or someone else they know.
All of their merch being sold was clearly dated old stuff from anime’s from around 2002-2016ish about. Tons of nanoha figures, lots of kancolle stuff, original idolmaster stuff, some love live stuff. Nothing recently within the past decade or so which is interesting although in a way kind of sad. The thing that gets me about these guys is that their prices were still not exactly cheap, they were selling those nanoha figures as if they were retail brand new, which they very well could still be but it’s been so long, no one really wants them, at least not at those prices.
They have a large collection of prize or smaller gacha figures for sale without their boxes, all also older shit. And 4 prize/gacha figures for $100? Is that supposed to be a deal? If they really wanted to get rid of them, they should do like 4 for $50, not $100. I’m really curious about this couple, is this their own personal collection that they are trying to sell or do they have a store or ebay store or something. Part of me wants to make believe a fake story that all of this merch was their son’s and that he died and now they want to get rid of it, that’s probably unlikely; this is most definitely their shit I think, or at least the husbands I think, but it just seems so out of place in dealers, I can’t help be intrigued. If they show up next year I am going to ask them about their story, I’m really curious.
Oh boy, it’s our standard shilin huang table in dealers, only known for drawing official sona art in league that one time and does original books. Nice to see you again.
I believe that same corner that were selling ichiban kuji hololive prize art pieces is here again. I got some last year in nomo for like $20 each but here they are selling for double at $40, holo tax is real I guess.
The same store selling the holo art has alot of figures and love live plushies and figures. Hmm, looks like no one was buying from them, it was always empty when i walked around the area, maybe because love live is dead, that or because their shit was too overpriced, maybe a combination of both.
Lots of keychains and twisted wonderland stuff and other more niche stuff, this store has some interesting stuff.
The prices for these prize figures is decent, which is roughly what I would expect at a convention, elsewhere outside the should be like $10-20 dollars less. On amiami preowned you can get some of these for less than 2k yen.
Even more prize figures, lots of stores are all in on prize figures, nice hidey hole too.
That shop that I saw at EVO last year decided to come to AN this year, wow. They had guilty gear sol jacket/hoodie last year but this year they don’t have it in stock, gotta buy online I guess. Nice to see some more unique clothing shops appear at AN.
Staple of all dealers and conventions now these metal art board guys.
That same store that displays figures in dealers again, once again, massively overpriced.
Asian inspired candles and goods?
Full vertical and onsies.
Former art that appeared in artist alley committed to being apart of dealers, ok.
Seen this guy for news now with the gundam art, good shit but yea. Committed to being part of dealers now.
Good old Navito World, where everyone browses all the latest figure but never buy, and buy online from amiami instead since it’s cheaper. I appreciate their existence greatly hover. No old nanoha and love live figures here.
Noms, getting our money and making nice shirts yearly. I believe this year it’s a color ramen, nice. Gotta make more black and white ones tho.
More noms, non clothing merch.
Dollys has quite a large table this year. Last and previous years they were in the gaming area, which I think is not the best place. This year they in dealers which I hope means more sales for them.
Another person that could technically be in artists but good enough/confident enough to sell in dealers. Nice styles thought about it.
Lots of figures indeed as I said.
Why, get out.
Borderline acceptable, would rather not tho.
More prize figures.
My sister asked the torokami folks if they had guilty gear merch due to this wall on their display. They did not, it was just a display. I checked online if they had guilty gear merch, it was sold out. Doh. Maybe next next time.
After dealers we headed over to the north building to see what’s up with the gaming area.
Some creature. I am not quite so sure about the American flag in the back with some girl on it? Some kpop shit maybe?
This hallway is actually a really good spot for cosplay and to take photos too.
Some big room on the way to gaming area that had large panels and shit I think, not bad, good stuff.
Here we are, the gaming area that has very nice washrooms.
More ‘industry’ here with booths and such focused on card games tgc, not bad.
Rock band bullshit sure.
Beyblades. It always looks so jokes with grown ass men fighting against some little kid. Serious business.
DDR setup for fun, dante trying his moves too.
Hololive and Shiori fans around the area too, you can’t escape hololive fans, we are everywhere, become one of ussss.
Some vr game test shit. Apparently these are twisted wonderland cosplayers according to my sister, jokes.
Fighting game announcers watching SF6 tournament I believe.
More people playing SF6 and other fighting games. Around this time some random Asian guy came up to me and spoke to me, ‘I’m not sure if you remember me but did you used to work for engage like 5-6 years ago?’ I thought about it for a second and I remembered this guy, yep; ‘yea, I remember you, you were a developer’ wow. So I talked to this guy for a few minutes who was my former co-worker 5-6 years ago at engage, before I got laid off. Apparently shortly after the mass layoffs there he also left, he got into Amazon and moved to Seattle. He was there up until about 2023, until he got laid off, damn. Sadge, the couldn’t find a job there in Seattle and ended up having to move back home here to Toronto, where he still remains unemployed looking for a job, damn man, shit’s rough in tech for sure. I would like to assume he got laid off near the end of 2023, if that’s the case, he’s been out of job for over 1.5 years then, damn man. He asked if there was anything in my industry, let him know and if it was ok if he could use me for references, sheeittttt. It’s always nice to see people from the past from old work but of all places at AN and in somewhat not great shape kinda makes you happy that you still got a job.
After my blast from the past conversation with a sad man, I continued my browse of gaming area. Oh look a fraud fighting known as smash being played too seriously on the big screen.
Virgil ready for battle. Battle for the gods.
From a distance, the man with a staff is homeless reincarnation Rudeus, our main boi. Need more cosplayers from this series man, good shit even if I was too lazy to run up and ask him for a photo.
And for some reason Phase Connect vtubers had their booth here lol. Man, what a bad placement in gamers area. They really should have had a spot in artists 1.5 maybe, at least then they would get more traffic or even artists. Sad. They were doing meet and greets live with some of the other talents and there was like noone else in line, maybe like 2 or 3 just for the hell of it I think. The one on the screen now wasn’t at the concert, named Uraka, i actually subbed to her for a bit but then unsubscribed since I didn’t watch much of her content compared to others in holo, her main thing is she is a bear and plays violin, so basically Chinese.
The FGO Morgan from the distance that I saw before was in the area, managed to ask her for a photo finally, noice. Looking back at old photos, she was even at Anime Toronto prior, wow, must be local then. At this point in time, we were done and headed out early for dinner. We got great parking spot this time so we were out in no time.
At sushi legend with dan, who came on his own even though he couldn’t make today Saturday. Sister is like, really? of course really, gotta document shit you know in case of notebook.
It’s been awhile since I was here and it looks like they installed their self serve bar for soups and salads and other desserts. Ok.
We ordered a few things at first just to get the table going even though everyone did not come yet. Solid starters.
Our guests Dan and special guest Yuwing decided to make the trip to sushi legend to join us tonight, wow. For such a busy man with a family, I appreciate that he decided to chill out with us for a meal for a couple of hours, noice. Mark also appeared a bit later, but I forgot to take a photo of him unfortunately since we were in the rush of feasting by then.
Sushi Legend proof of existence, third year same place, same time after AN edition.
Sushi legend is so nice, good nigiri and rolls, gud shit.
They had birthday bullshit going on. Wow. Sing some ching chong chinese birthday song with employees waving these light bright signs in front of the table, just in case to remind them and everyone else why they are here. This employee on the left not having any of this shit, he’s done, probably like ‘ 這些混蛋付給我的錢不夠讓我唱歌。之後我想回中國。’ *(translators note, he said fuck you)
Since I started doing merch haul summerizes yesterday, might aswell done one today. Got some nice charms, all hololive vtubers related except for the charm with the initial d scene/building, good shit. I think most of the keychains go for about $15 or so each, pending deal if you buy more from the same artist if they have a deal.
Some nice prints that I picked up, nero, nero again as drako and Hololive Sakamata Chole, even tho she recently graduated, her design is that good still. I didn’t realize it at the time but I brought from this artist in the past, I had actually brought the first print once before at like Anime Toronto since they were there, doh. I decided to bring back the first FGO Nero print on the left tomorrow on Sunday to see if I can exchange it with the artist, I mean, I’m already a repeat customer, hopefully they will do it. I think prints of 3 were like 50? 60? 70? can’t remember, ah-well. Gud shit.
A nice new colored print shirt of ramen from Noms, gotta get it in.
My sister’s merch, a bunch of earrings and other trickets related to twisted wonderland and the same noms shirt. Noice. With this we sleep and prepare for Sunday, the last day of AN. This time Dan will be with us for the ride so yea, that’s good.
And here we are, after a quick ride we once again get a good parking spot near north building. Nice bright blue skies today. It has been kind of rainy these past few days so this is a welcome change.
This Lexus Genshin Furina itacar lives in my condo, on the same parking level as I park. I have seen it before in passing. lol. They have duel license plates for some reason, Ontario and some other one which I am not sure, maybe it’s HK or china, not sure. wow. I mean, it must be something if they want to ship their car back and forth depending on if they in China or here. Money laundering probably or just china rich I guess.
Milestones trying to get the AN patrons too. Base, but worth a try I guess.
Get breakfast from Burger king instead of Tims this time lol, never had breakfast from burger king, let’s see how it goes.
They had a deal like two breakfast sandwiches for $6, not bad. I got their sausage Mcmuffin bootleg, it was not bad, but I still prefer the real one from McDonald.
A nice bite cross section, their egg wasn’t that great, probably from a carton. In mcdonalds they use real cracked eggs fresh at least, this one seemed like it was missing that and the cheese not that much either.
Dan got some hashbrown which he couldn’t finish since they fried and too hard. My sister got the other sandwich part of the deal, the bacon version, about the same. We also saw ‘Kathleen’ at burger king today, preparing for the day, she spoke with my sister for a bit again, talked about something or whatever, how one of the kind show she sold out, but not here, well what do you expect I guess?
Political anti-ccp and trump car blinged out in the parking lot of tims. I think these guys are the ones responsible for the yearly anti-ccp remote car tank and other political hijinks/scenes in previous AN years. Looks like they are fans of girls front line, I guess it tracks.
Akuma making a nice pose, not dark enough however.
For once waiting in line to get in. I’m holding the print I want to exchange and shit too so yea. One of the staff near the door is all like, ‘wow, is that it?’ implying that Sunday has a major decrease in people waiting to get inside and attendance.
Inside dealers now, we rush back to make some purchases that my sister wanted to make in artists 1.5, like earrings and shit. She brought them. Saw this interesting pin, damn, this is old school shit. big comfy couch, only Canadian kids know about this shit, Canadian production after all.
Pack up and didn’t show up for Sunday i guess?
Kind of empty in artists 1.5, i mean it’s the very start of the day after all.
Proof of existence, successful traded art i brought before with the artist swapped edition.
Taking a closer look at some artists now that we did our morning missions for exchanges/purchases. Nice hololive charm shaker, brought one, jokes.
A little bit if everything I guess, the shaker keychains are good shit.
More charms and even phone grips and pins huh.
Getting that hot dog bun pin because we on a mission now. Nice shit.
For some reason this guy selling gundam stuff was just setting up, didn’t see him yesterday. I asked him if he was here yesterday, he said no, this was his first day hence setting up. Apparently, they have a system at AN now if someone drops out or gets kicked out the prior day, they have a waitlist of artists just ready and waiting to setup shop now in order to prevent waste tables and offer people who didn’t get a table a chance to sell. Wow, nice system.
Oh shit, the OG Char did exist after all, appearing right beside his bro Full Frontal from yesterday. Gud shit. I was waiting for a few minutes to ask for a photo but it took too long, this was good enough I guess. I seemed like he personally knew this artist or was his friend, and was chatting for quite a bit, noice.
According to ‘Kathleen’ this table, made with aprils is her main competitor at AN for fake flowers, ‘that bitch is on my turf, go back to where you came from, to like alberta or vancouver or montreal whatever’ allegedly she said to my sister this morning.
The subject matter is on point for vtubers but the art is lacking. People really did like drawing fauna, mumei, ame and gura man, sadge. At least she has nimi now.
Some bullshit with some guy with a red hat, I forgot the source anime/manage where this is from, probably about vampires I think.
Why was Kermit the frogs cancelled by Disney? Is this some thing that I am not aware of?
Oh wow, missed this one the first day yesterday, great looking large charms of hololive all crew generations, gud shit. They even have Niji ones with Selen before the ruin. Ended up getting the holo advent one, gud shit.
They have also individual charms for all the popular holo and indie/corpro vtubers. I also noticed on the last bottom row they had some Phase Connect ones, and the one that I follow the most, Shiina Amanogaw, aka ‘sad bee’ as of late which likes crabs. Should have brought that one but ah well, maybe next time, all of her shit is nice and styled.
She even had more charms from anime and games, i ended up getting the dizzy one from strive, it’s the new design too which is pretty rare.
Sonic huh? I guess the movies they have been making really have been doing gods work for the de facto autists fandom in spreading popularity.
We have sonic everywhere now! The autists are taking over!
Oh damn, turning red, to toronto. Probably autist inside too and furry probably.
Those repo robots really sold well, almost all gone on sunday.
Acrobatic shit going on, didn’t they do this outside before?
More fighting game stuff but not that great, the other EVO girl was better imo.
Sakamoto is ready to buy some shit too, skinny fit edition.
Nice art, I guess Rin is the main character of Yuru camp I guess?
After another browse of the land, we go to our lunch place for sunday. Miku is classic cosplay.
Dis dude feeling like, ‘come with me, i’ll show you something cool’ vibes.
We happen to wander around the place where FGO/Fate cosplay meetup takes place. Lots of cosplay that I know, but everyone was focused on taking the stage on the grass. I didn’t want to bother them, so I left, too bad.
Making our way to the Delta as per tradition.
Hallway of rest, per usual.
Obtain food, go into viewing room where AMV replays are done, be early, no one around, they playing some anime that I probably skimmed, it’s weird mecha show with blue main boy who is hype, i dunno about this.
Get standard onigiri and croquette from Ginko restaurnt as per usual, eat food, rest, watch AMV replays for a bit then leave, it’s tradition.
Crossing the street, some guy with old red corolla, wishing it was white and a hatchback with popup headlights. His tires were angled outwards.
Oh shit, cosplay of best mad lad boi from golden kamuy, Ogata! gud shit. Probably one of the most rare cosplays done well that i’ve seen today or all the con for that matter.
I think across the street was genshin cosplayers meetup, it’s large as expected.
Caught virgil chiling in a lawnchair as per meme. Good shit, nice katana and beer. He was going to stand up when I asked for a photo but I told him don’t, stay exactly as you are. lol, he did.
Incline 2025, the dangerous acent.
Back inside we decided to check out the beguling for manga cause of course.
They still had mask mandates for this place cause I guess the owner is a bit too caughtious loony/germaphobe.
Their section for adult ero-manga has expanded considerably over the years, along with the selection of english translated works, which makes me happy for them.
Hmm, they never used to stock these thinner books, only FAKKU before, guess they really are expanding their selection, nice shit.
This entire island section is just ero-manga and such, wow, they really come a long way.
Even have bl and gay shit, for the ladies. True equaibility.
Wow, even korean propaganda works too. Should just replace everything with just Tower of Simp and Solo Aura Farming Leveling with whatever is here instead.
My favorite dealers booth still looking sad and pathetic with the old merch, I really gotta ask them next year if they are here.
Oh, our typical ero-manga place that sells doujin thin books is still here. This year without the risque dakimakura, I guess they got tired of it.
That’s a lot of shit, how are people going to reach and inspect stuff if they can’t reach it. Nice mikus tho.
This display is so packed full of miku boxes it’s shelfs are dipping wow. Fern likes them tho.
Honestly a decent deal, $19 for prize figure? Pretty good but the selection is not great, mainly bait series and db/ mainly dudes. Most were still around $30ish, still good deal if there was something that you liked.
Things begining to wind down already for dealers, alot less people now and it’s only like 2-3pmish I think.
Head over to north building for AN idol as per new tradition of late. Had this wheelchair god singing some tunes.
Honestly, he was pretty good, even in a wheelchair.
Some other random girl with cat ears went on, she wasn’t very good, sang some loud song that wasn’t very good either. It was shit.
Another wheelchair god takes the stage. This one wasn’t so great, red shirt wheelchair was better.
Some guy tried, it wasn’t very good.
It was near the end and last year’s AN winner came out to sing, cosplaying as Frieren no less.
Upclose of last years winner. I can’t remember what she sang, I want to believe it was a song from Frieren but that’s way to bait, probably not. Or maybe it was? Shit I can’t remember lol.
A few final words before they annouce the winner to this year’s AN idol.
Red wheelchair man is so happy, he’s got it in the bag, he knows it, he feels it.
Fuck, it wasn’t red wheelchair man after all! It was that bitch with the cat ears that I didn’t even bother to zoom into that couln’t sing for shit. Maybe her other performances were better but red wheelchair man was robbed. Just look at that face of disappointment. Better go to the inline now I guess.
Another quick run through of the gaming area, just in case I meet someone from the past who i forgot about but they for some reason totatlly remember me. I don’t remember shit about people man lol. I never recognize anyone.
So there was majoong being played in the gaming area wow. Gotta make sure these guys have enough blood tho, don’t want to have any accidents.
Kinda strange but yea, you are not a pointy nosed man with white hair or cute girl so I don’t care about you guys, next.
Phase connect booth doing more meet and greets. Bad location man, bad location.
Oh wow, really good Kaguya and Pres cosplay. Nice wig too, good shit. The only thing that was off was that Kaguya was wearing thighigh socks, Kaguya doesn’t wear those, in fact noone in the show wears them I think, which is something I found interesting. Probably chose to wear them the past few days because it was actually just cold and it served a functional purpose and or she just likes them lol. That and the fact that Pres doesnt wear glasses, too bad should have had contacts on lol. Noice nevertheless.
Playing some game I have no idea bout.
Convention winding down, people begining to do their last rounds in dealers and artists, including us.
Nice hokusai cosplay, nice dress and brush. Looks a bit too stern and serious looking tho, should lighten up.
Shriou and Rin doing some final shopping. Too lazy to ask for photos, as usual.
Oh wow, cosplayer of the main girl for this seasons baseball beer girl anime! Good shit, really good too, too bad she was busy buying some shit. I would have asked her for a photo if it wasn’t near the end of the day and she wasn’t so busy. I need to write the reviews for this season, this show is good.
Oh wow, at the vtuber booth/store in artist they had Shondo on for meet and greets, she is actually very well known vtuber indie. Wow.
There was a sizable crowd surrounding the area for her, officially named ‘fallen shadow’ her nickname that she mainly goes by is ‘shondo’. I believe she is british. Her main claim to fame is saying that any indie vtuber that has a manager that just manages them, they most likey are their partner, boyfriend or husband, which has apparently proven to be true in many instances for other indies. She mainly streams on twitch I believe but is clipped on youtube to a decent degree among indies. Not bad, she deserves a formal spot as a guest, not this ghetto shit via this shady merch company.
Some last minute bettel merch from an artist, there are only so many after all.
Good dr stone cosplay, old man and suika. Good shit would have asked but near the end of the day. At this particular point in time, we headed out, our day at AN was over and drove back and dropped back Dan home. The next phase of today was our dinner at a new buffet with our mom.
So this is inside of Asian Dragon Buffet, a relatively new buffet that opened over the past year in Bridlewood mall.
Looks nice and fancy. They don’t do reservations for parties smaller than 5, but it worked out for us, no line.
Sushi area and other cold stuff.
Proof of restaurant name, very bait but what can you do.
First round sushi. It’s ok, about the same you would get at a supermarket, except fresher. No where near a good as what we had yesterday for dinner at Sushi Legend but it will do.
They had alot of more northern/mainland chinese dishes, especially in this center island.
In the corner was the place for peking/bejing duck, not bad everyone gets this stuff if it’s at buffet.
Noodle soup and other grilled stuff.
They give you a ticket for like one half a lobster and some oysters that you can redeem at one of the stations. The lobster was kind of cold, it was boiled so not much flavor. They also didn’t have white people butter to dip this into so I am not sure what kind of sauces or seasonings you are supposed to eat this with? Seafood sauce? I don’t really like oysters so gave it to my mom. Lobster was mid.
Peking duck was solid, one of the better ones that i’ve had.
In the grill area they have alot of those cumin northern style lamb and beef skewers, they were the best things on this plate, good shit. The other stuff I got was whatever, some terkiyaki chicken and short ribs, dumpling was whatever.
They had bbq pork and other shit too but it didnt’ seem all that hot and piping, it looked kinda drab and cold.
They also had some crayfish but wasn’t in the mood to peel open. Looked like it was sitting there for awhile too, pass.
They had some sweet and sour chicken, fried and steam rice/noodles. They also had tomato sauce and spagetti? WTF lol what is this shit.
They had this small tray for roast beef or steak thing. You are supposed to brush it with the bowl as it contains higher grade fat or something.
Pork ribs probably with bbq sauce done in the even. Even I can probably make this.
Some other fried shit and chicken wings, other shimps, chicken/shrimp balls? Fries?
Can’t remember what soup but it certainly wasn’t shark fin there.
Pizza and the skewers for the cumin lamb/beef.
My plate has got some stuff, beef was ok with the brushed fat, chicken wings were on point. However, everything else that I got from the hot tables/plates was fucking cold, like what the fuck? I know they were probably sitting for a few hours now but isn’t that what the hot trays and hot lamps are supposed to be for? Yikes, not great at all, most of the stuff on this plate was mid cause of the temprature. Worst one being the baked salmon and stir fried crab, i didn’t even try to eat it after how cold it was.
With such a terrible hot tray food selection with temperature issues, I opted to just eat the stuff I knew were already good. Meaning more peking duck lol.
More lamb skewers, chicken wings and roast beef.
After that I got some desserts. They had a wide selection of cream like not quite ice cream like stuff like this. I thought it was alright but they tasted all the same despite supposed to being different flavors like mango vanilla stawberry shit. My sister and mom loved it, but for me, not so much, only ate a bit before i gave up, didn’t finish any of these. On the top of the tray however was some special chinese chink melon apparently, they tasted pretty good, straight from china I think, they were labelled as special even tho they are fancy better versions of honey dew and cantaloupe. Those would again.
Here’s a unique item, they had pre packaged frozen durian chunks in these tins, wow. Lots of people were going ham on these, taking like full plates and trays of them back to their table.
I don’t think i’ve had durian before, so this is a first for me. My initial reaction is that it’s creamy and kinda soft custard like which is nice, but then some funkyness and fiberous pulp set in which I am not very fond of. It’s frozen so that could be part of it but it’s not really my thing, maybe a fresh one would be better but who knows. Would not get again really. Did not finish.
Here is some of that better than average xinjiang cantaloupe, special shit straight from china man. Known as Hami melon also apparently. Not even joking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hami_melon
As the fancy honey dew, Kuraunmeron crown melon, which apparently from google is supposedly japanese honey dew, and quite expensive, just for one, https://hungry-ninja.ca/products/japanese-crown-melon, from this site it’s like $150 CAD. wow. I have a hard time beliving this is the actual legit thing but some bootleg china version that tries to copy it, which in either case it still is better than a normal typical honey dew.
They also have some packaged ice cream bars from china. It says ice cream, but it’s really just a lychee popsickle with juice. Not bad but not my thing. They also had a few other cookie baked cake thigns for dessert and some nice very strong black seasame ice cream which was proper ice cream, not bad. Terrible waffle that has been sitting for hours probably hard as a rock. Yea, their dessert stuff outside of the fancy melons wasn’t my thing.
All in all, would I go back to Asian Dragon Buffet? No, not good at all really. Outside of the skwers, peking duck and a few dishes, most of the stuff I had was medicore and suffered temperature issues, everything was cold, like what the fuck are you guys doing? Can’t even put boiling hot water under the hot tray or have working hot lamps? The buffet offerings clearly catered towards a more mainland/northern chinese taste with some common cantonese fare but even then, they all are mid and are cold. The selection was admirable but the execution was terrible. The sushi was generic, the desserts for me, dissapointing, everything else was mid, eve the lobster wasn’t that great and cold, which is something of an achievement. And at about $50 per person before tax/tip for weekend dinner, I feel I got scammed, I dont’ think I ate my money’s worth at all. If this was like $30 for sure, but at $50? No. Would not go again on my watch unless free or some other ocassion.
After a somewhat unsatisfying first try at a new buffet, let’s take a look at today’s last AN haul, I got some nice new charms and a few more from that store/scene guy, some had already sold out like the family mart and 7/11 ones dang, maybe next time. The dokibird chrarm is actually not my first pick from the artist, the EVO one, I actually brought a Elphet one first but then realized that that I had brought one from before her aswell, at Anime Toronto. Luckily she allowed me to switch to dokibird after I realized, damn, my memory. All of these fails are because of Anime Toronto, a convention that no longer exists, damn man. I ended up getting that biboo shaker, a frerin and even that green girl from genshin, nahida which I looked up now, I don’t play genshin but i like this charm and character design, it’s cute elf girl. Gud shit.
I exchanged my dupe FGO Nero print with this one, it looks really nice. I believe this is Silver wolf from Honkai Star Rail, I have no idea the character but it looks really nice. The design reminds me of Zeta from Hololive, so let’s just pretend it’s her lol.
My sister’s goods for the day, some more earrings, some fruit sando box thing, bettel charms, hot dog bun pins and rice cracker pinks, which are apparently frequent things my sister eats for lunch at times. Also lighting plush from FF13/FF Theatrhythm design. Nice haul indeed, somewhat bait but sure.
Overall this Anime North was worse than last year. Why do I say this? Is it because I actually attended all three days this time? Maybe, but I feel that despite the improvements made last year, it still has a long way to go in terms of industry and actual panels/guests worth visiting and coming here for. Last year, we had Dokibird appear at AN, one of the biggest indie vtubers after the Selen meltdown and ruin of NijiEn last year, I actually came on Friday for the first time in many years because her panel was on a friday, I lined up for that shit. This year? There was nobody like that, even with 2-3 mid sized vtuber companies attending, their con offerings and panels were medicore at best. There was also no real musical guest worth visiting or seeing either, this year they had some random has been idol group that re-formed just recently that no one knows about. Last year they had the group that sang the Vinland Saga opening song. There is a big gap here. There wasn’t also any notable Japanese guests voice actor, director or industry otherwise. I think the height of AN was the year where they had Sakura Tange come as a guest, voice of Nero/Cardcaptor Sakura and many other animes/games, that was the AN speak for real life voice actors. This year? Noone. Despite the improvements both in the dealers room and the existence of the gaming area for the north building, the amount of booths and vendors/industry was lacking. Yes, they did finally manage to get good smile company and several other companies to come to AN, but their location in artists 1.5 was abysmal, hardly any traffic there and poorly thought out. Phase connect in gaming area? Other vtuber booth selling questionable merch in artists alley holding meet and greet? Poor location once again. One thing that AN did do however really good is expand artists area, they basically took my soft self sentiment and made artists even bigger with more tables and space for artists, hence artists alley 1.5. Problem is, this year, looking at the artists that tabled this year, they just weren’t as good as previous artist alley years, escpially last year in terms of art quality. Maybe it is due to the loosening of rules about material goods and non-paper goods which has caused this but even still, there was far too many artists that just straight up sucked and alot fewer quality art that I had seen in previous years. I mean, even my boi pjun isn’t here and he’s a good artist. The weather didn’t help this year either, being rainy, meaning cosplayers suffered to some degree as well. The amount of cosplayers on all days was as expected, with more on Saturday with no real trends, much like last year which is cool, but there were less really good stand out ones new that I haven’t seen before, maybe it’s just because I am blind to them and they are all doing Genshin or Honkai Starrail shit. While this year was overall worse than last year, I feel the lacking nature for this year can be attributed towards growing pains, organizers still havent’ figured out how to properly use gaming area in the North and the now artists 1.5 area, which honestly should be straight up full industy and other big merch companies. AN is improving which is great, it’s just that they are still in a work in progress, last year was a huge step in improvement, this year was a smaller step forward but a step back aswell, which is why is is worse than in 2024. I still brought alot of stuff this year, which is cool, thanks to nomonichi and artists. Let’s hope that next year they will have better stuff to do and see overall.