Alright then, that was a good first day 0/1 yesterday wasn’t it right? Well, from here on out, it’s all going to be about hololive and AnimeNYC convention run time so buckle up, it’s going to be rough over the next few days since I have 3 concerts back to back starting from here. Let’s see how today went.

Up bright and early leaving my hotel the Courtyard at the Marriott but unlike the past trips, I can’t be bother to have breakfast, at least not today as I am still good after all the food that I ate yesterday, especially after all the meat at Kats, head straight to convention let’s go.

I know the drill enough you know, and sure enough I am in line to get in as the doors open at 10am. I didn’t go Thursday in favor of more NYC explore time so let’s see if that decision not to go on Thursday early start day will hurt me in the end.

They changed the logistics a bit this year, before there was only one pathway to entry, a linear line but this year they have two entryways that both end up in the same main door but it’s more accessible since it’s not just one line. They also had lanyards and such to grab as well if you didn’t have which I didn’t get any yet.

Banners this year for the con, not a whole lot to attract my attention this year honestly.

Aw yea boi, let’s gooo, I know why I am here, first thing go to Hololive booth and see what’s up. This year Hololive doesn’t even have any official panels or such organized by the con, they fully have committed towards doing everything at their booth alone which makes sense really for them and it works great.

KFP always getting ready to show their support for Kiara, always.

Cutouts for the world tour show, Synchronize; they are having it tonight at AnimeNYC, which is the only hololive event that is organized by animeNYC this year in collaboration. This is different from the show that I will be seeing on Saturday and Sunday called All for One.

A quick brief line and they give you a freebie promotional Hololive official trading card game PR card, noice.

Along with the world tour, every year they appoint/select several members of each branch to be ‘ambassadors’ of the year to appear at conventions signage and merch/key art, Hololive Meet. For this year, Biboo is one and even Kanade, gud shit.

They are also doing a card stamp rally this year at the hololive booth, nice key art.

A closer inspection of the stamp rally however makes it clear that this stamp rally is only for those willing to do it and spend money, it’s not free as there are some spots where you have to buy hololive merch from partner vendors/collaborators. Some is free but to get all you need to buy stuff, wow. I have money, I’m going to fucking do it lol.

First stop is I guess corruption not-magni relative store Ohmonah, which has still managed to retain their good business relationship with hololive despite former/ex-graduated talents also have their merch made by them, I guess they don’t care, business is business I guess. Nice, Happi on the right. Apparently Subaru is in NYC too for tommorow’s concert based on comments from twitter posts and etc from members, wow. First time visit to NYC, good for her.

And here is the selection of merch that you have to buy in order to get a stamp. It ranges in cost quite a bit. Some is actually pretty good shit, like the jackets are quite good, even the bags but for my purposes, I’ll just get a small thing. Looks like they really only focused on Bae and Ina for this batch of merch, I wonder why.

And so I got the $20 small takodachi plush, and a nice stamp on the bottom left of my card. I attach this thing to my gray bag, looks good, blends in well.

Next stop is Omocat, who is also the producer of Saba’s merch, formerly Gura of hololive, which all sold out on her debut which is also a partner on the stamp rally. For the first time I think the past few years, Omocat doesn’t actually have any new merch this year for hololive, wow, I guess all their efforts went into making Saba stuff and they ran out of time for Hololive, hmm. Interestingly enough, on the stamp card it says you just have to visit to get a stamp but there is a sign at both booths now saying you have to buy something holo related to get the stamp, kind of scummy but sure. I guess they changed their mind about it and or it was a printing error, fine, i’ll buy something from you Omocat again, it’ll be an older item but it still checks out I guess for my stamp. Buy a fucking skateboard again fuck if I have to, and I did.

I forgot to mention that you can only do this stamp rally once and get the Hololive PR card game card once. They mark your badge with a O or triangle at the back to signify you got the card/stamp card already. Makes sense.

Lui cosplayer be like, man, I have to buy shit I guess, I’m guessing.

At another spot on the stamp rally, Hyte/IBuyPower booth which has some shit and PC cases and some random shit. You don’t have to buy anything but you have to sign up for their newsletter or some shit on a pc for updates on holo goods or collabs, sure I guess.

I ended up buying one of those reusable bags from omonah to to hold all my shit as well, the nice free paper from Hyte. You can see my brand new skatedeck in the back, just not the designed part sticking out. I got another stamp at some jewellery place, they don’t have to force you to buy shit, they just gave the stamp for free. They just happy I guess to be included in on this.

And here I am at the final destination that requires buyable merch, the Kinokuniya booth/store at the con, you have to buy some official hololive meet merch like these standeeds I guess. They also have small blind gacha bags for pins and shit but nah, just buy the stands, even tho they very expensive, like $33 each fuck. Notice that at the bottom they only have these guys left, what happened to my Biboo standee??? Did people buy all of them already on Thursday? Fuck I guess so, she’s the only one not there and it seems like Zeta only has 3 left as well. Well I’ll buy a couple and that should do it. There was plenty left for the holostars as expected tho.

Got all my shit all the stamps and go back to the Holo booth to collection this magical prize, which I fully expect is just more branded art postcards and it seems that Roboco and Ririka are doing a live stream at the convention floor now, noice.

Very nice Matsuri cosplay walking by too, she’s one of the special guests at tonight’s concert/show, cool.

I go to the side where the stamp and card people were handing out shit and I see this. Doh, man lol I guess they are too busy trying to manage the streams and crowd in the area for the rest of the day, no time to be handing out stamp prizes and shit, ah-well. Guess I will be back tomorrow. Sucks for people who only came here for one day tho, sucks for them.

With holo Justice debut last year around this time and their recent 3d Debut, the justice guys are slowly carving their own fandom and such, lots of new gigi happis and ceclias around.

If I can’t buy the biboo standee, at least I can take a picture of a life sized one in the background as the first proof of existence for the day, noice. I can’t believe they brought all of biboos’s shit, none for me man, and it’s just been on day.

Outside hololive, yostar store outpost looking pretty sad and dead. They are not even a real booth, just a outpost selling their merch, sad. They could have at least done some shit like give freebies but not, it’s the same way as last year. I guess if you want yostar chinaboat Arkknights spectacle you gotta go to AX.

Phase connect booth doing alright I guess, much better than AN that’s for sure fuck. AN was so bad I can’t believe it for these guys, what a disgrace for AN, this is how a booth should be in the main location area, not in the gaming area bullshit.

You can buy phase connect coffee, one of fish-mans other business endeavors, jokes. I talked to another holo fan who is also a phase fan and he said apparently Sakuna, the owner/CEO of Phase Connect is also at the con doing shit. Nice.

I asked if they had Shiina coffee and they said this is all they have, it sold out, wow fuck lol. The one phase connect talent I kinda watch doesn’t have coffee for me/sold out. On the other hand I was looking at their merch offerings and they didn’t have shiina standees while others did, then all of a sudden one of the staff was like, wait a bit, this just came in like right now; they had new shiina standees come in, like literally just now opening from the box, which were not on their merch menu lol, wow, their shit is out of date, gotta fix that man. I brought it.

A new korean mobile game I believe called Brown Dust II which kinda reminds me a bit like FF tactics and or RO a bit is a major sponsor player this AnimeNYC, they have a big display booth with cosplayers and shit and free give aways for keychains and shit for simulated gacha pulls. Lest to say, I got some free shit too. Noice.

The game in terms of theme kinda is aiming for Nikke boob level of anime waifu lewdness, something which Azurlane as of the past couple of years has also tried to get on the train. These swimsuit designs cutouts is quite something isn’t it.

Wow so sexy, they should put what these characters look like in their normal clothes first tho lol. I have no idea who they are or whatnot. The game called Brown Dust II is a horrible name for a game, it has the word Brown and Dust, not good. Plus it’s apparently a sequel? How come I never heard of it? They should have renamed it something else, the name is holding this game back honestly.

This store is interesting, it has all official hololive merch and some unofficial merch but in resell prices.

Wow, all of these standees are special limited time stuff, Holofest, stuff you could get in Japan in collab cafes or some other shit, some even from Taiwan, Korea and HK, Indonesia. That Gura cheerleader standee is really nice but it’s not worth $60 for, crazy, but if you really want it, it’s there for the price.

They also selling limited time hand written postcards from the talents, stuff you normally get from limited time birthday and or anniversary set merch made to order goods from the official hololive store. Wow, $390 for a hand autographed Gura postcard? Isn’t that a bit much? The markup for dead/graduated talents is quite high, even normal active talents too at this store.

Look at the markup for these plushies, wow, especially for graduated talents. Part of me feels this should not be allowed, since it’s essentially scalping but on the other hand, how else are you going to get this kind of merch after it’s limited run? These are all made to order limited shit, unlikely to ever be remake or reprinted again, which in some way inherently makes it kinda rare. Bad but kinda needed in a weird way, I dunno how I feel about it.

Back at the hololive booth and they have Reines, Kiara and Biboo live doing a fan karaoke session review. Gud shit man, lots of people in this area too to watch this, it’s fun.

Proof of existence, I was here edition. They had in the morning people sign up to be chosen for karoke for this event and the song they would be ok to sing if they are selected by the talents, apparently over a hundred people signed up lol. Noice.

And what do you know, standing like one person ahead of me is Hwikky, a well know/semi famous Korean hololive event vlogger in the community, guess he made his way here too as it was known from Korea. His vlog videos are very influential and have contributed towards the growth of hololive fandom around the world, he goes to Japan, Indonesia, HK, LA, New York etc for various events, noice. Some guy tapped his shoulder to ask him if he was Hwikky, and he said yea, and then he shook his hand, noice. I asked the guy beside me if that’s Hwikky and he kinda turned a bit but didn’t’ say anything, in a kind of, oh are people talking about me kind of way but not really, lol jokes.

I ended up standing and watching the audience karaoke for about 1.5 hours, it was some good shit. After I decided to go get something to eat, something from the food court, or rather special food outposts like they did in previous years featuring Japanese eats. In the area someone made a mini shrine to uma musume lol, specfically Kitasean Black and Satono Diamond lol. Pretty accurate actually, Kitasean black has to be that big as she is literally carrying all umas in the entire game, not even joking.

Karls balls, my favorite is back at it again with his hijinks.

Balls get, spicy version this year. And yes, they were spicy with special house hot sauce, good shit tho.

Last year in the area was an artist that was very popular that had vtuber merch, well she is here again with new merch after all the changes in the indie world and holo with Saba/Nimi being the main big ones. Even biboo edgelord edition standee is good too. I wanted to buy one but the line was very small/strange. Apparently the line last year was so big I remember she got in trouble with staff, this year however, she made a website to que line in order digitally with time slots of like 5 minutes to come and buy shit. When I loaded the site via QR code it didn’t work since the connection in the con was quite bad but from what I hear others in the area was that the wait was almost 2hours yikes, maybe tomorrow maybe.

She really has her merch art shit on point, even umas and saba, mint merch. Gud shit.

I am doing a horrible job at exploring artist alley. I think I did it randomly and not in order since there was a few artists I know that I wanted to check out and buy from first, fuck. I think I only saw properly like 30% of all of artists, doh, will try again on Sat and Sun.

I jump to this artist, the one that I had been buying from for years now, he’s here and he got the Saba train up and running as well. Pretty good shit. While saba design is good, I will still miss Gura’s design, I like it more but what can you do, things/people change.This race queen one is very good unique tho, good shit.

Buying from our boi, I like this guy’s shit. In the past he had cosplayers to help him at his booth, his booth is smaller this time around so I guess it’s just him. I think his main place is at AX, his booth is usually very large there, gud shit still.

Oh, the artist of Noms in her indie/vtuber form selling vtuber and holo pins. I brought another one, because I can. She on Saba and Nimi train too it seems. Some fucking autist was talking a long time with her about buying some Zenogoss pins or badges i think, trying to math value in real time, out loud with her, kinda wut, use your brain bro.

Brought some shit from this place too, I think a Fuwamoco fan art book with other holo art, I think her art has been used in fuwamocos and other talents thumbnails, noice.

Fighting game and scullgirls stands. I could have swore I saw these in Vancouver at that artists alley store maybe.

Pretty good shit, I think these guys were at AN? I can’t remember but yea, not bad, didn’t buy tho.

I needed to go and get my wristband for tonights holo concert so I went and got it. The main hall outside is busy with cosplays and dancers and other shit.

Gettiny my silver wristband. On the left is a group of koreans from korea, apparently they wanted to camp the concert for the best seats. It’s like 3 hours before the show begins man lol. But they did it from what I heard anyways, they started a pre-line, not even the real like, a pre-line lol.

In a hall on the same level as the not-line is the gaming area hall, which has gaming shit, or at least is supposed to. This game Starlight revolver is also a major sponsor of AnimeNYC, their main theme song for the game, is sung by Irys of Hololive, my favorite, nice. She released the song on youtube a few days ago, noice.

Even tho for gaming, even here you have artists alley spill over, it’s just now ‘gamer alley’ with more game focused artists, sure.

Old fighting game machines doing some serious business tonight.

Wow, neo geo twinkle star spirits shooting vs game, I remember playing that on emulator!

Initial d is forever, at least the game is.

People getting sweaty with these free games man, dem blacks all playing fighting games on the left.

Ron, Pon bitch, Majoong bois doing their thing.

Axel playing as himself in guilty gear strive, he was not bad man.

Guess he’s had a hard day eating pizza or something.

So at this time I had to make a choice, go back up and explore for 2 or so more hours before the concert at 8pm or just camp it with the koreans and others who made the not-pre line a thing. I decided to camp it with the koreans and others in the not pre-line lol. Lots of Nerissa fans camping too I see.

In the end everyone sits down to wait, even me. Alost of people were playing horses too to kill the time, even me. Gotta do the dailies you know and CM you know.

Some guy who was clearly a fuwamoco fan (Ruffian) was just walking around the pre-line and handing out headbands and shit to people who happen to look like they liked fuwamoco or such. I happened to be one of those people because he saw my skateboard deck that I just brought, yes it was a fuwamoco skate deck and he said yea, you got the stake deck you pass and handed me this lol.

Having not want to waste resources and this Ruffians valuable resources, I obliged and wore it. Now I feel real, ready for battle and wave glow sticks.

Others who happen to get the Ruffian god blessing, nice headbands bros.

Eventually the not-pre line because the actually line for real and the koreans were happy. So was everyone else and they divided each row into the ticket tiers, I was silver, the highest was gold, not bad. Resume sitting and horsing around.

Some guy cosplayed Gigis Ojisan wizard from her 3d debut live, a live for the ages. Good shit.

Inside waiting to get started and others being seated, good shit.

I am ready for this now lol. The headband brings it to another level I think.

So yea, the concert is now over, no recording or photos allow. It was a great setlist and songs, with great guests from haachama and Matsuri, good song and dance. I makes me wonder what I could have seen if I didn’t miss the vancouver one, man, ahwell, shit happens but this time, I didn’t. It was a win. Now to do it again tomorrow, except even bigger and better.

Leaving the Javits now, long lines out.

My go to pizza, Vitos pizza is always there good shit. I could tell a long story about some guy who was waiting for pizza in Vitos but I am lazy so let’s summarize it by saying I met another Chinese guy from Canada, used to be in Markham, moved to Seattle lives there now, is software engineer, we talked about shit about hololive and shit, he got robbed/mugged last year while going to the holo concert in Brooklyn in the King Theatre, still came back to NYC for this, yea, it was an interesting conversation. I wish him well.

Back in hotel with pizza and a new outlook on life with mugged software engineer man who used to be from Markham story in my mind, pizza is good shit. Margarita and square siclian pepperoni, gud shit.

Anyways, I gotta get up in like 4 hours again or so as of this writing, yea, time to die and sleep, another big day ahead. Wish me luck.