In 2019 there was once an anime convention called IFF, the International Fan Festival; it died/was postponed indefinitely when covid happened when the pandemic hit in 2020. In 2023, it’s successor arrived, picking up the pieces of what was left of the former organization and had a convention called Anime Toronto; that too, was run poorly and basically died as soon as it was over. Two years later, Anirevo, the organization/convention based in Vancouver that had helped both the former failed conventions in Toronto decided to give it a try again, taking full control over it’s operations and called it Anirevo Toronto. That is the convention in which we are going to be exploring today; let’s see how Anirevo Toronto stacks up compared to it’s predecessors.

Like it or not Dundas station in the TTC is now the TMU station. Thank the Toronto Metropolitan University for that, the university formerly known as Ryerson for this, they paid for this rename and rebranding.

At union station just walking to the convention space you can see that there is alot of Japanese stores showing up, like even sparetime has official real gachapon machines, noice, will check it out another time.

Walking the skywalk and passing the train to pearson. This place always looks nice but I can’t help but feel it’s such a waste. Should have been some stores or some shit you know?

Because I am dumb I always go downwards in the Metro convention center. There is another convention happening during this time, the National Women’s convention. Yes, it’s quite a horrible name, but from my understanding, it’s mainly showing women’s products and shit. I went downwards, I only realized it when I was like, hmm, this doesn’t seem like an anime convention, opps.

Back upwards and yea, this is the North building where Anirevo Toronto is being held. Hmm, looks even smaller than it’s precursors, less tables and less…everything it feels like.

Going to go pick up my badge in this registration area. The time is now roughly 11:20am on a Friday. No rush at all or crowds it seems.

3 day badge cost I think $70 now, I think I brought it when it was cheaper, like $40-50 I think? I can’t remember it was months ago. No shortage of badges that’s for sure.

The badge itself is pretty standard plastic, decent art too I think from the same artists that does their mascot for the Vancouver anirevo.

I didn’t even browse the main hall yet but I guess I’ll check out this uma musume panel, it’s open now and I like uma so yea, let’s go.

I was not sure what to expect from this panel, I was thinking it was just some history or general discussion of uma musume but I was wrong.

This entire panel/room was for just organizing a big uma musume tournament offline/in-person. Wow, jokes.

This is a board of characters where people can just put little stickers to show their favorite/oshi, noice.

Lining up to register for the race. They need to record your username and what 3 horses you are going to use in the race. Prior to this they had a spinner wheel to determine the race distance and course. The spinner ended up on the Kikuka Sho, a long distance race of 3000m in Kyoto on turf track, which funnily enough, was the next upcoming champions meeting in early Dec. Most people had not trained any horses for this yet, but I did, just a bit already so I was semi prepared with at least 2 horses ready for this track/distance combo.

I mean, as one of the few panels operating at any given time, about three, not everyone is here knows about uma, but I feel that most do, granted the goldship and haru urara cosplayers and the like.

They basically called off 3 usernames and that was one group, you had to organize your bracket and determine who would win to go to the next round. I think there was like 9-10 or so groups but I can’t remember. I ended up winning the first round but I lost in the second group ground too bad.

This is a photo of the final round, each user has 3 horse girls on their team, so normally it is a total of 9 racers, but we had an odd number so in this race it was 12 racers and 4 teams. In the end fucking a gold ship won again lol. The top 3 winners will have a choice of uma musume collab boss coffee cans, not bad. Overall a fun event although a bit unorganized but still fun. Mark joined about halfway through to the panel so he was there now, nice.

Got some vtuber fan cosplayers in the panel cause sure not like there is anything else to do in this con from what I can see. Gura and Dooby. even tho Gura is dead, her design is just too popular and good for people to let it go, plus they probably made it already/brought it so yea, have to use it I guess. No Saba cosplay huh? The Dooby is pretty good shit.

After the panel, we begin our customary stroll of the dealers/artists alley/exhibition space, which is just the usual.

Fresh goods, nice goose.

I mean it’s like 12:30pm on a Friday, pretty dead and empty but still.

Kirin anime clothes and fit stuff, nice booth seen in many other cons I believe.

Oh wow, even the doujin guys that always show up in AN have a table to sell their goods, nice, I appreciate their presence, even at this small con.

Not quite blind bags as the shop keeper says to me, it’s more like open bags, you can see inside them and you can ask to swap some shit out if there is stuff inside you don’t like. Hmm, I guess this is a new thing I since mystery boxes are basically just a scam to get rid of junk, at last now you can choose your junk items.

Wow, after so many years Sakimichan has a table at a con, I don’t believe it’s her manning the table tho, probably her friends or some shit. I would think her art style and overall business would have suffered in general due to AI art, her style and look is extremely easy to generate these days with AI so I wonder how she is doing in sales, probably not so great anymore.

Torokami clothes stuff, they have appeared elsewhere, most notably in AnimeNYC and even EVO if I remember it right. Nice, hopefully they keep it up.

Daikimura and related goods. Not bad.

Sans from Undertale wut. He knows.

It’s our boi Pjun again, looks like he’s doing well. Never miss an opportunity to attend and sell at a con. By now i’m sure alot of these artists have recognized familiar faces such as myself.

Cute another familiar artist again, one that has old stuff at “The Artists Alley” in Vancouver’s Aberdeen mall and as it can be seen, heavy vtuber/hololive items, even tho there is none this year.

We enter into a anime name that tune/speed tunes panel where contestants have to name what anime that particular song came from.

Kinda hard man, gotta name those yaiba songs in order.

This baller named Yoshi is a god, he ruined everyone with his knowledge of anime songs in this particular category. New all time high.

It’s a bit like jeopardy with players choosing a category to play in and have songs played. I don’t think i’ve been to one of these that used this software and system so it was pretty good entertaining.

We left before the end to get some lunch, it was already pretty late late but yea, why not. Let’s cross the street to the food count.

Balling, good to see that it is alive since it is a Friday. On weekends this place is mainly dead cause it’s not a work day. I learned this like every year every time and I still forget so come on a Saturday/Sunday and find it dead. Today is not one of those days.

While the food court is pretty standard, they have this place called Pinto which is like self serve buffet by weight. It was like 2pm or so and they were near the end of the day so had 50% off their shit, wow. Normally it’s  $2.89/100g, but now it’s half that, deal too good.

Even their soups are 50% off. I ended up getting some.

Pretty good shit that I got, this only cost like $12 because of the discount, nice deal. This is not worth $24 at full price so yea, I can see why lots of people were getting food from here as well.

Seafood chowder, about $4, before it would be $8. Good shit. Mark got about the same stuff but with a few different items minus the soup. After chilling for a bit we headed back to the con.

The size of the con as it can be seen from the displays is not that big. Only the north building area and a like 3 panel rooms. By all regards this is a very small scale anime convention which has it’s own place/charms I suppose.

We already did some walk around in the main exhibit/dealers/artists alley so popped into a panel about Fumos.

Fumos are this brand of sitting plushies by Gift with a very particular face/eye combo, making them seem smug/displeased/annoyed/bored and hence cute. This god running the panel has seen some better days but his knowledge and history to this niche collecting hobby is on point. They were originally only tied with Touhou but have seen expanded and branched off to other anime and media works, most notably azurlane and some other stuff.

The panel itself was not really interactive, just an informational and a 101 history and guide to buying and stuff, watch out for bootlegs and etc. They are very rare back in the day so they are inherently very expensive but got popular over the past couple of years because of online memes and covid basically people stuck at home with them.

As this is a Fumo panel the panel speaker asked others in the audience to bring theirs up to display for photos. Nice. I have a number of Fumos myself, didn’t bring them since I didn’t even know this panel was a thing.

In many ways the image above roughly captures the feel of Anirevo Toronto on Friday; it’s predecessor Anime Toronto had big vtuber guests like Hololive attend, despite it’s size but this year they basically have none with only a local vtuber/idol Yumemi which has appeared in many other conventions like AN and etc. There is a sizable hololive fan presence at the con but none of that is rewarded or warranted really, even the artists too are heavy vtuber/hololive but they could not bring any this year, too bad.

Nice Haru Urara cosplay. Their gaming section is really pathetic and really shouldn’t even exist but at least there are chairs. Also sizable uma musume cosplay around too which is nice.

Some unknown vtuber company has a panel screen setup, a horrible spot since it’s right in front of the stage and gaming area.

Autograph area, right now it’s for some of the English voice actors of sailor moon I think. Very very sad and ruinous. They shouldn’t even invite these guys here, no one cares about English dub.

Another panel we attended was like anime name that tune but with voice actors and various roles/characters. It was not even interactive or had a person up front as MC, it was just literally a video playing with trivia and shit for an hour or so. Wow, it was entertaining but a waste of time and supreme filler for something else, they really are struggling for content and things to do if they really had this as a legit ‘panel’.

Proof of sitting ruin filler existence, crew edition. There was a bunch of youth sitting behind us and they for some reason were mildly into it and making a ruckus, hah.

Lets check back at the main hall, looks like they doing some idol dancing and stuff now.

Solar bloom. I am pretty sure they were here at AnimeToronto or something before, I’m sure other conventions as well. They were singing the classic love live song “Snow Halation” cause of course they would.

We got the pen light vtuber/idol warriors doing their thing here too. They guys are always here, they are all hololive fans of course, I can tell from the happis, they most definitely were here in 2023 when hololive was here at AnimeToronto.

A few more groups showed up to perform and they were generally better than the love live group. Same Gura i believe from this mornings uma panel, gotta see whats up you know.

Due to plane delays the main and only real guest for this convention, Sumire Uesaka had to cancel her panel but was still going to arrive to do a late night autograph session at 9pm, which is well after the main hall is supposed to close. We all intend to get her autograph so it’s a no brainier we gonna have to camp it.

But before that we get something to eat, we backtrack to Union station for food in their food court, which is something that I haven’t really explored myself since it’s renovations were completed a number of years ago. The first thing of note is that they have a Shake Shack here, which is great.

They have a area with more fancy food court offerings but in the end further back they have the classics like taco bell, mcdonalds and kfc etc.

Hm is this why people like The Alley? They have collabs with yaiba and other anime game stuff too I guess.

In the end I got some Nashville chicken sandwich from a place called Mighty bird. The drink itself was gotten free as they were giving them out for as sample on the way back from the skyway back to union, noice.

The nashville hot chicken sandwhich was pretty solid good but just the sandwich alone cost like $14. For a combo with fries and pop it would have been $18, so either way very overpriced. I would buy again if I feel like it but after the pure value from today’s lunch which basically was a dinner, this is massively overpriced. Would pay $8-10 dollars however, $14 is too much.

After our dinner we go back to camp for Sumire Uesaka’s autograph which is no joke, the only reason to go to this convention in general.

It was supposed to be at 5pm but yea, shit happens so it’s at 9pm now.

They moved the location of the autographs into what is effectively the lobby/registration area since the main hall had already closed. We waited for roughly an hour or so? I can’t remember but at least it was well organized. When she eventually came everyone clapped. No photos of her or etc of course. The wait was alright, just chatted with ourselves and some guy beside us who had opinions regarding desktop computers and laptop hardware, it was interesting.

Mission accomplished, yea boi. It cost $30 to buy the shikishi board branded anirevo which is fine, they had said previously that they would be pre-signed by her but in the end, she wrote everything. So I have no idea what they are talking about, I think they messed up due to time so she didn’t even have a chance to pre-sign, which for us is better overall. Good shit, this convention which was already very small and poor in scale and things to do, is now automatically in the “Okay” territory. And that ends the day Friday, let’s see how things go for Saturday.

We start the day fresh from Union today because yea, why not. This green ranger was with me on the same subway car from bloor station. Jokes.

Decided to level up my gear/fit today since I remembered I had alot of other vtuber clothes that I didn’t have the chance to wear due to seasons. Wearing that nice Irys, Guyrys drawing hat today, jokes.

I decided to get a Kyoto latte from % coffee, it was right there so why not. Looks so nice and fancy, pretty good shit, very foamy and creamy.

But damn this shit is expensive. This is a small too with regular milk. If I had asked for like oat milk add +$1, wow. It’s good but man, overpriced. It’s very similar to what other places call “fogcutter” latte or coffee so if you see that, try that as well to see if you know what I mean. Good shit, but man it’s expensive.

Take off my jack to reveal my vtuber jacket, branded Irys gamer edgy type merch. Not bad, looks good with the hat and coffee. I mean, when am I ever going to get to wear this outside of a convention in the fall? Shit’s too hot to wear in the summer.

Vtubers early in the morning attending to setup with a wheelchair baller that I have seen before in AN and other places.

Pretty good cosplay of Chainsaw man and Bomb devil/Reze, good shit.

Nice artist, that I have seen before at AnimeNYC for sure that I brought from. Nice that they come up here to this small con.

Another familiar artist that has been doing stuff for a long time as well a staple of AN and local cons. I think they have been doing for almost 10 years now at least and nice to see that they keep up with all the popular trends and what’s hot.

Nice gays from I believe the game “love in deepspace” I mean, girls need their bishonen as much as dudes need their cute girls.

Massively overpriced as per usual. I am pretty sure you can find this on amiami for much cheaper I am sure. Convention and tariff and shipping cost I guess.

Nice figure of some cthululu not Miku. Even tho it’s not miku, most people will easily mistaken it as so, which I can’t really blame them.

From one of the book bins from one of very few dealers/sellers at the con.

Nice keychains, thought about it but opted to not. I generally like the game “Needy Streamer Overload” but I haven’t played it myself, just watched vtubers play it, which I think is enough but who knows, I have brought far more expensive things that I have little or minor knowledge of so yea, control this time.

Another familiar artists that makes the rounds at all the conventions I visit it seems.

Pretty good Silent Hill F cosplay of the main girl, pretty good.

Nice handmade plush of hololive Raora and Biboo. Nice shit but when you can buy official plushies of them for like $35-40 cad why buy this? Because you want the rare handmade custom shit I guess.

There was a number of Reze cosplays around of varying levels of effort and quality. I mean anybody from chainsaw man is already low effort cosplay but I guess it shows how popular and successful the movie was.

Damnnn, this brown women just sitting here all day feeling shook. I would be like this too if my job was to just sit here alone and watch people.

Even tho there is no panels on Saturday about uma musume we still got them cosplayers around, nice silent suzuka here. Too bad they didn’t go with her unique outfit. In a way it’s super easy to cosplay a uma from the series, they all wear the same uniform for school so just change the hair/wig and ears and your like done.

In the lobby where the autographs were last night they had a cosplay photo meet up area, when I came it just so happened to be a hololive/vtuber session but it was just about finishing.

Nice bau bau fuwamoco cosplayers and I believe neressa’s dad or one of her brother’s cosplay. Nice.

I believe this suisei in this clothes was around last year too, but now upgraded with a axe lol due to new lore recent stream/game developments. lol.

Shadow the hedgehog full body suit. Sure.

A somewhat derivative/original Irys cosplayer. I am pretty sure Irys doesn’t have a bunny suit clothes like this but I guess it’s a reuse from something else, I mean, as long as you have the wig and head/horn wear your mainly there.

A few Selen Tatsuki fans still around for some reason showing their merch. I am not sure if they are doing it to show legacy or they want to just discuss some shit or attract attention. If you really were her fan wouldn’t you get on to the doki bird train? I don’t know maybe they just like Selen’s design, just like how people still wear gura shit still, too iconic.

Proof of existence I fit in right here I suppose edition.

When you first walk into the main hall and turn left, this it like the first thing you see, another gayboy bishonen. Hello again for like the 5-6 time I guess, not much else to do here than to do the rounds again in the main hall.

I can’t remember what this was but I think it was another karaoke singing thing, nice wheelchair equability.

Nice Oguri Cap cosplayer buying some stuff from that bisoujlovely jewerly shop table, they had a booth and official collab at animeNYC, so that’ nice I guess.

Once she was done buying her shit I asked for a photo. Good shit, anyone doing a uma’s unique clothes deserves recognition, takes time you know.

“The world’s most diverse Asian dolls” ok sure but I don’t know if this is the right place for this. Maybe? But I don’t think so.

Another familiar artists that appeared in AnimeNYC with some nice Dr Stone Senku and some bag guy, not bad.

Nice banana and round things.

We are approaching today’s main event, the QA panel with Sumire Uesaka, it is kinda busy now with the line up and shit. Good thing Dan basically camped this for like an hour or so in advance.

We in, noice. Mark and his work friend sitting beside him. He knows and plays/played uma musuame and watched the anime, so he’s alright.

Dan doing double thumbs up in approval for getting good seats and camping. Among this entire con, this is like the only panel that I think the entire room was more or less filled. I mean, she’s the main guest after all.

Our MC and moderator of the sessio, he did a pretty good job I think.

Of course no photos or recordings but the panel itself was Sumire Uesaka but also the sound director Takeshi Takadera, who for all intensive purposes is the most important person to the con organizers. Having been to to all three iterations of this convention under different names and management, he’s pretty much confirmed the main point of contact to attract and bring over guests to this convention, so yea, he deserves props. Don’t make him pissed, he’s the only one that has connections to get Japanese voice actor guests.

Annnd that’s the end of the panel with Sumire Uesaka. Overall it was well done and interesting but of course lasting for like 1.5 hr you are going to get some off the rail and dumb ass stupid questions asked from some of the audience who lined up to it. Some were good, but some questions were really cringe and retarded, such as asking her about how would one of the characters she felt would think of other characters in the anime she played. The last question was like how would Alya play minecraft? What kind of question is this? Fucking retarded man. There was one guy in red who lined up twice and both times his question was not answered because the question didn’t make any sense and provided no context, probably mental illness or something man. A good number of questions were spoken to her in Japanese which is cool, guess lots of people know Japanese now in the city.

Right after her panel was also her last autograph session, now properly in the main hall. It was kinda bad because some people left her panel early to probably line up. Bad, they should have spaced it out at least an hour after, not immediately after. Bad planning here.

Nice goldship, gotta wear that red unique clothes you know.

After a long ass panel and having the main attraction of the convention done, we headed out to get something to eat at the Well, since why not. Stop wondering, you know.

I have heard good things about this place but never have been despite being not that far walk from the downtown core/union in general. Looks nice.

KFC doing some shit testing some new pop drink for the holidays full of bullshit whatever. You drop some candy to make your pop fizz, add sugar to sugar I guess.

The Well is interesting, its not a full indoor mall but something inbetween, like a hybrid mall/plaza construction which is great for browsing and events and vending in general. Looks cool too.

We arrive at our destination, the Well’s “Wellington Market” a fancy food court but still a food court none the less.

Fancy fish and chips alright.

Looks nice with alot of food places. As it can be seen, this food court seems to also be quite popular with Anirevo convention attendees and in general mainstream tourists.

Nice ramen, looking pretty decent with the prices too.

Looks ok, nice minimal menu, how it should be for taco places I think.

Nice uncle tetsu here. Alot of the food places here have other locations in the city, mainly occupying in Queen W or in Spadina area or from Dundas street where there is alot of Japanese restaurants.

Japadog, originally from Vancouver specializing in Japanese hotdogs makes it’s spot in the Well as a brick and mortar shop. Noice.

Nice British English roast meats and sandwiches, looks good.

Bear steak sandwiches, which serves up beef steak sandwiches with chumichuri sauce.

After thinking about it, I ultimately ended up with the Bear steak sandwich. Overall it was decent, the meat was a big tough and the bread nothing special the only thing that makes it good was their chumichuri sauce which carries it. Without it it would be plain. At a $20 price point however, this is just not worth it, the quality is far below what I expected and ridiculously overpriced and lacking in quality. I would pay maybe $10-12 for this, not $20. Shit scam sandwich.

Dan got Japanese cheese karrage curry rice, from Japadog; the place that is known for hotdogs. Sure, as long as it was good I suppose, and he said it was good.

Mark got this roast pork sandwich from the Carvery, and it definitely seemed like a much better sandwich than mine. It cost like $14 and was packed full of pork goodness. Fuck, should have had this instead, ahwell maybe next time.

After we eat our meal we explore a bit of the Well from the outside again. Here is Arcadia Earth a immersive experience place I believe, similar to the ones found in Japan’s TeamLabs kind of thing but smaller noice.

The Well is designed quite nice, especially with the xmas lights and decorations already up.

Proof of Well existence, been here done that.

Baileys had some shop or doing some samples maybe but they were already packing up for the day, it wasn’t even 4pm yet but I guess they calling it.

There was a line up for people going into this Santa’s workshop thing. I have no idea what this is, toys maybe? I have no idea.

All in all the Well is a nice place to visit to eat and explore when your around the area in downtown. It’s not the closest to Union station but it has access via streetcars and or a considerably walk. I would visit again it’s a nice place and I think it’s the kind of place that the city needs more to be built of open concept mall/plaza kind of thing. It’s obviously quite popular so yea, not bad. While the food is expensive, it’s downtown so I can’t really complain that much, especially with the tourist price increases for this place.

Heading back to the convention center as we see some pro pen light warriors doing their thing outside. Not sure why they are doing it outside, I am pretty sure this is not an official event just people wanted to meetup so yea, sure. Mainly vutuber fans for sure.

When we get back inside we check how the line is going for Sumire Uesaka. It’s hard to see but yea, it was going/almost over. I believe they capped the line so yea, tough luck. Good thing I got her autograph yesterday, it was totally worth it staying till 9pm for it.

From a distance, nice Raora hololive cosplay in red in the center. She just announced the other day she would be taking a hiatus due to medical issues with her vocal cords and will be doing surgery. Hope she gets back eventually and recovers fine.

One last run of the main hall before we call it I guess. Nice artist, am not sure if I saw before at other cons but probably yea if I check my records. With the main event over for today, there is not a whole lot left to do, so me and Dan call it and leave for the day. Mark decided to stay late for a panel with the sound director and the main voice actor for To your Eternity S3 which is also at 9pm, too late for me so yea, later bro.

On our way back to Union station we go into the gachapon machine store. Niceee real official shit. Nice uma musama Tokai Teio cosplay too that just so happened to enter as well.

They have some pretty legit stuff here, good shit like Hololive key-chains and the like. However, shit is really really expensive. 1 token is $4. So for this hololive charm gachapon, it will be 4 tokens, so $16. Fuckkk that’s wayyy too much for gacha. In japan this would cost like 400 or 500 yen at max and considering that CAD and JPY exchange rate is roughly the same, it really is just 4x times more expensive. I mean if you are desperate for that real Japan gacha experience, we have it, it’s just very very expensive.

At the union food court again they have Kibo, which is an outpost restaurnt that sells sushi and other Japanese/Korean food fare on the go. It seems to be quite popular and their selection of sushi and onigiri is commendable.

Quite a selection and busy indeed. There has been a very noticeable increase of Japanese businesses and food places in recent years, especially downtown and in the city in general, this being here also reminds me of London Meal Deal kinda shit, bu with sushi. It’s kinda popular.

However, in the end I decided to eat some Shawarma from paramount fine foods mall edition. This guy is like, why you take photo, too bad, I do it anyways.

Shawarma dinner meal/plate. Roughly about $16 pretty solid value considering the overpriced steak sandwich I had yesterday and the Nashville chicken sandwich I had yesterday. Overall pretty solid good shit, would have again.

And that about ends my 2 days at the first ever Anirevo Toronto, I technically could have gone for the full 3 days but looking at the schedule for Sunday, there is little to no reason to go again, they literally have nothing else going on, no guests or whatever for Sunday so what’s the point. In the end the only thing I brought this time from this convention is this Gigi Murin hololive charm from an artist because it’s cute and well drawn art. I technically could have forced it and brought more stuff but for some reason I wasn’t really in the mood to buy paper prints at this con, not to mention because I didn’t bring my tube this time around.

With that said how was this Anirevo Toronto? Well it was exactly what I expected it to be, a small scale anime convention that is still trying to find it’s niche and attract attendees. It has not changed much over it’s past iterations starting as IFF and AnimeToronto before it, and in many ways is actually the worst version so far due to it’s lack of more japanese guests and lack of vtuber/Hololive guests compared to previous years. The main hall and artists alley is a mess of an organization, there is no pattern or way to determine where a vendor begins and where an artists booth end, they are all mixed up with the north top area being for artists but with so many other booths scattered throughout it might as well be a mosaic. The number of vendors selling goods is abysmal, probably the worst out of the three years of this cons/it’s predecessors existence, only being probably worst than KimiCon, which is still probably the worst anime convention to ever be held at a reputable location in Toronto. The stage for performances was laughable and small, also in a poor location, as well as the gaming section, which was pitiful. While they had guests like english voice actors for sailor moon back in the day, no one cares, shit’s been 30+ years ago and it was painful to see the voice actors just chilling there getting less attention than most artists booths. They should not have even invited them at all.

The fact that this con doesn’t even have ANY official merch or goods branded with Anirevo name is telling, they don’t even believe people would have brought it so that’s why they never made any to begin with. Even IFF and AnimeToronto had merch to buy, Hololive branded merch too. The panels outside of Sumire Uesaka and the umamusume panel were pure convention staple filler. I had fun at the umamusume panel but I had wished they did something more then you know, just have us all play together in game.

The only thing that made this convention borderline ‘worth it’ is quite literally Sumire Uesaka’s attendance and autograph session. They made the price of admission worth it alone and because I got to attend her QA panel and got her autograph for $30 in person, this convention is okay. Purely on that fact alone. However, even with Sumire Uesaka as a guest, it wouldn’t change the fact this this is still the worst iteration of this convention to date. IFF was an unofficial Fate/FGO convention with all three main heroine voice actors in attendance. AnimeToronto was a Hololive/vtuber convention being able to bring Kiara and Reines to make an appearance which is quite a feat and also bring another Japanese voice actor, Yukana for panel and autographs.

Anirevo was able to bring in one top name voice actor but basically neglect every other aspect of the convention, from panels, concerts, music, merch, planning, artist/dealers, marketing/attracting interest and more attendees. So excluding the existence of Sumire Uesaka, Anirevo Toronto was a pretty mid convention, it did not improve in any way from it’s predecessors and things got worst, which is unfortunate since they seemed to be organized and well staffed, they just didn’t have enough content or guests to work with.

Would I attend Anirevo Toronto again if they decide to do it again? Yea, probably. Because just like IFF and AnimeToronto before it, I want this thing to grow and get bigger, and I want something to replace Anime North since they will never change their ways with the mindset as a fan-run amateur convention with no industry presence or connections. Everyone that attended this I am sure had attended either IFF or AnimeToronto before it with the same wish as mine, for Toronto to actually have a good industry backed anime convention that is not Anime North located in a good location in the downtown core. Hopefully that day might come, it it certainly wasn’t this time.