It’s that time of year again, Anime North is here and just like the past two years, I ended up going on all three days. With the noice taste of that sweet nominoichi deals and goods on the Friday only event, let’s see what this year has in store. The general trajectory of Anime North has been on the upwards trend over the past couple of years after a very poor and lackluster showing in first years back after covid lockdowns, which I think were some of the worst Anime North has ever had. This year however, could potentially prove to be one of it’s strongest, with it’s first real Anime voice actor guests in many many years in the form of legendary voice actor Kikuko Inoue and her rising star daughter Honaka both attending along with many industry guests and illustrators such as Studio Trigger.
Last year I had curated roughly 450ish photos to post for Anime North 2025 and comment on; this year that number is only about 223. Basically only half the amount as last year, and the reason soon enough will become fairly evident for a variety of reasons. With that said, let’s see how these three days unfolded.
After a fairly smooth drive we get a pretty good parking spot since we arrive within 1 hour before AN opens on Friday. The registration once again is in the North building, which they since last year have opened up to the full con usage. Hm, lots of empty space here that could be better utilized.
After a very quick transaction of picking up your badges and witnessing the con ‘legend’ that one guy who has been helping out for probably decades, we get the nice guidebook and daily updates which are largely useless.
They have come a long way from fucking paper cardboard badges I think but still a long way to go compared to some of the other cons tech for entry/verification. The ‘legend’ looks kinda weird, looks like his head and face are swelling, maybe he had a stroke. I didn’t take a picture of him this time, since line was fast but I should have, since one day we may never see him again.
Walking back from the north building we see some nice cars and cosplayers out and about. Sephiroth and snake looking alright.
They have some iron man guy in full armor giving a interview and some purple blue wizards or something, not sure.
View from behind, the main area with the ball thing.
Just like previous years we have some food trucks to serve the hungry con attendees on mass. It’s kind of amazing to think that in all the years that AN has existed, these trucks have only been here for like the past 3-4 years only.
The main dealers area has opened already so there was little wait to get in, let’s go.
For some reason when we entered this time we entered into the industry area which is kind of a new thing for AN, they never truly had a real industry section with big companies but this time they formally labelled it as such. The most notable thing here is that they have an official merch booth for miHoYo, makers of Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact: Starrail and Zenless Zone Zero, the hottest Chinese mobile gacha games around. Wow. Having these guys actually have a real booth selling official merch is truly an accomplishment for AN organizers I think, good job, don’t fuck it up tho in the future.
While we are technically still in the ‘industry’ area there is still artists around to some degree, not as bad as last year but some of the more mainstays like this pokemon guy which has been around for probably a decade now. Why Blue Jays Jersey tho?
It is a slight improvement from last year I think but still fairly empty. Needs more.
They have another vtuber for some meet and greet which I am unfamiliar with, the company itself is just a PC company I think so it’s a bit awkward when there is noone else around.
They decided to put the gundam build area in this ‘industry’ space because I dunno, no where else I guess and it makes sense since they have bandai and playmod booths here nearby.
Not bad, previously they had several OG gundams on display but this year they decided to have Gundam Wing large statues. Noice, proof of Gundam wing existence.
Claw me baby is here again, part of me thinks the crane game trend is on the downswing especially since it’s so expensive and the prizes are mainly bootleg plushie shit. You will never get the real UFO catcher anime goods and shit that they have in Japan here in these machines here.
Playmod/Bandai has an official booth selling some limited kits but I think nothing super exclusive to the con. In other conventions like in the US they have con exclusive stuff, but I don’t think we have that here.
Like last year Goodsmile also has a booth but it’s pretty pitiful really. I don’t really think they have anything to buy here, it’s just a showase and they ask you to order online, like what’s the point then? Like bandai they sometimes have con exclusive merch in AX for example but not here.
Miku has transcended from being a vocaloid character and has become a figure goddess, with hundreds of figures and nendroids with different designs and clothes.
After the light survey of the ‘industry’ area we decide to do a light scan of some of the artists in the artists alley, just a preview not the full exploration time.
Nice keychains, they are a pretty good spread of the popular new shows/trends this year/last such as Witch Hat Atelier the newest hot anime show, Kpop demon hunters and some other shit I have no idea about other than inuyasha. This artists seems to be from Quebec.
Even for a Friday the artists area is still kinda busy. The artists above is alright, consistent but not my thing.
Pretty decent hololive justice art however.
Pretty decent art, nice Umamusame art too, even of those that have not been released in Global yet, nice. Who are these guys cosplaying tho? I have no idea.
Nice style but not for me.
I brought from this artist before, several times in fact, she is one of the few that has fighting game stuff/charms and also vtubers and such. Didn’t buy anything from her this time since I expect to see her probably at another convention again later anyways.
Mao Mao and a bunch of other things that I am not quite sure about. There is alot of stuff I can’t recognize lately, all mobile chinese gacha games or other shit I think.
Pretty creative with the gluesticks for umamusame, jokes shit. But not worth a buy by any means.
Pretty nice booth and goods too, nice hololive and vtuber merch. Actually, I think this artist is also a indie vtuber based on the fact that she says so, her avatar is that green girl, cool. It’s the continual cycle, vtuber make art of other vtubers in the hope that maybe they might make it big and others can make art of them in the future, very efficient. I guess she isn’t afraid showing her face as a vtuber since she’s a nobody but who knows, maybe she will get famous one day.
Nice gacha sticker gimmick but they are stickers so I don’t care. According to my sister stickers are like the hottest shit for some reason these days, surpassing charms/keychains and prints at least for the youth. I think this is because they are poor and can’t afford the other goods so like cheap ass stickers is good enough for them.
Brought from this artist before in the past, good shit but nothing for me this time. This dude is front is kinda block my view.
If you see these point hat dunce cap guys then it’s from Witch Hat Atelier, dis white hair boi is the best boy apparently, named Qifrey. Women just love the white hair boiz after all, can do no wrong.
Lots of stuff going on in this picture but I can see some art of an older show about a normal girl who finds out she has demon blood and is awakened to her powers reluctantly, the show was alright since it was supposed to be funny but basically for Japanese only in the sense that it was very dialog heavy with many word-puns and stuff that only Japanese meta would understand. Very rare to see art of this here today.
Nice collection of hololive and big boob girls from Azurlane, which is very rare these days.
Some not labubus hand made I guess, not bad actually.
I noticed that there is alot of Lucky Star art in the artists this year for some reason so I was like, what the hell is this? Did a show from 20 years ago get popular again? I looked it up and apparently clips of the show have hit TikTok in short form content and it’s gotten viral again with GenZ/A. There was also a recent manga spin off with the cast in their adult 30’s so there is a bit of activity in the series which is like wow. Who would have thought.
Good artist that I brought before, at least the ones on the left, looks like a shared table I think. Got some of the usual hololive prints but also chainsaw man and lucky star again. wow so this shit really did come back huh lol.
After a brief incomplete preview of the artists alley, it was time to get dinner at the food trucks. I ended up getting something from this place that sold chicken tenders and fries. Looks like the two white haired guys also want that too.
Convention food truck prices so what do you expect.
Got the tenders and fries, classic autist combo, only thing a bit off is that they gave me sweet and sour dipping sauce. They had like 4 flavors and they didn’t even ask which one I wanted, racist. Would have liked some ranch maybe.
Dan got from the same place, the Nashville chicken sandwich, it was alright he said, mild edition. I didn’t know you can get a mild Nashville chicken sandwich because doesn’t that mean it’s just a regular chicken sandwich? It’s supposed to be dipped in hot and spicy oil/power for it to be a hot chicken sandwich, this doesn’t look like it has tho.
My sister got this beavertails hot dog thing with cold bacon and fried crisp onions, it was good she said but not worth it, could have been better too expensive. Ended up getting some poutine from another truck too since it was kinda small.
I forgot what happened but I think Dan went to the washroom and my sister was in line to get poutine so I decided to go and try and line up to anime north nominoichi, lots of random cosplay of stuff I have no idea about.
On the other side now waiting, wow, looks like the line is pretty big yea.
Proof of line existence waiting edition. Shortly after this Dan and my sister came back and found me in the line, it would only be another half hour or so I think before it opens.
And it opens, we all go do our own shit and explore for deals and goods. Seems like alot of people already found some deals.
In the first 10 or so minutes the traffic is not so bad but it quickly gets very very crowded.
Nice Azurlane Baltimore race queen figure for $250, even though it seems like alot, I think considering shipping and tariffs, this is actually more or less at cost granted it was unopened, which is doesn’t seem to be, so for this I would only pay like $150-200 for this to be a good deal.
This man offloading some of his old kancolle merch, overwatch and figmas and figures from the shining series designed by Tony Taka, when you know these things like I do, you are old too. His prices are quite low/reasonably, especially the scale figures as they are at least 15 years old I think.
Looks like someone was in Japan for holofest or the suisei concert the past 2-3 months and won too much stuff from crane games, noice. I asked what’s the price of the big suisei plush, and they said it was $40, not bad but still a bit too expensive. I later came back an hour or so later and most of this stuff was gone, including the suisei plush.
More hololive goods for sale kinda overpriced here. When that big suisei was selling for $40 why are these small ass ones $50.
Not sure if this table actually had any LADS (Love And Deep Space) merch for sale but it could do no harm to showcase dem gayboys to attract customers and attention.
Despite being super packed and crowded in here, this girl seems to be enjoying the LADS.
Another vtuber fan wearing the debut hoodie of Sameko Saba, formerly Gura of Hololive which left/graduated from Hololive last year, the highest subbed English vtuber in the world. Many people thought she was going to begin streaming regularly now that she was independent, but it turns out that was not the case, it has been over 4 months since her last livestream leaving to question when or if she will ever return. This debut merch by Omocat sold like hotcakes and was sold out within minutes, I wonder if these fans who brought the debut merch regret their purchases now or still believe in the not-shark vtuber still.
Oh boi, needy streamer overload cosplay of both Ame and Kangel. The game was very popular a few years ago and now that there is an edgy ass anime of it airing right now, seems like the perfect time for this.
I have no idea what this girl was doing crouching down here in front of a garbage bin. Couldn’t you read your phone standing up like everyone else? Nice cosplay of something I don’t know about however.
Labubus and not labubus for sale. Part of me thinks that the trend has already died down considerably, it’s only been like a year and half I think since these things got viral popular so it seems like people have moved onto other collectables.
While this figure seems like a prize figure, it is actually a scale figure. Phat company is a company with hit or miss reputation and I think this one was a miss. At release retail price this was like $150 so I think this is an appropriate price used but it’s even worse because it looks like a prize figure which goes for $30-50, they ain’t ever going to sell this one unfortunately.
Got these nice pointy hat wizards around now as a new cosplay thing. Too bad they look kinda dumb, dunce caps.
A great amount of Twisted Wonderland merch, apparently they were here last year aswell. My sister brought alot from them last time so this year, she held back considerably.
Mainly prize figures but some cheaper scales in there aswell. While it is always desirable to have the original boxes for resale of figures, sometimes it’s not possible and you have to sell them like this. Without box, these are probably at least half there original price, if not, they are scamming and won’t sell any.
After about an hour or so inside nominoichi, we decide to do a quick preview of the dealers room. Looks like the sparetime company got their gacha machines into AN, nice.
Nice, they even have the holo rubber stamp machine and other badge stuff, the same series that I got alot of when I went to Japan.
These are the same machines I think that are in Union Station, and just like there, the price for a token is quite high. It is $4 per 1 token. For these gundam ones that require 7 tokens that is $28 dollars, holy shit what the fuck lol. I decided to give the hololive rubber stamp one a go and it cost 3 tokens, so $12, shit man that’s expensive. In japan it would be like 300-400 yen per gacha roll, shitt. Shit’s just not worth it here unfortunately.
They rearranged the layout a bit this year in dealers and the labyrinth artbooks are up front and center when you enter the dealers hall which is nice.
These are official uma horse plushies that you can win in Japan crane games and or buy straight up from the various racetracks around Japan. With the popularity of umamusame this past year it’s a cool thing to see that there is interest in the actual real life horses in which the umamusames are based off of.
A cool display selling sound souvenirs from Japan railway and other infrastructure. I like how they market it like, “miss japan? buy this keychain with the Yamamoto line jingle on it” nice lol. I think these are real merch from Japan stations I think.
Nice hololive merch and plushies, this store was here last year and it seems like they have expanded their selection. They also seemed to have added some umamusame stuff too, like those poster boards mainly from ichiban kuji.
Nice selection, although a bit overpriced. I believe prize figures from crane machines are supposed to be within or so $30 or yen equivalent retail value or else it’s considered ‘gambling’ but when they are sold after market like this here, the usually double in prices, especially at a con.
The beguiling has a different entrance and setup this year, they almost seem like to be promoting some titles and brands huh. No more mask mandate either when entering too.
I think it was like this last year as well but it seems like they have expanded their adult materials to also engllish translated thin books too, cool. I ended up picking up a number of titles because rare you know.
We didn’t do a full run of the dealers so decided to leave for tommrow, of course checking out the autograph area for our main attraction, the only thing making this convention potentially worth it, the main Kikuko Inoue and her daughter Honaka both very well known and famous voice actors, with Kikuko being in the industry for decades. Hopefully their autograph sessions tomorrow and Sunday will work out.
On our way out in the far corner of the parking lot there is some random ass rave party for con attendees not fully started yet. I am not sure what this event is called but there was another official party rave outdoors called ‘truck-kun rave’ that we thought this was, but apparently it was not as we drive by the real truck-kun party on our way out. We will never know for sure what this event was called. And with that ends the Friday at AN.
Fresh and early in the morning for Saturday we arrive, it was raining heavily on the way here and as we get out, it did not waver. We bring out our umbrellas and brace ourselves for the day ahead with rain forecast to be non-story all day. Oh boi.
Despite the rain the usual itasha cards show up for the Saturday.
Hmm new Nimi Nightmare vtuber car. I can’t remember but maybe this guy had a Fauna car before, should check old photos.
I am not sure about this character, maybe tohou? If not then I have no idea.
The usual choco hololive car from the past few years makes it’s return.
This one is a bit odd, Suisei from hololive and another blue character which I am not sure? Not a fan of mixing shit like this. keep it pure.
Oh nice a new car from roshidere, aka Alya hides her feellings in russian. We have this show and the sound director who produced this show to bring voice actors to AniRevo Toronto last year in Nov.
Kinda strange, kcar? Of Lycoris recoil too? Not the best art but ok I guess.
Hell yea goodsmile miku car, the rain not going to to a damper on that miku plush.
Might have seen last year but very nice hololive Iroha car. Good shit.
We pass the line up to get in to dealers, damn full gear poncho from this guy and full umbrellas damn.
Every year this anti-CCP/china/xi jinping car is parked around here doing some shit. bilibli.com huh.
I commend their dedication to protest the regime every year but they should at least change it up a bit every year.
Milestones getting in on the anime north weekend specials too huh.
Inside burger king from breakfast, we beat the rush just in time.
I got a breakfast bacon king, let’s see how this goes.
Honestly kind of disappointing. it’s just a english mcmuffin using burger bun and sasusage, bacon, cheese and egg together, would rather a english muffin, ahwell. The rest of the party also got food items, like my sister who got eggmuffin with just egg, a mistake and dan getting hashbrowns which were not enough.
After our mid breakfast we braved the rain and waited to get inside. Damn, shit is not good, not only is it heavy rain but it’s also very windy, you can’t defend against side rain water blowing at you sometimes.
Proof of rain waiting existence, this is not going to be a good day edition.
After what felt like a much longer wait than normal due to the rain we finally get in.
We decide to do the rounds for real and pick up from where we left off from the artist alley browsing. Seen this artist many times in different cons and places by now.
Nice mayo merch, my sister ended up buying a hoodie from these guys, nice.
Nice art but I don’t know most of the characters to artworks lol.
Nice balance of art and material keychain goods.
For some reason there is alot of art of these little green glow in the dark toy gacha blind box things called Smiski, they have been around for a number of years now but for some reason people are drawing art of thing? Weird, why would people draw art of this?
Pretty nice artwork but unfortunately due to the times, this kind of art is more likely to be AI generated, I don’t think it is because a few of his works are kinda shit but you never know still. Too bad for him and others with this art style, everyone is going to think it’s AI generated.
A interesting mix of things like vtubers but not really my thing.
Art and an absolute unit.
Go simple sometimes works, not sure about this one however.
The size of these key chains is very good and the price decent too. However, the art is not that good, sadge, they have uma and all the popular stuff too.
The popularity and presence of umamusame is very apparently in alot of artists, especially in the from of chibi keychains and prints like this. This table however went a step further and made umamusame status condition gacha machine, wow jokes.
Decided to give it a try, got Poor Practice status condition, damn lol jokes. Cost I think $6? or $12 I forgot, cool experience tho.
My sister tried it too, got Slacker status, jokes.
Pretty good artwork here, very nice hololive art of Ina and even the Saba Dobby print. Considering Saba’s lack of activity however, I wonder if anyone would buy this print. Lots of artists were hoping to make bank on Saba’s success and to sell more merch/art but I don’t think it has been that good after her initial debut, certainly not selling now for sure.
I believe my sister’s friend was tabling here and was chatting with her. I think this is the first time her friend has tabled at AN, based on the quality of the art and subject matter, I think this may also be her last.
Pretty solid art on the left, good shit. Nice maid cosplays and white hair too.
Oh shit, looks like my sister’s friend ‘Kathleen’ is here again at AN but this year not selling crocheting goods like last year. Apparently those goods have been banned/not allowed anymore because they could be/are made in china mass produced, cannot be proved to be made by hand by the artists so they are no longer a thing. It should be noted that booths with the black curtains are considerd ‘pro’ artists booth which I assume cost more. To be honest, I see no difference in the quality most of the time compared to normal artists booths other than they are larger spaces.
OC GACHA FOR LYFE/ PRO EDITION UPGRADEE.
Nice ebi plush and other things.
This is one way to put that acrylic stand material to good use, make them chip clips. Creative.
Swole and fat frogs, frogs eternal.
Papricots has also evolved to a pro, not bad but I think her style is not that unique anymore and has lots of similar competition now.
Kpop demon hunters art, hm, koreans huh. Not anime enough.
Nice corn, I guess they do allow some shit, as long as they have faces I guess.
Dandandan artwork and dr stone gayboy lol. Why would you ever draw the stanley gayboi from the show without his professor x gayboi? Why lol?
Nice collection of vtuber pins lots i fact, so many. I thought about buying but I think I have too many already, plus these are just head, no other words or shit on them like a joke or something, nice but too generic still.
lol jokes fatty oguri pretty jokes. I suppose you can call this making the best of of what you got and still be accurate cosplay. Nice kfc bucket too.
This artist captures all the popular trends topics/anime/media right now fairly well. Even some shit from amazing digital circus which is the hottest shit for kids these days I think and vtubers and even sonic, damn. Brazilian miku too.
Very large crowd for this artist area not sure why.
Pretty good hololive stuff, I don’t remember this particular plushie pillows but they look good as well as all the other stuff, good shit. Thought maybe but trying to be more discriminating with what I buy now you know.
Saiki k and aibo art wow, this show is kinda old. I think it’s probably popular due to usual netflix shit where it gets on the platform so a new generation of people rediscover old anime and shows.
If there is one thing that can be said about this artist is that they are very consistent in their style and format. Perhaps it is AI but I dont’ think so, it takes a certain kind of mind to be this template-y.
Nice but kinda weird, the weapon prints are cool but the rest of her stuff is like different shit.
Bibisama is here again, nice stuff but not for me this time.
Wow, this person is pulling out some old Hololive Rushia cosplay with the minecraft head, wow. Not sure if they miss her or if they just made it before in the past and said fuck it, wear this shit again even though she ruined.
That same store with the very old Nanoha figures and idolmaster/kancolle stuff is here again. I guess they dream that one day most of their stock will get sold, perhaps they will have better luck in nomonoichi.
Damn son, what happen vergil?
Is this a new thing now? 3d stickers? They are just textured. I don’t get the popularity of stickers in general but sure.
Clothing shop that had guilty gear collab and class clothes also doing a aura farming solo leveling korean anime collab it seems.
Wow, this dealer brought tons of ichiban kuji stuff and is actually doing the lottery thing, as if in Japan, wow. Maybe this is is the next big thing but man the prices are too expensive here man, nothing of interest to me for their selection either, too base mainstream largely.
That store that had solo levling collab and other anime collabs, nice themed hoodies for dnd classes and shit.
Good ol navito world, doing their thing. Never brought anything from them because I know prices.
Nice cosplay of still in love, a future umamusame many years from now but because people can’t contain themselves we got cosplay today world wide all around the world.
Nice small selection of mini figures, I can’t remember of navito sold these before but this photo is cool due to the blur.
Noms is back again but it looks like they are doing more stuff than just clothes and shirts these days and into more merch stuff, in particular dokibird which I think is like semi-official. The artist for noms is also a vtuber that I met a few years ago at my first animeNYC so I am not surprized if the owners of Noms and the vtuber artist know doki directly and are friends.
Look at these nice noms doki standees plush and red pocket?
After a sufficient amount of time in dealers we decided to go to the hotel to try and get some food. As you can see it is still raining heavy even now. Very little or no cosplayers out and about outside. Pretty bad sad weather but what can you do?
Getting here to the hotel was a struggle. Heavy winds, heavy rain and very cold. Our umbrellas were barely holding together. When we got in everyone is like damn, this weather so bad.
We went to the usual Japanese restaurant for onigiri and stuff but there was a line and it was capped so instead nearby we decided to go to this makeshift food stand stand setup by the owners of the gift store in this hotel lol. Nice maid sakuya cosplay I think.
Being browns, they offered samosas, chicken burgers and jamaican patties. Not bad and their prices are quite affordable.
I ended up getting this, a chicken burger and fries, comes with a bottle of pop from the convenience gift store that they run only $12, really good price considering it’s makeshift. More stores in the hotel should be doing this to serve the convention goers, where has this been for all these years?
2 Samosas for $6 pretty decent, probably got more than we should since it was just me and my sister to eat. She also got a chicken burger combo and fries too, good shit.
While we were chilling sitting down on the side eats there is alot of cosplay people doing their thing indoors, nice umamusuame mcqueen cosplay.
After we finish our meal/get some rest we decide to make our way to the dealers area. Looks like our ani-ccp tank thing is deployed in the rain today too without fail.
Without fail, we arrive at our destination, the main event for this year’s AN, the autograph session for Kikuko Inoue and her daughter, Honaka Inoue. The time is like 2:30 or so and a large gathering of people have already decided to camp. We also meet Mark for the first time today, with the same goal/mission.
As this is a not line people had no idea what to do so they just hovered around the area. The AN organizers just kept on saying you can’t block the path and you cant stand here, which everyone of course ignored. It was a good hour or so more before the actual autograph session was to begin. Kikuko and Honaka’s panel was being held during this time so everyone here either bailed early or completely sacrificed going to the panel in order to get a got spot for her autograph. Sadge.
We waited for a long time, as the panel was late and went over apparently thus the autographs began late too. When the time finally arrived, everyone started pushing to the front, the AN organizers refused to setup a proper/real line and honor those who had been lining up for hours before. They decided that there were two autograph sessions, one from Kikuko, the ‘mother’ and other for Honaka the ‘daughter’ and decided to select/ask people which autograph they wanted and then gave them a sticky note to write their name on for personalization. This was not initially public or announced and was at first done quietly to not cause a ruckus or rush but once people started realizing what they were doing, essentially picking randomly with bias and or giving autograph sticky notes to their friends/others people were like what the fuck is this shit? They started yelling to step back and not crowd the two people giving out sticky notes since their corruption was exposed. I have no idea why this was done, it is quite literally the worst possible way to deal with this line and I can only guess is some form of twisted equability to help the disabled and others who otherwise would not have a chance at getting an autograph but fuck, it’s not fair. The ‘random’ selection was not random at all, they selected people with disabilities, women and people with children, elderly older fans or people more vocal about the line, but ignoring everyone else who had waited here for hours, sacrificing their time at the con in order to get an autograph. So bad, I think this is the worst organization of an autograph session I have ever experienced, by and large.
After a chaotic and hectic selection period of roughly 45min, they announced that they would be capping the selection process for today, try again tomorrow. And of course, given the circumstances and my luck, I was not selected for today. Dan also did not get selected either. But somehow Mark and my sister ended up getting selected. Fuckkk. Like, this system that they went with is the worst possible system for autograph selections, the worst by far. I kinda can’t believe how disorganized and blindsided AN organizers were considering the calibre of the guests that they were hosting, complete amateur hour, perfectly on brand for AN, a ‘fan run’ anime convention, what a joke. They should have either just created a normal line and be done with it, or if they didn’t’ want to for equability reasons, then do a lottery system even before AN began like how a lot of other cons do it. The photo above the the aftermath of the shitshow, with probably 70% of the people in the area not getting autographs because the session was also late.
My sister showing off her luck with her autograph from Kikuko, ‘the mother’. Having been defeated and lost, that basically was the end of the Saturday for AN, this was quite literally the remaining afternoon time more or less after our late lunch fuckk.
Before we headed out we decided to do a minor stroll of some dealers again and check out the beguiling agian. Check out that nice fakku porn, just noticed that that they put some effort into the descriptions, jokes. After this we left the convention space with no issue as we have figured out the best driving parking exist method by now. Even now it was raining hard.
As per new-ish tradition, we go to Sushi Legend to commemorate the poor weather of the day and Mark’s birthday which just so happens to also be today on Saturday.
Ah yes, good ol sushi legend, the most solid and good ayce sushi that still exists. You won’t deny me like those AN retards organizing the autograph session.
We all ordered our own shit so at the same there was alot of dishes that looked the same, ahwell, it’s just easier this way anyways.
Look at all these nice plates and shit, we barely had enough table room to start but somehow had everything fit in our first orders. Solid all round and with Mark here, celebrating his birthday with us, we get a 10% discount from the final bill, noice. So each paid $50, pretty good. That ends our rainly AN Saturday, let’s see if I and Dan can get some autographs tomorrow. If we don’t, this entire AN like the rain is a wash failure.
It’s Sunday AN, rinse and repeat the day before in our daily ritual. Most of the itasha cars are the same ones that appeared yesterday with a couple new ones I haven’t seen before. Luckily the rain today is very light, much lighter so hopefully it clears up by later today.
Now that it’s not raining, proof of event existence.
Truly rinse and repeat, we ended up getting breakfast at burger king again but for me this time a proper sausage and egg muffin sandwhich. Overall McDonald is better for sure.
Milestones getting into making some nice drinks for the AN weekend. Some of these drinks are questionable but others pass I guess.
The same can be said of swiss chalets offerings too. Probably not worth it but if you want chicken you can have the ghetto chicken sandwhich from the hotel gift shop!
Back inside the dealers and a very minimal wait and it’s already pretty busy huh. For the most part this morning Dan went off to do his own thing while my sister and myself decided to check out artist again and decided to try and get autographs from some of the artists/industry guests. I mean, I don’t want to leave empty handed with no autographs at all.
Some chinese gay shit and for gays.
Seriously lol? Zone of the enders 2nd runner? I knew there was a hd remaster a few years back but still surprising to see fanart of this in 2026.
Interesting selection of keychains and goods.
I believe my sister ended buying something from this artist, for her coworker or something, I think the blue gays thing.
After doing a run of the artists again, decided to check the area of the autographs again. Questionable cosplay but you do you Nintendo folk.
Also in the area, Quifrey and his pointy hat bitches, the hottest shit you know this season.
I believe this is a cosplay of the miku song “Vampire” MV, I know because they also made figures of this design, it’s not that special or unique but it’s popular because the style I think and vampire of course and she also wears a mask. The other cosplay could be just generic school outfit and or even that new silent hill girl. Noice.
Fishsideup cats huh.
We are back at that uma status gacha machine artist again as my sister wanted another one. She got “Charming” which in game is like the best status condition you can get lol, nice. After this we decided to wait a bit to get some autographs for some illustrators who also attended AN.
Success, as it can be seen, both me and my sister got the autographs from these industry people above, from the left, Takahiko Abiru who is most known for helping with character designs for the Vinland saga anime, Takahiro Yoshimatsu most known for this work as a character designer and animation director for Hunter x Hunter (2011) and Rianti Hidayat, an indonesian concept artist who has worked with Nintendo on several Zelda games but most notably several illustrations for the pokemon trading card game. There was not really a line for these guys and just a small group, I thought we were only going to get one autograph, probably Rianti since Mark had gotten them all on Saturday and her illustration is very nice but ended up getting all three because they were selling shikishi boards for $2 a piece at the point of autograph, lol damn so cheap. With that in mind, we both brought 2 additional boards each, maybe we should have brought all three but nah, we already had one i our hand anyways, so it would look back putting i back in our bags lol. 2$ is amazing, probably at cost or at a lost as even individually these are like $4 each USD when I brought up in New York. Overall pretty cool autographs, well worth it the time and effort.
Nice seiyun sky cosplay. Umamusame truly is one of the easiest cosplays if you want the low effort route, all you need is the uniform and a wig and some other accessories. Those who cosplay as their unique racewear are the true gods however. Still commended effort.
After obtaining some fail safe autographs from preventing this AN from becoming a complete failure/waste, we decided to check out the North building to see what’s up with gaming or what other stuff.
Oh boi here we are again at gaming, seems to be more popular and busy than previous years, I guess most of the people realized that there is stuff in the North building after all these years other than AN idol. I think it’s been like 2-3 years now since they opened the full north building and I still think they are not using it to the best that they could.
Playing dem card games and some cosplayers just chilling. Honestly, this building is so much nicer than the main dealers/artists building, they should have all their cosplay shit and other panel stuff done here instead of the other space.
Nemo chess girl space. I believe this is fairly popular cosplayer/chess player who comes to conventions and plays chess, she normally streams her games online on twitch and apparently went semi-viral about some rude/bad behavior was captured on stream when one of her challengers was defeated like nothing and got all pissy and shit asking her for an apology for wasting his time etc. I only know her because of that clip, minor drama that no one cares about unless you watch twitch, which I mainly do not. I guess she wasn’t around right now, but cool table tho.
This guy on the left I remember before, from AniRevo Toronto last year. I attended his panel about Fumos, the little collectable plushie that look kinda smug and cute. Kinda funny that he’s just here cleaning up his fumo probably ready to leave or something. I am not sure what event might be related in the gaming area but maybe the touhou games themselves or something? Who know, but it’s still funny to see him here, although not surprising, I should have said hi to him.
There were having fighting game tournaments and the such all around the back, this here is Melty Blood Type Lumina, I played this for a bit but the online experience is kinda bad as most playerbase is not in north america and finding a match was horrible. I also didn’t like how they have auto combo built into the game, it’s fun but after awhile it gets old. Perhaps the latest patches and characters added make it more fun but this was like 2-3 years ago so yea, haven’t touched it since.
The organization of the space seems a bit better than last year although it can still be improved. Oh look, black tanjiro.
Like before, another space in the gaming area for ddr and other dance games. I am not sure what this person is cosplaying as with the pink hair but my initial thought was this was anemachi, the unofficial design for suisei’s sister but probably not.
After some time in the north building, we decide to head outside to try and get some food again in the hotel. Looks like the streets are alive this sunday. People dancing and doing music shit cosplay shit again, as if this was saturday, noice.
Damn sons, I think you need to drop your cosplay gear, Attack on Titan is so 2013, and the anime ended in 2023, should try something else. Pig man from Demon Slayers is still relevant however but still, so bait.
Best real cosplay there is, YuruCamp Rin. No doubt in my mind that her scarf is the same one that I brought went I went to Japan. Nice togipi costume for her kid too I think, jokes.
There was like lots of music and people playing their shit out today, I guess to make up for the saturday being fully rained out. Good shit.
I am not entirely sure what the person with the caged head is from. My thought was Bees from that Nic Cage movie but it can’t be right?
In line to get our usual sunday convention food, at the japanese place in the hotel. No problem lining up here now. Nice blue pointy hats.
Chicken meatballs and some takoyaki balls, it will do as per tradition.
Had two of these onigiri tuna mayo and beef. We sat at the usual AMV repeat place, it’s like the best place to eat and watch some place in a chill area.
After watching a few videos we decided to head back to get some dealers/artists in and to prepare for the wait again for ‘mother’ and ‘daugther’ autographs. Pretty good saber and enkidu cosplay, fate is pretty much a forever thing now, I have no complaints.
Skies looking clear, good shit not rain, all is sunny on this Marvelous Sunday. It’s truly marvelous cosplay of Misato from eva, another forever anime cosplay.
Inside the main building the line for autographs has already started about an hour or so before they are supposed to begin. Mark is already there camping the space so I decide to explore some other parts of the cons that I neglected, like this space beside artists which used to be the old gaming area, which now hosts other shit like robot battles and shit, cool.
I am not entirely sure the criteria but I guess the ones in the full enclosure have more violent spinning shit which could be dangerous compared to the other one hmm.
It’s interesting how they have a space for I guess teams to fix their shit and make adjustments here. This seems to be a robotics program from mcMaster university. I am not sure if there are other schools or universities here but it’s interesting that they are even here at AN to begin with, kinda hmm local need to fill space, might as well put these guys in for free audience.
Oh what’s this? Not far away from the robotics area they have a new 18+ adult area oh wow. This is a first for AN I think, I must check it out. After a quick ID check from the guy here from this old man here. I am in.
Hmmm, the space inside is kinda empty, not alot of shit and I think it’s only artists mainly I think.
There is a few jokes tables such as these guys trying to promote their adult anime convention Nov and other things of that matter.
I think there was about 6-7 artists tables selling adult/nude artworks and prints, which were alright but it still seems kinda sad that there isn’t more people in this space.
Of this closed off adult space, we see a surprising artist to have a presence at AN again, Sakimichan of all people wow lol. While she was not here in person and her proxies selling her work, it’s surprizing because I had thought she had broken off all contact with AN organizers all these years and that lead to the ill-fated (legendary) KimiCon back in 2019 run mainly by the artist herself as a form of protests against the poor organization of AN and restrictive rules against certain art, which mainly targeted her sexy pin up works. I suppose over the last 5-6 years since then and after covid her and organizers have reconciled their differences and allowed her to setup this entire 18+ section as she basically takes an entire wall of the square space. Since those times, her works have gone basically full porn pinups, full nudes of both men and female characters which was seen in previous conventions in the US like AnimeNYC and AX. Perhaps her presence here is a sign that she is being threatened now due to the advent of generative AI artwork, as her works, and her style, is very easily able to be replicated and generated using AI, which I think is also a part of her resurgence at AN, she needs all the money she could get, that and maybe attending US conventions is not as lucrative due to the current political climate of shipping goods and the what not. In either case who knows for sure but it’s nice to see her work at AN again, perhaps I’ll buy more prints of hers one day.
They have a couple of tables showing some lewd themed pc cases, sure I guess. kinda mid art in my opinion.
As the space was pretty small I essentially walked around the area like 3-4 times and in one of the runs the guys running the adult convention gave me this card, I took it. lol why now. I wonder if this will be the next KimiCon or perhaps IFFY? It’s in Mississauga so that’s already a drag, even further west, past Pearson airport. Who knows, maybe they will get big lol?
I saw one artist that I had seen before, specifically at animeNYC the past few years ago and they were in this adult area for some reason. Yea some of their works is pretty big boobs and such but I don’t think they are that adult, you just don’t have to put those put on display.
I had brought from this artist before several times in fact, and most of their works was not adult, look at these nice keychains and umamusame, pretty safe shit, good shit in fact. I ended up buying from this artist a print and a keychain today. I asked him why are you in the adult area, was it by choice or were you forced, I asked? I said his shit wasn’t that lewd only a few prints were kinda. He said it was kinda a option a bit of both, in that his stuff was usually kinda pushing the boundaries of what was allowed so he said fuck it, put me in 18+ area since they had it. His art is very good so it’s a bit of a shame that it’s isolated from normal foot traffic, lots of hololive, umamusame and popular gacha game stuff too. I am pretty sure he’s American since i’ve seen him at other conventions in the US, but first time here I think. I wish him the best of luck, but with how restricted and empty this place is, it’s not doing him any favors for business.
After my mini adventure in the adult area I see this nice hololive Sakura Miko cosplay on the way out in front of the crane machines. Not bad, good shit.
They also had in the area the gymnastic show thing that they had in the past few years too. Nice but I don’t really care.
After my stroll I return to the spot, the not waiting area for the autographs for Kikuko Inoue and her daughter Honaka. As the day prior, the line up is heavy again, mainly with the same people who did not get autographs or are back for more. Oh boi here we go again.
In our hour or so of waiting I happen to be standing ahead of these two dudes behind me, which I overhear talking about umas and umamusaume. As a fellow trainer-san, I decided to engage in light discussion about the franchise and the game. We talked for a bit about umas and where he got his uma horse irl plushies and he said that he got them in Japan when he visited, I believe he said he went to an actual race track and got them, which is cool. I know they sell well. I asked him what he thought of umamusame when the first anime came out back in 2018, I said it was cool but there was no game for another 3-4 years so I zoned out. He said when the anime came out he thought it was stupid, but then he said, look at me now, full blown trainer-san cosplay with irl uma plushies. lol jokes.
When the time finally arrived, the organizers were a bit better this time in terms of communication, but not by much. There was this guy dressed up as Himmel from Frieren who was trying his best to communicate what the plan was for the crowd and such which was commendable but unfortunately AN organizers are incapable of learning and quickly adapting so they ended up doing the exact same bullshit system as yesterday, random selection of who gets a sticky note and autograph from either the ‘mother’ or the ‘daughter’. Once again the ‘random’ selection progress was complelys bias with them choosing people in the front based on if they looked desperate or angry or whatever, if you were a women/kid or elderly. At one point they weren’t even trying to hide their attempts at equitably and started yelling, ‘does anywhere here have a disability?” and the such with everyone just quiet trying to raise their hands or get attention from one of the two people handing out colored sticky notes, your ‘ticket’ if you will to get an autograph. Look at all the faces of these bitches behind me, so worried and stressed, this is not good. Even trainer-san is worried too.
At the end of the day, Honaka ‘daughter’ autograph get. I consider this a success. This AN is not a waste of time after all it is now in the alright status. When they were handing out sticky notes for Honaka, there was generally less reception from the mob for her autograph, as most people wanted Kikuko as she was considerably more famous as her daughter as a voice actress was still relatively new, a rising star if you will. I wanted either of them, it would have been nice to get both but given the circumstances at the time, when they said “does anyone here for the daughter?” I raised my hand said exclaimed I do, I want daughter, and thus being in the front row, I got their attention and a sticky note. I passed, I won. When I got into the Honaka waiting line, the people in front of me were like, congratulations you did it. You won, you made it. We then talked about how horrible this entire process was while waiting to get the actual autographs. The guy in front of me was like saying, this process was giving him anxiety and the women also in front said this is like the worst ever, we both compared this system to other conventions and experiences and how this AN system was the worst ever, which it was. We bonded, as survivors, the winners. The next few people who were selected in the line after me had the same sentiment. I congratulated the person behind me and they did the same after that. A couple of white boys got in together as friends and they high fived each other and the such. Outside of my success, her autograph is nice and they give you a little baseball card thing with her on it, which I guess is backup if you don’t have anything to sign, since this time it was bring your own item, no selling of boards. Most people had the manga where Honaka had her breakthrough role, a Netflix anime which I never saw so yea, there’s that.
One of the guys ahead of me ran the official AN podcast and he said he will be taking this up to feedback to con organizers as well, this process was terrible. He apparently did an interview/podcast with the organizer/head for this on Saturday and about the horrible autograph situation and asked how they will resolve this, he said the response he got was not good, ‘your not going to like his response’ so yea, shits fucked for AN forever I think if they ever get anymore big guests or industry. Unlike me, who jumped at the first opportunity of an autograph, Dan held his ground and waited until they started giving out Kikuko autograph sticky notes, his patience paid off and he got her autograph, good shit. This convention was not a failure after all. Even after getting my autograph we waited for Dan who will still in Line, Mark magically ended up getting Honaka as-well today, before I got in line so he got both Kikuko and Honaka, damn so lucky, good shit. My sister didn’t line up again although she could have.
Nice uma keychains and merch, I ended up buying from his artist earlier on in the day. Good shit. Nice to see most of his stuff is kinda gone/sold out.
This Kitasean black cosplayer just visited the previous uma artist booth and he gave her a kitasean sticker cause it’s kitasean, why wouldn’t you? Just after leaving I asked her a photo and the sticker in question, good shit. Pretty good shit, although the angle/aspect ratio is bad, I should have zoomed out a bit or stood further back since I was kinda too close to her, ahwell.
And with that, just about half hour getting the autographs, AN was over already. Damn, this convention seemed to fly by like nothing, mainly because a good chunk of it was because I was waiting for autographs fuckkk. They got to fix this autograph system in the future of something man, do real lottery or honor a real line, shits fucked. Pure bullshit corruption bias.
For dinner, Mark had his own thing to do and we decided to go to Hana Ramen, on Kennedy road after AN. I always drive by it so I always wondered if it was any good. We initially were going to have pho at midland and finch but since Dan has pho so frequently apparently, we opted to try something different, like this ramen place.
The place itself is kinda tiny and very bait, lots of Japanese trinkets and decorations, trying to convince you it’s Japanese theme and such but yea, the owners are very clearly Chinese so yea, nice try but why bother lol. You order from your phone, no physical menu as far as I know. Hmm.
I ended up getting their tonkatsu ramen set, which comes with ramen, chicken karrage and a slice of cheesecake which is a great deal I think at only $21-25 dollars I think? Can’t remember but it was a good value. The ramen alone cost $16-17 I think so why not? The ramen itself is pretty solid, not the greatest by far but for the cost it’s quite good. Their chashu is deep fried and their noodles sufficiently thin, the broth rich and thick enough.
Dan just got the ramen, this is the spicy garlic oil version of the same thing I ordered, tonkatusu black garlic oil. With phone ordering you can actually order individual items at any time, so I decided to upgrade my ramen by ordering just the black garlic oil for like $1 more, it came in a small bowel and I just poured it in, cool shit. Upgraddee.
Here is a photo of the chicken karrage that they give, minus one piece since I ate it already. Pretty large good shit man, four large pieces? Sounds good to me for the value and tastes good, nice and juicy and crispy. Nice side of spicy mayo too.
While the ramen and chicken are good, what put this combo meal or any ramen ordered from this place at the top in terms of pure value is this. You are allowed one free noodle refill per ramen order. Holy shit this is a good deal! You basically get to have another ramen serving for free. Just order from the online menu and they will bring it to you, wow shit, that’s so good. This is like another $2-3 dollars at other places at least, the value the value is so good.
Once we finished our second serving of ramen refill noodles, we get our dessert, a mango cheesecake. Wow, pretty good shit too. Wow, I am impressed, this place is pretty damn good in terms of value, you get so much for your money where other places the cost of just the ramen alone is the price of the combo maybe. The chicken was big pieces, the cheesecake good and most of all the free noodle refill was excellent. There was a very big black family/party taking up like half the restaurant and they were ordering a lot of fried chicken too, probably making the most of the free noodle refills too. When you have black people coming to your ramen restaurant ordering fried chicken, you know shit must be good. While the quality is good, not the best or most authentic, the value proposition of Hana Ramen is excellent with many other dishes too like rice and donburi stuff too, will have to try again sometime as I saw a few other people dining alone, as ramen intended. Good shit nice meal to end AN.
Back in my family’s house to unwind after AN, we unload our merch for display. The autographs on the right, good shit. I got a hololive Irys print from that artist in the adult area and some uma keychains from that artist that gave the kitasean sticker to kitasean. On the left is the gacha hololive rubber stamp I got, of ayame, nice bot expensive and on the top left is another puppet my sister got me of hololive Sora from nominoichion friday because why not.
Look at these joke ass uma keychains so jokes. The other oguri keychain on the right the back has a cute chibi illustration of oguri the irl horse which is funny too. Only 1 print this year which is fine, I held myself back a few times, gotta hold you know since I have so much already, it’s gotta be really good art for me to buy, gotta be more discriminating in our harsh times. Although not shown here is the $120+ of porn manga I brought from beguiling so I get I did spend decent money after all I guess if you count that lol.
My sister’s haul this year at AN, a bit more than I expected, for once more than me. She is especially proud of that bootleg mcdonalds handbag which only cost $5 but sure. The keypie hoodie is nice so are all the other small things, mainly for friends and coworkers. She ended up getting a suisei puppet because she wanted one too, sure I guess lol.
With that said, that ends this year’s AN. Well, straight off the bat this year’s AN was heavily debuffed and handicapped, the Saturday rain basically nullified all outdoor events and cosplay space, bringing them inside out of sight to most people unless you were in the North building or elsewhere which I think the registration area where they moved cosplay meetups maybe. AN overall for the past few years has experienced improvements which is good, they have started getting industry presence like goodsmile, gundam/bandai and some other vendors, and most notably new is the Genshin folks having an official merch booth which is actually huge really. The improvements and expansion to the North building seem to be paying off with more people and shit going on which is good. The fact that they somehow managed to get Studio Trigger and some other notable industry guests this year is great and incredible, especially Kikuko Inoue and her daughter Honaka, which are in my opinion A+ level voice actor guests.
However, despite it’s improvements, the lingering fact remains that AN is a fan run convention and it’s handling of the autograph situation and panels were horrible, probably the worst I have ever seen in my life. MY LIFE. Who the hell thinks on spot random autograph selection was a good idea? It’s not even random but rather biased selection based on the selectors preferences/prejudices. Gotta get an old person, gotta pick a women this time, gotta pick a black, gotta pick an asian, gotta pick someone with a kid, gotta pick a disabled wheelchair person? What is this shit? How bout pick there person who was standing in front of you for like 2 hours waiting for this one thing? Bullshit. Absolute complete shitshow. The repeat of the exact same process on Sunday just proves that AN is hopeless, they are completely rigid and incapable of adapting to rapidly changing situations and unable to improve things when it was already obviously clear shit dun fucked up.
They should have known straight off the bat that Kikuko Inoue and her daugther were A+ level guests but they somehow didn’t foresee that famous Japanese voice actors at a anime convention wouldn’t get that much attention and people lineing up for? Did they think they were the same as washed up english sailormoon voice actors that required no planning or organization because noone lines up to their autographs? How blindsided were they? They should have just made a real line and honored it, but they refused to do so because they are retarded and I guess lines are somehow not accessible or equitable? Fuck that. Even so, they should have just did a lottery system even before the convention started to figure out who would get autographs instead of wasting so many people’s time just waiting for something they may or may not get. All other conventions that I have went to in recent times have implemented better systems to deal with masses of people wanting autographs and all are better than this shit. I have 0 faith that AN will learn from this poor management and will return to just having white English voice actors that nobody cares about for the next five years again if they can’t handle A+ Japanese guests.
Outside of the autograph situation, the rain did not help for the overall con’s mood on Saturday, as it was a heavy and cold windy rain. As far as most people are concerned, what was supposed to be the highlight/main day of AN was quite literally washed away by the rain. It basically was a null day in terms of vibe and cosplay/stuff going on. Friday was cool, it was on track but Sat ruined everything. Sunday was basically a limited scope version of what Saturday should have been but still weaker as alot of people can’t attend both days and only go on Sat. In terms of artists, I would say maybe a bit weaker than last year because I didn’t’ see any new artists that wowed me hence only 1 print from a US artist in the 18+ area from me. I appreciate the 18+ adult area and the return of Sakimichan and her work in that area, but they really need much more i the space to justify it’s existence. I do hope they do 18+ area again and have more people sell their shit in there or attract more stuff. The industry presence is somewhat stagnate, goodsmile is nice but they don’t sell shit there, or any limited good, no reason to even appear then, it’s just a showcase, same to some degree for the other industry places with the exception of the genshin store.
Phase connect does not have a booth anymore compared to last year, while that shady vtuber goods store still remains which while I think is legit still questionable since I don’t know the name of the company that sell their shit. In terms of popular anime cosplay and trends, there is only quifrey and pointy hats as the real new trend, all other fandoms have decreased and been normalized to a degree with some exceptions to some fandoms, such as umamusame which has increased considerably for artist and cosplay representation, basically taking a chunk out of the huge Vtuber/hololive presence in the past few years. In fact, all vtuber fandom representations have decreased in general as the industry/market is in a slow stagnate growth state with many vtuber agencies like Vshojo collapsing and many smaller companies shutting down, even Hololive has suffered major talent departures since the last year and it shows as vubing is in the maturation stage of fandom and growth is steady but no longer explosive as it was in covid times. There wasn’t alot of notable stuff at nomonochi this year that interest me, I didnt’ buy anything althuogh my sister did, so I think that was a miss. The rain basically made everything worse so Satuday was a wasted day in general for seeing things compounded by the hours wasted waiting for autographs, on both days. That probably explains why my photo count this year is so low, there just wasnt’ as much time for me to take photos of anything really, cosplay or otherwise. I didn’t even get a chance to see AN Idol this year or any of the Kikuko Inoue panels.
All in all, was this year’s AN ‘good’ or better than the last? I would say no, it’s worst than last year, despite having A+ industry and Japanese guests because AN once again has revealed themselves completely uncapable of handling A+ industry guests and will likely not attract any more unless they get their shit together or build lasting friendships/bonds with the industry which they seem to be fucking up. I consider Kikuko Inoue and Honaka as guests a once in a blue moon event, don’t expect AN to attract anymore like them for a long time. I hope I am wrong and AN does get more high calibre guests but my money is all on AniRevo to deliver on that, not AN, a ‘fan’ run convention which to me is a synonym for ‘amateur’ convention.