I have been drawn back into the con world and my return, my first in-person convention since 2019, was the event that I now consider the best anime/manga event in North America, Anime NYC.
NYC is not a con-friendly space. It is expensive and hard to make a splash. With ReedPop’s New York Comic Con just weeks previous, it wouldn’t seem like there’d be room for an anime- and manga-focused event. But NYCC is not a comic con, really, and not a media con, really. It was growing into a decent publishing event for a while, but tossed that for another try at being a major media con, which ended up as San Diego Comic Con’s sad East Coast echo.
And then there was anime. NYCC was getting big company presence. Viz and Funimation sell to exactly the audience Marvel and DC comics are assumed to appeal to, (the coveted group of people with the least money and most inclination to bootleg, the 12-18 male demographic,) so they were bringing star power to NYCC. Their reward was to be two of a handful of non-western media booths, along with toy and game vendors and all other anime and manga companies were first exiled to the Piers and then just disappeared.
So despite the proximity of the larger event, there is indeed space for excellence available. In 2019, Anime NYC resoundingly took the lead as the con of choice for NYC otaku. I wrote a report for Comics Beat that year, that laid out the case that Anime NYC was the destination of choice. And then the pandemic hit. NYCC was held earlier this year and again, it had the two major anime guns there. So how would Anime NYC fare?
First the negatives. Javits Center remains an object lesson in how not to build or run a convention center. On Day One, lines for Anime NYC straggled for blocks. Part of this is attributable to vaccination status checks being handled the exact same way bag checks are – as a roadblock that only dribbles a few people in at a time. It doesn’t take a genius to know that vax card checks and wristbands could have been handed out on the line. After two days of the usual clusterfuck of lines at Javits, AnimeNYC – not Javits – created a far more sensible priority line policy. People with badges and wristbands in one line, people with one not the other in a second and a third for folks who needed both. Tada!
To be very honest the only reason I was able to attend the event at all was because they required mask and vaccinations, so thank you NY State and Anime NYC. Many of you know I have been unwell most of this year and there would be no way at all I could have thought about attending without both a vax and mask requirement. And thank you to everyone who kept those masks on all day. I really appreciated it. It made me feel like this community cares.
Anime NYC staff was fantastic. Everyone I spoke to was super helpful and knowledgeable. After checking in, I hit the floor to pursue my main objective – catching up with folks.
I spent time seeking out some of the manga and LN publishers who attended. I already knew there weren’t going to be any major Yuri news items, so I was just more interested in the lay of the land. Sam Pinansky from J-Novel Club was generally very pleased with how things were going. He noted that J-Novel Club has released so many titles in the last year, it almost approaches a title a day for a year, which is an outstanding pace.
Yen Press was so busy when I dropped by, I contented myself by just looking over their wares. Denpa Books had a full crew and I got to catch up with Ed Chavez, who was extremely positive about their acquisitions and sales.
Viz and Kodansha were not there this year, both for valid reasons, but looking at how voracious the crowd was, I think it was the wrong decision. I really hope we can get Seven Seas out here next year and UDON, with Manga Classics. It’s a great con and people come to buy. As I walked around Saturday evening, booths were selling out left and right.
I sat for a bit with artist Rica Takashima; she had a steady stream of buyers. At one point she looked at me, amazed, “People are buying my stuff!” Author, translator and lecturer, Zack Davisson, completely sold out his table by Saturday evening, as well. I had dropped by his table earlier in the day, where he invited me to be on a panel. Of course I said yes.^_^
Which is how I was on a Localization/Translation panel with Zack, legendary Dark Horse publisher Carl Horn, equally legendary translator Mari Morimoto, and ANN Executive Editor Lynzee Loveridge. LumRanmaYasha did a great live tweet of the panel (Thanks Lum! Aways good to see you. Lum runs the fantastic Manga Mavericks podcast with co-host Colton.) if you’d like to see what we talked about. I didn’t get a title card because, as I said, Zack asked me to join like 20 minutes before it started. ^_^
I had a brief chance to just walk the floor and see the vendors. Caught up with old friends at CheapManga.com and Anime Castle. And the thing I learned (again) is that the supply line problems are killing manga. Almost no vendors had manga at the show, except a few major bookstore chains. It’s become so hard to get manga or keep it in stock, it was actually almost impossible for vendors to sell manga. I know I’ve said it before, if you see a manga on the shelves and you think you might want it…get it. Print publishing is struggling to get books on shelves right now.
I then had the pleasure to be on a panel with the illustrious Princess Weekes from The Mary Sue and First Second’s Kiara Valdez, moderated by Michele Kirichanskaya from GEEKS OUT. We had so little time, but we covered a lot of ground with Michele’s great moderation.
I then capped my day with a lovely talk over dinner with Kodansha‘s Ben Applegate who again talked about the supply chain (seriously, it’s a real thing right now in manga publishing, a year ago, manga took a few months from editing to print, now its more like 9-10 months) and age ratings on manga and a ton of cool titles.
Attendee estimates were higher than 2019, and those attendees were super enthusiastic and ready to embrace and enjoy the events at Anime NYC. Panels rooms were full pretty much every room I saw. Saturday night, the con actually opened two extra rooms for attendees to watch the 1000th episode of One Piece. (I watched it today, and only teared up a little at the use of ‘We Are’ as the OP. Also Jimbei! At last!) Sponsor Crunchyroll was holding a number of premiere sessions through the event weekend.
YNN Correspondent Sean Gaffney has two items to report:
Kodansha did announce a Yuri title, Run Away With Me Girl, by Battan. I know some folks have asked me about that. I haven’t read it at all, so look forward to it. Adriana Hazra has details on ANN.
The trailer for The Executioner and Her Way of Life anime was running on screens around the convention center. I managed to never see it (go figure,) but you can watch it on Youtube. ^_^
As Anime NYC 2021 comes to a close, I am once again convinced that this is exactly the event that NYC needs and deserves. I can’t know what 2022 will bring, but I hope that it will bring us a revitalized publishing industry. In the meantime, Anime NYC is once again an outstanding event for lovers of anime and manga.
