I didn’t intend for my Anime NYC 2023 experience to be more “Totally New York,” but it ended up happening. Between many special events and a Showroom filled with vendors who knew it would be a hot item, my days were filled with VTubers and VTuber accessories.
Anime NYC 2023 takes place November 17-19, again on the west side of Manhattan at the Jacob Javits Center—a mediocre venue that tends to win by default because there’s nothing bigger around. While the con brings in cameos and screenings from many different anime and manga, the real highlight for me is the sheer number of live shows. Every day brings something big: Hoshimachi Suisei’s paid concert on Friday, the first live Advent panel on Saturday, and then a surprise holographic tour concert in Indonesia, viv:ID Cruise. Best of all, Anime NYC initially announced each event separately, so what we initially thought would be one big event (the Suisei concert) gradually turned into three—not to mention the holographic booth in The Exhibition Hall features non-stop live programming.
One of the challenges with large live events is that they all require attendees to go through a somewhat complicated booking system. Instead of first come, first served, people are randomly assigned a spot in the queue. The idea is to 1) not have people queuing unnecessarily on the day of the event and 2) to ensure those with the privilege of having more free time or luckier timing don’t have an advantage. unfair. I find that this approach has its pros and cons, the downside being that I think it causes a lot of people to try to get involved even if they aren’t necessarily interested. However, I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to participate in all three events.
Suisei
Hoshimachi Suisei is one of the most famous and famous VTuber singers today. She introduced The First Take viewers to the virtual YouTuber world, and she gave a few concerts in Japan. Her appearance at Anime NYC was pioneering in many ways: Not only was it the first (mostly) 3D solo concert for hololive in the US, but it was also the first to attract mainstream attention. Japanese talent, as opposed to English-focused Connect the World. last July. Suisei did not disappoint, delivering his signature powerful voice and performing his original songs such as “Ghost” and “Stellar Stellar”. In an industry that often involves a lot of post-processing to make people sound that much better, Suisei stands out as someone with a solid voice.
Hololive EN’s Calliope Mori also cameos with a solo and duet with Suisei. The big surprise for me was that, of all she could, Mori performed “Miraijima ~Future Island~,” the promotional song for her One Piece manga. Although in retrospect, this was the perfect place for an anime convention.
The concert was essentially a tribute screening (Hatsune Miku-style 3D holograms were not yet a thing for parent company Cover Corp.), but buying the kayfabe “live” concept was a an indispensable part of enjoying hololive in general. Additionally, the Special Events hall is not an ideal space for concerts (it was not built for that purpose) and standing on the hard concrete floor for long periods of time is like killing the feet mine. Even though it hurts, I’m still happy.
Holistic Advent
Much like how the hololive Council launched their group convention at Anime NYC in 2021, the third generation of hololive English came together this year for the first time. Unlike other events on the weekend, this is not a musical performance. Instead, it’s a Family Feud-adjacent panel where Advent cast members compete to see who can successfully guess what the audience will answer in New York City-related polls . Questions covered topics like iconic NYC food (pizza) and most interesting New Yorker (Lady Gaga). The funniest thing is seeing the generational/informational divide between Advent—most notably Shiori Novella (an “archivist” in VTuber kayfabe) calling Al Pacino “Al Pakino” and “Al Capino”.
This conference ran much more smoothly than the Council two years ago and without the awkward formality of being connected to an official cultural tourism activity. I think it really shows the strides Hololive has made with American fans that they don’t feel the need to have that association.
viv:ID CRUISE
Hollive Indonesia’s appearance at the meeting was a big surprise, specifically because viv:ID Cruise was initially announced only for Southeast Asia. Now, the tour schedule is “Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lampur…and New York”. I’m certainly not complaining as it has become my favorite part of Anime NYC in general.
The members of viv:ID CRUISE are Moona Hoshinova, Ayunda Risu, Pavolia Reine and Kobo Kanaeru. As for their group size, it’s great to see each VTuber bring their own characteristics to their performance and choreography, such as Risu’s unmatched female singer status and stage dance moves by Kobo. In their solo performance, each girl shined brightly. Moona impressed me the most with the song “Perisai Jitsu”, especially with its catchy chorus and simple yet powerful choreography. I’ve had it stuck in my head for days and it reinforces my view that Moona is one of the most complete of all the hololive packages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRSp8QbOeg
I also noticed that Reine seems to be the most popular with the audience there, although I don’t know how representative the live audience is compared to the US fanbase for the entire world. Indonesian body. Speaking of texting, before and after the concert, there was an ad promoting the new generation of British holostars, Armis. Online opinion about the male VTubers in hoolive Production can be mixed or even negative, but attendees seemed largely enthusiastic about the boys.
The Hoolive Booth
In addition to all the above events, the official live Meet booth has returned to the Exhibition Hall this year. On either side are life-sized billboards of this year’s Hoolive Meet representatives, as well as billboards for Hoolive CEO Tanigo “Yagoo” Motoaki and fan-favorite staff love A-chan. Like last year, they also held livestreams there, especially for Anime NYC. The booth was sponsored by VRChat, and fans who didn’t attend the exchange were still able to see them through VRChat. I think this is a great idea and even offers something for fans who can’t attend all of the ticketed events mentioned above.
I couldn’t watch them all, but I did catch a couple.
Hakos Baelz is an official VRChat ambassador, so it’s no surprise that she’s there, but she’s a big fan of the platform—especially through her “Dawn of the Dork” karaoke broadcasts —making her a suitable representative. She brought one such karaoke session to Anime NYC and showed off both her fun, casual voice as well as her killer dance moves. Using a cute model version of herself named “Strawberry Bae,” she sings some anime tunes, takes requests from the audience (each of whom suggests only hololive songs), and even almost a cover of Mariah Carey’s Christmas song, right down to the audience singing the point. I wish I could hear it.
The other stream I saw was from two Indonesian branch members who weren’t at the concert: Airani Iofifteen and Kureiji Ollie. They are seriously two of my favorite Indonesian girls, so I was happy to have the chance to meet them. Their workshop was more like a silly workshop, where the audience asked them to do certain poses and they had to see if they both did the same thing. Both Iofi and Ollie have ways of thinking that are far from innocent, so the antics can get pretty spicy (but in a pretty PG-13 way). There are also some technical glitches that could cause this to disappear or ruin their model, but it’s all in good fun and the audience is understanding.
I couldn’t watch the FuwaMoco karaoke, but I could definitely hear it. The highlight for me was hearing their performance of “Ojamajo Carnival,” the first opening of Ojamajo Doremi.
A big improvement over last year’s booth is that they’ve raised the screen so it can be seen from afar. However, the crowd gathered around it still takes up a large amount of floor space and can cause difficulties for passersby, especially because it slightly blocks the emergency exit. If something could be done to fix that, it would be a win-win for both fans and other attendees.
Goods
General merchandise comes in many forms. There’s official content, fan-made goodies, stuff from previous events and milestones, and limited-edition convention items, among other things. There’s no doubt that almost all of this was at Anime NYC 2023 because everyone knew hololive would be there.
I’m on a mission to get at least one item related to every hololive member somewhere, so this is a great opportunity for me to get a few steps closer:
I really like Meet Live’s casual wear, so I wanted to get something from that line. One of the biggest draws is that it has A-chan merchandise (which is rare, since she is not technically a “hololive” performer despite working for the company) and I found I’m extremely lucky to have a button of hers, as well as Ollie and IRyS of holoEN (in my estimation the best singer in EN).
I really didn’t expect to receive something as awesome as the official canvas photo of Inugami Korone in her Sonic the Hedgehog cosplay. I believe my life will be enriched by its presence.
VTuber’s final thoughts
The live experience at Anime NYC was unforgettable and only topped this year by the fact that I got to see Connect the World live. I think it’s great that a conference so close to my heart is attracting VTubers in a major way. That said, I have two hopes for future appearances.
First, I think it would be great for everyone if all these events could be announced earlier so fans could save and prepare. Although I benefited from a press pass, in recent years the cost for regular attendees has skyrocketed and those who missed out on the already low number of 3-day passes have had to paying in triple digits just to get Friday. , Saturday and Sunday. From my experience, I know that conventions sometimes can’t announce everything as soon as they want, but anything that gives fans more time to prepare would be great.
Second, Anime NYC has not yet made proper preparations. meet-and-greet for VTubers—something that seems to be common at other conferences around the world. I have to wonder if there are space issues preventing that from happening at Javits, although the fact that Anime NYC 2024 will use the entire convention center might bode well for a change. change like that. With that said, next year’s con will move from November to August, which will bring a host of uncertain variables. Whether this is a good move or not remains to be seen, but I hope it will yield positive results.