AnimeNYC 2026 By GamesNGirls, Part 1
Anime NYC returned to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City for its ninth annual convention on August 20-23, 2026. The convention drew nearly 150,000 fans to the venue last year, and while I have not yet seen an official post stating this year’s numbers, I saw no signs of any decline in attendance this year, with Saturday and four-day tickets selling out prior to the convention dates.
Last year, the convention expanded to four days, with abbreviated hours on the first day. This year, the exhibit hall hours ran from 1-8 p.m. on Thursday, and show hours were 4-10 p.m. Although these are shorter hours than the convention runs on Friday and Saturday, it’s an expansion of the hours of operation on Thursday of last year’s event.
Since cosplay is a primary focus of our website, I’ll start off by talking about the area that Anime NYC refers to as “Destination Cosplay,” which was located on the top floor of the Javits (a.k.a. the River Pavilion) once again this year.
A large portion of the floor space in the River Pavilion was set aside for cosplay meetup/photoshoots, with three separate spots. A total of approximately 70 meetups were scheduled throughout Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the event. You’ll see a handful of photos from the Wuthering Waves and Resident Evil meetups, which I briefly stopped by for, in this set, as well as a larger set of photos from the Street Fighter meetup which will accompany my second article on the convention.
Anime NYC partnered with the Paladins of Cosplay to provide a cosplay repair area once again this year, assisting the heroes and villains in attendance with any “battle damage” their outfits may have incurred on the battlefield known as the show floor.
Cosplayer meet & greets were also held in the area, with cosplay guests including KawaiiKiwiCosplay, rexchuwu, jeffery_zang, _larxene, NatyLikesPizza, and allthepotsnpans.
Two cosplay photo sets designed and provided by Abi Candi were located in Destination Cosplay this year. I took quite a few of the photos you’ll see in both of my photo galleries from this event in front of these lovely sets, so I must offer my personal thanks to them for their services once again this year.
Attendees looking to get their game on flocked to the Gaming & Community Hall, presented by Misty Mountain Gaming, located in Hall 1B on the first floor of the venue. Console gaming was provided courtesy of CiTi Gaming, with tournaments in games including Guilty Gear Strive, Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Marvel Tokon. Gamers could also enjoy Japanese arcade games on authentic cabinets brought in by Psychic Drive, featuring a plethora of rhythm and music games, as well as racing games, fighting games, and UFO catchers.
The massive dealer’s room and artist alley dominated the floor space on level 3 of the Javits, where attendees could browse a wide variety of artwork, apparel, collectibles, figures, games, wigs, comics, manga, and much, much more. I even noticed an adult booth with a TENGA banner hanging on the wall. If you don’t know what that is, I ain’t gonna be the one to tell you. And no, I did not ask my editor to reimburse me for the cost of one for “review purposes.”
VTubers are apparently all the rage nowadays, and Anime NYC hosted separately ticketed concerts featuring some of them. The Club Ironmouse concert was held on Thursday evening of the event, and the “hololive Meet SUPER KARAOKE PARTY: SUMMER WAVE” concert, featuring VTubers Mori Calliope, Kobo Kanaeru, Koseki Bijou, and Nerissa Ravencroft, was held on Friday night.
Convention organizers also brought in numerous industry guests for fans seeking autographs and photo ops, including some popular voice actors, producers, directors and musicians from Japan.
Anime NYC will celebrate its tenth anniversary when it returns to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on August 26-29, 2027.
Cosplayers in this first of two galleries include priimiuum, dani_raine_, hannahk.cos, calithekoala, tigerlapis, agoddamnvillain, jellyfish_shoes, starlightgoddess_cosplay, melly.beezz, jay.taaj, arelivale, nicole_cos98, rachel.cant.read, ghoulishbats, sakuraharunogirl, and many more.
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