AnimeNYC 2026: Surprising Finds, Unexpected Moments & Endless Knowledge
Josh B.
To be perfectly candid with you all, I had no intention of going to AnimeNYC this year. GFEST and Dover Con and Monster Mania all happening so closely together wiped me out. I was ready to let the rest of the summer convention season pass me by. That is, until the management approved me for a Press Pass. Now, what kind of fan would I be to say no to an open invitation? Having said that, while I was provided a Press badge, I was in no way paid by AnimeNYC or their parent company, LeftField Media, for the following opinions – all thoughts written below are mine, and mine alone.
As I was approved late, I was only able to attend this year on Saturday and Sunday, and so I only experienced half of the convention. Still, I experienced plenty in the 48 hours I had in NYC. In my two days at AnimeNYC, I was able to attend fascinating panels, meet some wonderful voice actors, and experience the convention as a whole.
On Saturday, I first attempted to attend two different panels, one on Science Saru’s new Ghost in the Shell anime, and one on the upcoming anime Kagurabachi. Both times I was shut out due to either the room being full, or in Kagurabachi’s case, no press being allowed in. I understand not receiving special treatment as press, but to actually be excluded because I was press was a new experience for me, and didn’t exactly thrill me.
Doki Doki Lit Club
The third try that day ended up being the charm, as I attended Writing the Doki Doki Literature Club Characters, hosted by creator Dan Salvato. For those unaware, Doki Doki Literature Club! is a video game in the visual novel genre – essentially an interactive book. DDLC gained notoriety shortly after its release in 2017 for its deceptively deep narrative, tackling darker themes like depression, mental illness, and deconstructing well-known anime tropes. While I’ve not played the game for myself, I’ve experienced enough of it through cultural osmosis that I wanted to go to the panel, to hear from the creator himself just how his writing process went.
Dan Salvato said that starting the writing process for the game was easy, as he was “enjoying writing bad characters on purpose” with “deliberately stilted dialogue”. As a result of this approach, the first draft of DDLC’s Chapter 1 is in the game nearly unchanged, something I found exceptionally surprising – in writing fiction, I was always taught that the first draft is NEVER the one you publish, even if it’s “supposed to be bad.”
Salvato went on to say that the next part of DDLC he wrote was the one-on-one scenes with each of the game’s four principal characters: Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri and Monika. This is where Dan says the “real” writing began, exploring the characters while examining and deconstructing the tropes of Dating Sim character archetypes. For instance, Natsuki is the typical Tsundere anime girl trope, i.e. a girl that outwardly hates the protagonist while secretly harboring feelings for him, like Helga Pataki in Hey Arnold! So, when writing for Natsuki, Dan wanted to examine why a character like Natsuki would be so guarded all the time, and where that sort of behavior comes from.
Dan Salvato
Salvato then examined each of the four main characters in-depth, explaining the motivation behind each of their initial “anime trope” personalities. For instance, Sayori, the bubbly, childhood friend character, is cheerful all the time because she believes she has no worth if she can’t make others happy. Its that kind of twisted inversion that populates Salvato’s writing, and what motivates him.
I’m brushing over the character deep-dives from here just in case you’re like me and haven’t played DDLC yet, and want to go into it as unspoiled as possible. Having said that, Dan Salvato brought up some thought-provoking points during the panel that I believe have real merit to me and anyone who’d consider themselves a writer. Namely, that you have to get to know your own characters as you write them. The more time you spend thinking about your characters and how they would react to a situation, the more natural they feel when putting them to the page. Additionally, its worth knowing what the “chill” version of your character is. As Dan puts it, “no one is at a 10 all the time. Most of the time, people are at like, 3 or 4. It’s important to know what that looks like.” Dan’s final point was one that really stuck with me: characters don’t have flaws, they have quirks. To Dan Salvato, character “flaws” are traits that give rise to interesting conflicts – and it’s worth examining not only how a character could make a situation better, but how they could make things worse.
C.C.C.C ft Nhim & J18
Another panel I was able to attend was Captivating Comics and Charming Characters ft. Nhim & J18. This was an unconventional panel, to say the least. Nhim is a Japanese mangaka who’s recently exploded in popularity over the past nine months with his viral comic strip Mimi, a simple comic in which the main character, Mimi, gets up to all sorts of wacky, unhinged comedy. J18 is an “adult” manga publisher – and while Nhim’s Mimi can be suggestive at times, it’s nowhere near the explicit fare that J18 usually brings stateside. And, per Editor-in-Chief Dave Adams, that’s entirely by design. Nhim’s Mimi is the latest addition to J18’s VAST Visual Imprint, a division of J18 solely dedicated to publishing all-ages manga. This wing of J18 has existed for years, but I (and most of the people in attendance at the panel) had no idea that it even existed! The J18 staff took a moment to announce that they would be bringing the psychological horror game This Game is Not Real to the US with an official English translation – exceptionally notable after the game was rejected from Steam.
The rest of the panel was a live Q&A with Nhim as he drew artwork on stage. Listening in, I found out some very interesting things. For one, Nhim has been drawing since 2016, but only recently became popular thanks to Mimi. He got his start as a background artist for the anime series Gintama and Kingdom, but left the profession because, in his words: “working on anime is terrible.” By his own admission, Nhim’s ideas for Mimi comics spring from intrusive thoughts he has in his day-to-day life.
Despite being a comic artist, Nhim does almost all his art digitally via Clip Studio Paint, and only very recently tried drawing on paper for the convention. While Nhim does want to write a continuous story, he finds that his audience on Twitter responds better to one-shots. Nhim explained that Mimi and her friend Roy are the first original characters he’s ever created, and the comic strip won’t end until they kiss. Nhim also acknowledged that his success has led to challenges – knowing that he has such a large audience makes his creative process more difficult, trying to imagine how his audience will react to his comics instead of making them for the sake of making them. Nhim believes he’ll have enough material for a Volume 2 in about six months or so. While print copies of Mimi Volume 1 did sell out completely at AnimeNYC, J18 staff told me that they are currently working to create an online storefront to sell the book that way, for all of Nhim’s fans across the country.
Voice Acting Adventures
The last panel I was able to attend this year was Voice Actor Adventuring Party, a panel that was from start to finish, a massive Q & A with Casey Mongillo and SungWon Cho, two of the English Voice Actors from Delicious in Dungeon, my favorite anime. I took notes of some of the best questions and answers from the panel:
Q: If I want to become a voice actor, what do I do?
CASEY MONGILLO (CM): The best thing you can do is to get acting experience as early as possible. Join a Voice Acting club, post fan dubs online.
SUNGWON CHO (SC): I would also add: don’t network up, network sideways. Speak to others who are at your level, so you can grow together.
Q: What was your relationship like with Delicious in Dungeon before and after getting cast in the English Dub?
SC: I was a huge, huge fan of the manga. In fact, I was so immersed in it, that our voice director and other members of the team would often come to me asking questions about the manga. Senshi is, to this day, my favorite role I’ve played. A lot of people who approach me may just think that’s what I’m saying because it’s what they know me from, but it’s the truth. The character means a lot to me.
CM: Well, I’m kind of the opposite. I hadn’t heard of the manga before I was cast as Chilchuck, and after being cast, I refused to read the manga. This was so my performance wouldn’t be influenced by any future events and I could just kind of take things as they come. But lately, it’s been tough to keep that up, because I really want to know what happens next!
Q: Were there any fun moments or behind the scenes bits you can share from recording the English dub of Delicious in Dungeon?
SC: So, during the battle with the Griffin, Senshi gets attacked by the monster and spits up a ton of blood. To get that recorded, I spat a bunch of water into a cup. We did one take that was particularly disgusting, and that’s the one we used in the show. Then, later, when Senshi eats the Griffin Soup, I was recording the sounds of Senshi eating. My voice director asked me to do another take, this time “more subtle”. So, we reset, and once we were recording, I just went “OM NOM NOM NOM!!!” [laughs]
Sungwon Cho
CM: So, I don’t know if you know this, but I have a naturally high-pitched voice. This made the episode where everyone shapeshifts, the Changeling episode, really tough for me. Specifically, Tallman Chilchuck, because I really struggled to make my voice deeper. I was fighting for my life in the booth. [laughs] I distinctly remember asking our voice director after the session, like “hey, you can lower my voice in post, right? Make it deeper?” And the director was like “oh yeah, for sure!” Months later, the episode came out, and he DID NOTHING to my voice. It’s all those original unedited takes. [laughs]
Kaiju Cookies
If there’s one thing this trip to AnimeNYC taught me, it’s that as a creative, you can find inspiration and connection in the most unlikely of places. From the craft of writing through video games, to being discovered by an unlikely publisher and becoming a viral sensation – the anime community truly is a place where anything can happen. Case in point: while strolling through the Dealer’s Hall of AnimeNYC 2026, I came upon a booth that immediately appealed to me, one that I had no idea would be there.
Booth 1903, the Otaku Pavillion booth, was home to the Kaiju Cookie blind box figurines, a line of merchandise I’d seen in various malls and shops in the past, but never taken the leap on. Kaiju Cookie is a series of pvc monster figures designed to resemble sweet treats. These creatures are the brainchild of Kaleidos Creative’s Design Director, Meg Dunn – who was right there, at the booth! I had the opportunity to correspond with Ms. Dunn via email, to chat about these unique figurines.
JOSHUA BRAFMAN (JB): So, how did you come up with the idea for Kaiju Cookie?
MEG DUNN (MD): I’m a huge fan of ’90s anime, kaiju movies, and all things kawaii, so the Kaiju Cookies series is really a love letter to those influences. I love the contrast of dreamy, bubbly cuteness with adorable destruction and chaos.
JB: How did you go about getting your designs made into figurines?
MD: At Kaleidos Creative, the entire creative process is handled in-house by our team of artists. As the design director and creator of Kaiju Cookies, I drew on my love of ’90s anime and kaiju films to develop the concept art and visual direction. Once the designs were finalized, my teammate Darcy H., a fellow design director and sculptor, brought the illustrations to life as 3D sculpts. From there, I developed the packaging and overall design language, while working closely with our overseas factory partner Goldwing to bring the figurines into production. It’s a very collaborative process!
JB: How long have you been interested in the Kaiju genre?
MD: I’ve been a kaiju fan since I was a kid. I especially love the movies that balance epic destruction with a sense of camp and personality.
JB: Do you have a favorite Kaiju film or monster?
MD: My favorite kaiju movie is Shin Godzilla, so it’s probably no surprise that Godzilla is my favorite monster. I just find him weirdly adorable, especially his design in Godzilla Minus One, there’s something about that version that I find particularly cute.
JB: Do you have any upcoming work you're excited about?
MD: We have a few exciting projects in the works that I can’t say too much about just yet. Stay tuned for upcoming releases; we’ve got some fun things on the way!
JB: Where can people go if they want to support you? (merch, social media, etc.)
MD: You can follow Kaleidos Creative on Instagram and TikTok! We host a weekly live show on TikTok where our artists chat about new releases, do live drawings, and share fun behind-the-scenes facts about our projects. You can also visit our website to shop our products and support us directly. And if you’d like to follow my personal account, I’m on Instagram at @megxkaleidoscreative.
Ms. Dunn’s artwork has an undeniable draw to it – I’ve always admired the type of design that can make monsters cute. Her passion for the genre and new approach to it is one I’ll definitely have to keep my eye on! I can’t wait to see what Meg Dunn and Kaleidos Creative bring up from the depths next.
Final Thoughts
If I had to describe AnimeNYC 2026 in a single word, it would be “unexpected”. After all, my attendance this year was entirely unexpected. My experience as a member of the press wasn’t entirely ideal, and yet, I was still overall pleasantly surprised with my time at AnimeNYC. From learning new writing theory with Dan Salvato, to the unexpected discovery and meetings with artists Nhim and Meg Dunn, and spending an hour with two of my favorite voice actors – I really hope that AnimeNYC never loses its surprising spirit.
