Anime ConClave 2025 - Artist Ally Review

To be honest, this has to be my favorite con in recent history!

Where I have been to a lot of convientions lately, there hasn’t been many specifically Anime conventions that felt like a convention BY FANS, FOR FANS! It didn’t give the impression of many cons out there recently where it feels more cooperate and feels like a money grab, but has this small hometown feeling you get when you go to your local card shop and are just in a room full of people who love the same things you do. It gives off the feeling of just a bunch of nerds with a love of anime just hanging out together to celebrate the one thing they love!

Even though this was only its second year, I heard from many people say and whispering the same thing, “this feels like what MechaCon used to be!” And I couldn’t agree more!

Honestly, vendor or attendee, I would keep an eye out for this con in the future. Even though it is still small, and still needs to grow, this convention is definitely one I will continue to look forward to year after year to come.

And another thing to add, I have had the pleasure of meeting the organizers for this con, and both of them are incredible people, who do come off as just wanting to give that something that MechaCon gave the New Orleans anime community for so many years. So, that being said, I do want to clarify that I’m not giving this great review from my bias, but as that someone who used to love MechaCon, and was their favorite convention year after year, and can honestly say that Anime ConClave is a top notch successor to the late convention.

Honestly, despite my having met the organizers, I try to always be honest with my reviews and feeling as much as I can (I mean, look at my CyPhaCon review, despite loving the convention I still had many things I had to criticize them over).

 But that being said, to criticize anything of this convention would be to be knit picking, and to criticize things that are only the way they are because they are new and don’t have nearly the amount of funding many other conventions do.

The only real complaint I had was that the artist ally was a bit cramped. For example, the person tabled behind me, and I had to set our chairs at an angle so that both of us weren’t in the other’s space, and could more easily get in and out of our space. But I also feel as though that this was done because of the limitations of the venue itself.

In conclusion, if you get a chance to go to Anime ConClave in the future, it’s definitely a recommendation in my books!