Once again South Texas’s largest anime convention has taken over the streets of downtown San Antonio and left in its wake a memories, experiences and comradery among fandoms. And with each year comes with my review and observations.
Growing industry presence- In the early days of San Japan, whenever a “industry guest” was announced, it usually meant that it was a voice actor being announced. And yes while they a big part of the anime industry, over the years we have been seeing other aspects of it, and this year is no different. This year in addition to voice actors, San Japan had Japanese artist/animators, the anime studio that said animators work at, the most influential western/American audio/video post production studio (dubbing), and an influential gothic/Lolita brand that’s still going strong 30+ years now. Even the VTuber industry had a very strong presence with dozens of personalities making digital appearances, Iron Mouse being the biggest one. Ever since the convention came back to in person attendance in 2021, I’ve been saying that the convention needs more industry guests that are not just voice actors. And it seems its going in the right direction.
Vtubers galore- In 2024, San Japan booked its first Vtuber guest(s) feature HoloLive members IRyS and Hakos Baelz. Last year they booked Phase Connect members Lia, Pipkin Pippa, Tenma Maemi, Fujikura Uruka, and Kaneko Lumi for a full 3D concert experience, with several other Vtubers having virtual meet & greets, Kson being the most prominent one and actually appeared in person. This year was the largest gathering of Vtubers to date, with 150 personalities having meet & greets, culminating with the most famous and popular one of all, Iron Mouse. Its safe to say that as long as VTubers keep being the most popular content consumed along side anime, San Japan will keep booking them. And who know, maybe one day San Japan will get a full fledged VTuber concert experience on the scale similar to the HoloLive concerts.
Best arcade in the new era– I’ve been critical about the arcade section of San Japan for many years. And yes while the size of the arcade has grown back to its pre-covid numbers, I still yearn for the years of when the convention had actual Japanese candy cabinets. However this year, I was really impressed with the offerings that were on hand. Not only did they have all of the traditional fighting game and rhythm game cabinets, they had a section of full fledge original arcade cabinets from the 90s. And I’m not taking about the Arcade 1UP machines (although there were some there), I’m talking about the full sized six person X-Men The Arcade Game machine, I’m talking about the original 4 person Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles machine, two person Area 51 light gun machine, a stand up Crazy Taxi machine and so much more. There were even mechanical pinball machines available to play. It was awesome to see the melding of Japanese and American arcade machines in the same area. I hope San Japan continues to grow the arcade and curates it even more with games from both sides of culture.
Yoko Takahashi concert– The concerts that San Japan hold during the con are a mix bag for me personally. If I don’t know the person/band/group or if I don’t know any of their music that they made, I won’t go. However I do know who Yoko Takahashi is and I do know the song she is most famous for, which is Cruel Angel’s Thesis from Neon Genesis Evangelion. On Friday September 4, 2026 San Japan held a concert for Yoko Takahashi. And it was amazing. The setlist consisted of songs that were produced for Evangelion, but the majority of the titles were in Japanese, with the exception of “Fly me to the Moon” and the titular opening theme “Cruel Angel’s Thesis”, so I can’t really say place the titles of the other songs she sang that night. While the concert was enjoyable, my biggest complaint is that the concert was in the Grand Hyatt Texas ballroom and it was standing room only. From my understanding and looking up the size of the ballroom, the Texas Ballroom can hold up to 3,000 people, including staff members and the headline act. It goes down to the range of about 1,000 people if filled with chairs. If I had to guess as to why they choose standing room only, was that having chair would have been a safety and fire hazard if people had to evacuate in an emergency. Regardless the concert was amazing and it was an experience to be able to listing to the voice who sang the opening song for anime’s most influential mecha anime.
My only true complaint and its more of a minor nitpick is that San Japan usually fills its guest roster (mainly the voice actors) with guests that somewhat match the theme. This year’s theme was food so I assumed that there would be guests that worked on anime that featured food as the main focus. There are even YouTubers chefs that teach how to bring anime food to life. Hell they could have had local chef and contestant on Hell’s Kitchen Season 19 Chef Mary Lou Davis prepare the Gold Pass Sunday Breakfast. But again this is just a minor nitpick that didn’t throw off my enjoyment of San Japan this year.
With that being said, once again San Japan was a success despite it being hotter than the depth of anime hell. Next year’s theme was announced as Graduation, so I’m sure there’s going to be tons of emotion and not a single dry eye in the HBGCC as both the con and attendees who are in school get ready for the next chapter of their lives.
