Anime Riverside 2025: First Con Of The Summer

 

We once again: screamed, posed and tried to get senpai to notice us...or at least that's what various panels did at Anime Riverside 2025. Their 4th year on a bordering, not-so-distant from LA, SoCal college town seemed like another hit, despite the heat. We're telling you what captured our attention, a few gripes and just a reminder for it to keep going. Hey, it kicks off our Anime Summer!

 

First off, shout out to the cosplayers who comeout to make the convention stand-out and look different. It means so much to everyone to celebrate all the different anime by dressing up like a murderous bunny girl or Jesus or Mario awkwardly riding Yoshi.

 

As you might have seen in previous posts we love the community fan events that Anime Riverside pulls off. Yes, there's some great panels with group's of voice actors on the main stage and top animes too, but we truly love all the panels for fans. Be it the Super Saiyan Scream-Off to the JoJo Pose-Off or just anime trivia. These are the life blood of what makes Anime Riverside so much fun for an anime fan. 

 

The next would be location. And, being in the heart of downtown Riverside, doesn't hurt. So many restaurants on the main street to grab a bit before or after or during the convention make it so more relaxing than downtown LA or even near the Anaheim Convention Center. Also, having the grass fields and parking lots of the convention center are  just nice. We keep writing it here, we just wish they were utilized a little more like an anime movie screening outside at night facing the grass. Maybe, Night games? There's plenty more to do than have and After Party in the hotel nearby.

 

Main hall and artist alley are getting harder to distinguish from as a lot of merch looks like it could easily fit in either location. Sure, Labubus and Funko Pops take up a lot of the main hall with merch from Japan, but we saw a lot of booths from previous artist alleys taking up a lot of space in the main hall.

And, hats off to artist alley,hmm or we guess any of the artist in any of the halls, just look at all the amazing fan-made art and goods.

We wanted it so bad, but have so man bags. Oh, Soul Eater.

Here's our favorite ultra specific merch we liked. Who thought of chibi Severance stickers and 2000's weeb Nostalgia? Too good.

 

 

  

 

Gripes: 

Badge Check-In Moved

 

We think everyone was angry about this and we get it. They moved badge check-in to the other side of the convention center. It sucked. Most people enter and most parking is on the other side, making the walk around the actual convention center a big time waster. Especially when hot out. We asked staff why it happened and they were just as unhappy with the move. They said convention-goers were blocking traffic and the city made them do it.

 

We're not that sure about that as a Farmer's Market and a night market kind of block that lane adjacent to former check-in on Saturdays anyway. And, the city might want to make an exception for all the foot traffic. 

 

Schedule

 

We were a little saddened how stacked the panels and events are: Saturday we had to choose between a JoJo Pose-Off, Stand-Up Comedy and Anime Wrestling all at the same time. We like having options, but we don't know why everything has to be at the same time.

 

We can only guess the convention center hours are limited for what Anime Riverside pays for as their ain't no night panels. (Sigh) 

 

Shade for Anime Wrestling

 

It's too hot to sit without shade to watch. Give Anime Wrestling a temporary big top or something so people and the wrestlers don't burn. You can see how good the signing line area is shaded, you got to spend a little more on covering that area Anime Riverside.

 

Water

 

It's hard to believe if not true, but their seemed to be only one water bottle station for the whole convention center and it was slow. That might be a Convention Center upgrade or something Anime Riverside can rent a water bottle refill station, but you need to give fans water.

 

Sweating that stuff and I do mean sweating, it was hot over that weekend, we still got a chance to enjoy Anime Wrestling. Where wrestlers cosplay and act out fights from your fav animes. If it wasn't so hot, we'd probably enjoy more of it.

 

When not in panel or special signing the voice actors from pretty much your entire childhood were taking the time to sign stuff for their fans.

 

What we wrote earlier still holds, this is a smaller convention, but at the rate it's growing it might want to put in some fixes. There's a lot of fans and I assume volunteers who help make it special and we thank them for their service. For all the gripes, we still had a blast and we're entertained for a long as the convention could hold us.

 

 

Some more photos from the convention.