Kogaracon 2025 New Jersey Impressions, Screenshots

Kogaracon at Middlesex Edison, New Jersey, was an overall enjoyable experience. A major thing to take note of is that it is more family-oriented as opposed to larger anime conventions, which gives it this more local and friendly atmosphere. Another thing to take note of is that this convention is at Middlesex College and covers some campus buildings and parking lots, utilizing the area to its maximum effect. The overall layout of the convention is pretty good, as the walks to each hall were pretty short and made the convention feel a lot bigger than it actually was. Plus, the weather was great as it did not impact the event, as it was just a bright and sunny day, with a thunderstorm only appearing after the event. The artist alley was jam-packed for most of the day with plenty of merchandise from various artists, with them covering games like Genshin Impact and even Arknights and popular anime.

Aside from the artists, there was also a food truck event there as well, hosting various Asian food trucks from the area. There were also some trading card tournaments, and the turnout was pretty good overall. The Yu Gi Oh! tournament was pretty much standard, and possibly to no one’s surprise, the most popular deck used at the tournament was Blue Eyes White Dragon, as the structure deck is still a new and recent release starting from February. As for who was hosting the event, it was a local card shop named Illustrious Cards & Games located in Woodbridge, New Jersey. Overall, it was an enjoyable time, especially before the event, dueling against someone wearing a Tanjiro cosplay from the anime Demon Slayer who used the decks Blue Eyes White Dragon and Red Dragon Archfiend, two pretty good decks. It was such a good duel, too, as I needed the practice for my Crystron deck. Aside from food trucks and trading card games, there was also an all-day karaoke event taking place, covering various popular songs from anime to K-pop. There were plenty of talented singers there attending that brought forth a festive atmosphere to their singing.

There was also a small car show displaying some anime-themed cars brought to the event by Ita. Lifestyles showcasing some of the cars they have worked on. While being no expert in terms of cars’ performance and model, from an artistic lens, the cars are well balanced in terms of positive and negative space that naturally come from the shape of the cars they used. These cars have very impressive decals on them and are more or less a bridge between people who like cars and anime.

(Photography done by Kyle Manila.)