Thousands of people showed up to the Toronto Congress Centre dressed in costume to celebrate Japanese culture at the 2024 Anime North Convention.
The event spanned the entire weekend of May 24 and had many activities planned, including meet and greets, debates and costume contests.
Everywhere you turned, attendees were donning the outfits of characters from their favourite anime, a style of Japanese animation.
Connor Orme, a registration staff member for Anime North, said he’s seen a significant increase in anime popularity in the 13 years he’s worked at the convention.
“It’s boomed insanely. When I first came it was, I want to say, 20,000 people,” Orme said.
“I know we have 40,000 passes total, but then the amount of people that show up on top of that without passes just to take pictures, it’s like 50,000 to 60,000 throughout the weekend,” he said.
Orme said he thinks the increase in popularity of anime is because of the shift away from traditional Western media.
“If you look at all the signs up the road, every restaurant has something to do like ‘welcome anime, we have an anime north special’,” Orme said. “You see a lot of media campaigns involving anime just because it’s gotten so big.”
Companies like McDonald’s, Adidas and Puma have jumped on the anime bandwagon with anime-themed campaigns within the past year.
McDonald’s created an anime-inspired chicken nugget sauce and food packaging and also issued an anime commercial consisting of four short episodes.
A Grandview Research study reports the popularity of anime is growing steadily worldwide.
The report said Anime’s global market size was estimated at US$31.23 billion in 2023 and is projected to almost double by 2030.
The region with the fastest-growing market for anime is North America. “Particularly in the U.S. and Canada, where anime has gained a significant fan base and popularity,” the report said.
Streaming giant Netflix has also capitalized on this growing popularity by creating its anime content.
Netflix said in a March 22 media release that it has several new shows in the coming year and will continue to do so in the future.
“Anime continues to be a popular genre on Netflix, with at least 100 million households tuning in a year, and this momentum shows no signs of slowing,” the press release said.
Ross Emerson, an Anime North attendee and panellist, said he thinks the growing popularity of anime is fantastic since it once was a niche genre.
“The community is great,” Emerson said. “Growing up we were always the nerds in high school and now we’re starting to outweigh.”
According to its website, Anime North began more than 25 years ago and has since grown into Canada’s largest anime event.
With the growing popularity of anime, conventions like Anime North will also continue to expand, giving the community a place to express themselves and share their appreciation for the unique Japanese animation style.
