BN'K ON TOUR: THE REVIEWS

As someone who has been attending cons since 2013, I’ve seen the shift in convention culture. Conventions that once filled small hotel meeting rooms or community centers now take over convention centers and multiple hotels, growing to feature larger talent, sponsors, exhibitor halls, and venues. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is very different from the conventions of previous decades, and I’m a sucker for the conventions of that era. Smaller, cozier events where everyone knows each other, and yet each year you discover something new. You get to watch your friends and community grow, and there's something nostalgic and endearing about it all.  I haven’t felt this way about a convention in a long time, but that’s what this year's Anime Festival of Orlando (AFO) felt like. It felt like home. I've been going to AFO for nearly a decade, and I’ve seen the event change and grow over the years, but these last two years feel like a renaissance for the convention, as AFO...

Maid Cafes are one of my favorite anime convention experiences. The puffy maid costumes, the cute theatrics, and the adorable maids and butlers never cease to bring me joy, even though I’ve attended around 30 or so cafe experiences. What keeps me addicted and coming back to maid cafes isn’t just the kawaiiness of it all; it's the personality and joy displayed by the maids and staff, and no other cafe experience does it quite like Sweet Tooth Maid Cafe. I’ve talked about my experience at this cafe before, and for this year at Anime Festival of Orlando, the experience was largely the same, or so I thought. The Sweet Tooth maids were determined to expand their offering this year, providing a new cafe experience in addition to their traditional cafe services, as well as adding new maids. If you love cozy pajama parties with cute aesthetics, Sweet Tooth’s newest experience was their evening PJ party hosted on Saturday night. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this experience myself, ...

All Photography: Larry J. Photography I've been a fan of fighting games since I was a small kid watching my uncle play Soul Calibur II on the PlayStation 2. The ability to go head-to-head with a sibling, a cousin, a classmate, or a coworker in a battle of wits, creativity, and, of course, elite knowledge in combo inputs has always been fun and exciting for me. When I got a bit older and started going to conventions, one of my favorite places to spend hours was in the game room filled with well-cared-for consoles of gaming enthusiasts who were kind enough to lend their precious childhood consoles to us attendees for a few days. Little did I know that there were whole communities dedicated to creating space exclusively for gaming and, more specifically, for fighting games called the FGC (Fighting Game Community). After discovering this fact, I became entrenched in FGC digital spaces, listening to podcasts such as the Triple K.O. Podcast , joining local groups like Retro Revival , and...

As long-time Florida residents and lifelong otakus, there is no event that we look for year after year other than Holiday Matsuri. Holiday Matsuri also known as “Holmat” is a yearly celebration of anime, otaku culture, and East Asian media all decked out in fancy holiday decor. Holmat has been a central Florida staple for nearly two decades attracting cosplayers, creators, guests, gamers, and anime connoisseurs; each year expanding and growing into an event that rivals large events such as MegaCon Orlando, MomoCon, and Anime Weekend Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia. For several years now, BN’K on Tour has had the privilege to provide coverage and report on all of the amazing things that event has done, and in 2024 we were privileged to be invited back to provide coverage once again. If you’ve been following our coverage of this event over the years, you’ll know that 2023 was a particularly testy year for Holmat, with large changes to dates, an extremely serious health situation, and visible...