What is the point of doing an extra day at a convention with only a single panel? Anime NYC 2026 might be a four-day event, but the first day’s schedule is bizarrely empty. Sure, it’s nice to get some extra hours in the dealers room while the crowds are merely huge and not completely overwhelming, but on the public-facing schedule (I’ve been told there’s a business conference happening, but it’s received no publicity from Anime NYC itself), there’s just a few cosplay meetups, some Kpop dance events, a chance for kids to meet Captain Underpants… and just one panel: Netflix‘s showcase of upcoming anime and anime-adjacent programming.
Photo by Jeremy Tauber.
Hosted by Juju Green, aka “Straw Hat Goofy,” the panel opened with a spotlight on Bass X Machina, technically an American-Korean co-production animated by Studio Mir (the animators of Devil May Cry and The Legend of Korra) but one everyone referred to as “anime.” Very loosely based on the historical figure of Bass Reeves (the Black cowboy whose story got whitewashed into The Lone Ranger), Bass X Machina takes a similar steampunk mecha approach to history as creator LeSean Thomas‘ previous anime series Yasuke, though given there have been more accurate depictions of Reeves in recent media (notably in the miniseries Lawmen: Bass Reeves starring David Oyelowo), than there were for Yasuke before his anime, this series feels less burdened by importance and questions of historical representation.
Photo by Jeremy Tauber.
Brian Tyree Henry, who voices Bass Reeves, was the most exciting guest at the panel. Hyping up “the first anime Black Western,” Henry talked about how he wanted to be extra involved in the production beyond just voice acting because he is, in his own words, “a f***ing geek.” Looking at the character designs, Henry noted his resemblance to his character, leading Green to comment, “When the live-action happens…” The thought we can’t even get a new animated series in America without thinking about a live-action remake depresses me, but you know what made me happy? Seeing the first five minutes of the first episode! Bass X Machina gets off to an awesome start, with an intense over-the-top shoot-out on a train as Reeves hunts a bounty. We also got to see the gorgeous opening sequence with a song performed by none other than Janelle Monaé (who’s announced to be voicing Reeves’ wife Glory). The full series premieres November 2.
Next up was Sakamoto Days Season 2, which showed a piece of convention-exclusive teaser artwork and a (non-exclusive) trailer highlighting three new characters appearing in this season but showed none of Sakamoto himself. Green promises the season, premiering in January, features “a new cast of rivals, allies, and some of the biggest fights yet.” And then it was time to move on to the next show.
Fool Night, a sci-fi series premiering November 26, had a lot of news announced, and it looks promising. I planned to go into more detail about the behind-the-scenes feature, which I thought was a convention exclusive. Still, it turns out that’s on YouTube along with the trailer now, so I’ll keep it brief and say that strange body horror premise of turning into a plant for money is intriguing. The combination of Sunrise‘s storytelling and SHAFT‘s visual design seems like a great match.
Time for something definitely not anime, but still exciting! On top of the Blue Eye Samurai Season 2 trailer and Season 3 announcement that are already online, panel attendees got to see a few minutes of the new season. The scene shown, with Mizu storming a castle defended by automated turrets before falling into a trap, ended on a downright mean cliffhanger, so we’ll have to wait until January 2027 to see how her quest for revenge continues. The Blue Eye Samurai segment of the panel had one awkward moment where they tried to give away a fancy figurine to a Mizu cosplayer, only for there to be none in the hall, so to make do, they decided to just give it to someone with blue eyes.
Image via The One Piece anime’s X/Twitter account
© 尾田栄一郎／集英社・「THE ONE PIECE」製作委員会
The disjoint between anime being mostly zoomed through and anime-adjacent series having more to show was on full display when it came time for The One Piece section. Studio WIT’s anime remake, The One Piece, had a single poster image to show, while a lot more time was spent on the Lego One Piece special premiering September 29. Usopp live-action actor Jacob Romero Gibson came out to introduce the new trailer, telling the audience, “You finally are gonna get the true story from the first two seasons. It’s all told from Usopp’s perspective, and he tells nothing but the truth.” Gibson geeked out about the franchise with Green (the host introduced The One Piece section declaring, “You know what I’m about”) and described the surreal yet proud experience of having his own LEGO minifig.
Seeing parents raise small children in the air to win One Piece LEGO sets in a giveaway led me to think how weird it was segueing from a kid-friendly shonen into the final show of the night, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners II. There’s been plenty of violence shown throughout the panel before this, but Edgerunners is next-level in its sheer brutality. I could hear people around me talking worried about families in the room. And this wasn’t just a trailer these kids were seeing — in a rare case of an actual anime getting extensive attention at this panel, Netflix screened the first seven minutes of the season premiere.
Green said it was seven minutes, at least. I’ll take his word because to me it zoomed by so fast. I’m immediately invested in the young protagonist Roman, a kid interested in “old things” like film, an art form seemingly dead in Night City. This indicates the series’ nostalgic aesthetics are serving an emotional purpose, so I’m prepared for what Green warns will be “more devastation.” Roman finds himself filming violence around the city; the segment shown left off on one character experiencing a violent breakdown of cyberpsychosis.
It was an exciting ending for the panel, but realizing afterwards that Anime Expo got to see the whole first episode, I can’t help but feel a little ripped off that we didn’t get to see the full episode as well — ideally in its own panel without having to worry about the sanity of six-year-olds there for Luffy. Anime NYC this year feels like it’s getting a lot of sloppy seconds from other conventions earlier in the summer. For this Netflix promotional panel to be the only thing to do really on the first day of the con leaves me underwhelmed about the overall state of the event, even if a lot of the stuff shown and announced there was genuinely cool.