Celebrating its fourth year in the Bay Area, Anime Impulse returned to the Santa Clara Convention Center on July 18 and 19. Now in its second year at this venue, the convention continues its tradition of offering a combined, multi-fandom experience. For those unfamiliar, the organizers host a joint event encompassing Anime Impulse, K-Play Fest, and Collector’s Expo.

This year's show primarily felt like a shopping festival. Aside from the VTuber meet-and-greet area, the upstairs main stage, and the arcade room, the event space was largely dedicated to vendors. These were divided among Anime Impulse, K-Play Fest, Collector’s Expo, and a much-welcomed expanded artist alley. Everything felt noticeably larger this year, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with attendees hunting for unique prints and merchandise. The Collector’s Expo even required an additional room just to accommodate the overflow of booths and eager collectors.

K-Play Fest also saw significant expansion this year. While official merchandise was somewhat scarce, there was a vast increase in booths selling fan-made goods, ranging from custom apparel to fan art. On the performance side, the U.S.-based, K-pop-inspired Asian-American trio RE:WIND took the stage to headline Sunday's concert, though I felt like I had to jump through a number of hurdles from their website to figure out who was headlining the show. For an event so heavily centered around K-pop, the performing lineup should be front and center in the marketing. Additionally, while it's understandable that the Bay Area show is smaller than their main event in SoCal, I would like to see more Korean performers here in the future. 

During my time there, the Impulse Stage was mostly dedicated to the Random Play Dance, drawing a massive, highly energetic crowd of fans showing off their choreography. On the downside, I would love to see this stage moved to a corner in the future, as the sheer density of the gathering made navigating the surrounding aisles and booths quite difficult.

Over on the Collector’s Expo side, to no one’s surprise, the majority of vendors were heavily focused on buying, selling, and trading Pokémon cards, with One Piece trailing closely as the second most popular product on the floor.

Meanwhile, the arcade room provided a retreat from the busy vendor halls, offering free play on a surprisingly wide variety of imported Japanese cabinets. Rhythm game fans had their hands full with a variety of Bemani titles, including Dance Dance Revolution and Jubeat. For racing enthusiasts, players could hop in on Initial D or enjoy the chaos of Crazy Taxi. The room even featured some more obscure Japanese machines such as Fighting Mania: Fist of the North Star, a highly physical punching game that drew plenty of curious onlookers.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a stronger industry presence on the Anime Impulse side this year. Notable booths included an official GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE setup, HoYoverse, and Bandai Namco showcasing Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3. This was fantastic news for local fans, especially since just weeks prior at Anime Expo, lines for the Nikke booth were notoriously long, even for those who had managed to secure a shopping ticket. HoYoverse’s presence was also felt on Sunday with the ZZZ (Zenless Zone Zero) New Eridu Live concert on the main stage. Beyond HoYoverse, I couldn’t help but notice a fair number of vendors carrying official merchandise from other popular Chinese gacha titles, such as Love and Deepspace.

While the convention largely leaned into being a shopping event, Anime Impulse did secure an impressive roster of industry guests. The lineup featured notable voice actors like Sean Chiplock (Re:Zero, The Amazing Digital Circus), Samantha Beart (Baldur's Gate 3), and Charlet Chung (Overwatch), alongside Amphibia creator Matt Braly. There was also a massive VTuber presence, with Nijisanji EN talents like Alban Knox and Doppio Dropscythe hosting interactive meet-and-greets. The industry guest presence was primarily structured around paid autograph sessions and photo ops rather than engaging Q&As or panels. Outside of standing in line for a signature, basically none of the voice actors who had booths actually hosted or participated in panels.

One distinct difference from previous years involved the food situation. In my earlier coverage when the event was held at the San Mateo County Event Center, I noted that the night market and its wide variety of food trucks were a major highlight of the weekend. Unfortunately, there were no food trucks present at the Santa Clara venue this year, severely limiting the dining options for attendees looking for a quick bite.

Looking at the venue map, there is still an unused hall where the Collector’s Expo was held last year that could easily be utilized in the future. This leaves plenty of room for further growth.

Overall, Anime Impulse Bay Area offers great value as a local convention, especially for fans who aren't able to travel far from the region. The only downside is its slightly awkward timing this year, sandwiched directly between larger industry titans like Anime Expo in Los Angeles and San Diego Comic-Con. Furthermore, apart from the massive shopping experience, the convention could really elevate itself in the future by fleshing out its traditional programming to give attendees more to do than simply open their wallets.