AniTOMO, Brooklyn Public Library’s first anime and manga convention, drew costumed crowds over the weekend.
Photo by Amanda Moses
Hundreds of anime and manga fans dressed as their favorite animated personas on Saturday, filling the streets outside of Brooklyn Borough Hall as they made their way to the first-ever AniTOMO convention at the Brooklyn Public Library.
Cosplayers traded in the iconic Jacob Javits Convention Center on July 8 for the Brooklyn Public Library, located at 286 Cadman Plaza. Impersonating popular characters from hit anime shows like Demon Slayer and wielding their plastic swords and donning bright kimono robes, attendees strode down Brooklyn Heights thanks to the culmination of one woman’s vision.
AniTOMO founder Eileen Baptistin Level had a dream over a year ago to create an inclusive space for anime and manga fans — one that did not cost attendees wads of cash and was developed by the Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) community. On a limb, she applied to the Brooklyn Public Library’s incubator, an innovative program that empowers members of the community and partners them with library staff to develop ways to service the public.
“The idea came from my experience working with anime and manga fans that were POC teens and young adults living in marginalized communities,” Level said. “I realized that anime fans were very much present in these communities with the power to bring different groups together and tear down walls of communication. Beyond that I noticed many of them were interested in being more than consumers but creators in the space.”.
The name AniTOMO is a combination of the words anime and Tomodachi, which means friendship in Japanese. Level hoped that this convention, which was developed by the BIPOC community, would become the perfect cross-pollination between Brooklyn and Japan.
Level told amNewYork Metro she was accepted into the Brooklyn Public Library Incubator on July 11, 2022, and from…
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