At New York Comic Con (NYCC), everyone knows anime is in. From the sky-high Yugi wigs to the long lines circling Crunchyroll’s booth — the love for anime characters is real.
Pin Club, a manufacturer of licensed enamel pins, is embracing the anime love with a new selection of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Fruits Basket, and Jujutsu Kaisen pins debuting at NYCC. The company’s booth on the show floor was crowded, not only with fans but also with rows of glossy, metallic, glitter, and glow-in-the-dark pins, plus pins with countless other visual and interactive elements.
According to Micheal Rivera, director of operations for Pin Club, the company’s most popular pins are currently rooted in anime. “People really love Yu-Gi-Oh and My Hero Academia, followed by Naruto, Digimon, and Dragon Ball Z,” he says. “Now, we are releasing Fruits Basket, Haiku, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Ranking of Kings.”
Rivera also says that Pin Club is actively looking to get more anime properties, now that the number of anime fans has reached an all-time high. “If you look around, it’s the thing,” Rivera says. “We also want to get properties that we have passion for as well. For example, we love One Piece. We watch the show and have read the manga. It would be great to acquire One Piece to create pins for.”
Among the new pins, there are some noteworthy selections. The Jujutsu Kaisen pins feature fan-favorite characters, such as Yugi and Satoru, in their iconic poses. The highly-detailed Dragon Ball Z pins include memorable scenes, including Krillin gearing up for battle. The Digimon sets are honestly adorable and include three beloved Digimon per set.
Pin Club also brought some exclusive, anime-themed sets to NYCC. Fans of My Hero Academia can check out this pin set that features three characters from the show. The company also offered a show-exclusive Yu-Gi-Oh set, featuring a slew of amazing characters with stunning details, making it worthy of the $150 price tag. The set was so highly anticipated that it completely sold out on the first day of NYCC.
In addition to Pin Club’s anime offerings, its booth was brimming with pins from Avatar, Spongebob, and more. Many of these pins recreate scenes or characters in stunning detail. Rivera says picking the perfect scene to recreate in a pin can involve some research, but ultimately Pin Club chooses “the ones that we get joy out of, things that make us laugh.”
“It’s hard to get the perfect scene for everybody, but we try to get the things we know most people would like — even if it’s a meme like Handsome Squidward,” Rivera says. “We want to make something that people really enjoy.”
For fans who can’t make it to NYCC this year, or who missed seeing Pin Club at booth No. 1019, Pin Club plans to add its NYCC exclusives to its website, pinclub.shop, soon.
