My Experience at Anime Milwaukee 2025

The annual Anime Milwaukee convention was held March 7-9th at the Baird Center in downtown Milwaukee. As usual, I attended to report on this year’s festivities.

Bad News First

Due to a logistical snafu, I was unable to record one-on-one interviews with any of the guests, so my only option was to ask some of my questions during panels.

Friday

The first panel I attended was one on Podfic, the practice of reading fanfiction and publishing it as a podcast. The presenter went over the basics, such as getting permission from the author and some of the organized activities involving podfic. The presenter wound up exhausting her material faster than she expected (this was her first panel as a presenter), so we spent a fair amount of time in the Q & A section.

Later that afternoon, I went to a “Who’s That Pokémon?” quiz panel. The audience was presented with a Pokedex entry and tasked with determining which species it applied to. If no one got it after about 10 guesses, a silhouette of the Pokémon would be displayed, which generally made the answer fairly obvious. After the panel, I interviewed the host, and that interview should be coming soon.

In the evening, I sat in for a Genshin Impact panel, though my primary interest was Alejandro Saab, the voice of Leon in Pokémon Journeys (for the record, when a panel is about something other than Pokémon, I do try to place myself towards the end of the Q & A line to give folks with more relevant questions a chance to ask first). As it turns out, Alejandro actually turned down the role after the first interview, but was approached a second time and accepted following that audition. It turns out he grew up with the franchise, and was thrilled to “put Ash into retirement.” He also kept in touch with the dubbing operation, in part to verify they were using the original dub theme in that arc.

Saturday

My first stop was a panel on “The Case Study of Vanitas”. As you might expect, this was another excuse to ask a question of a Pokémon voice actor, in this case Zeno Robinson, who played Goh in Journeys. According to him, he was actually angling more for Hop or Professor Cirese, but ended up playing Ash’s (human) sidekick. He also mentioned they were looking to cast someone with darker skin.

Later that afternoon, there was a Smash Ultimate tournament in the video gaming area. The finals ended up being an Isabelle mirror match series, and I have an interview with the winner that should be forthcoming.

In the evening, I headed over to the Fiserv Forum to attend a basketball game between the Bucks and Orlando Magic (conventiongoers were offered discounts on tickets). This ended up being a bit of a mistake (though I don’t blame the team or venue), as I appear to have injured the roof of my mouth due to shouting, and that box of popcorn was probably not a good idea.

Sunday

I attended a handful of panels on this last day of the convention, but due to the state of my voice (and losing an hour due to the spring ahead), I was unable to participate much. I was able to demo a bit of my upscaling work following the lost media panel, however.

Other Notes:

-There was no Pokémon cosplay meetup for this convention, apparently due toa lack of requests, which is how this convention decides what to offer. Presumably most folks just assumed there would be one. I myself did my “Michael Hutchence as a Pokémon Trainer” getup on Saturday (including the basketball game).
-This was the first time I had a chance to visit the new north wing of the convention center, which was used by the convention to further spread out activities. It seemed to be put to good use.

Overall, I had a great time at Anime Milwaukee this year, though as always there are areas that could be smoothed out. I look forward to attending next year’s event.

A press pass was provided for this event.

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 77-Discussing the music of "Pokémon Concierge"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast drops in to discuss the music of Pokémon Concierge. This stop-motion animated series has stunning visuals, but the theme song and score also stand out. Be sure to listen after the outro for a review of the show itself:

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network
Have A Good Time Here Music Video
Pokémon Concierge Score

Slow Scan TV Information:
SSTV audio an be decoded by a variety of software:
Android
iOS
Windows
Wikipedia

Pokémon Day 2025 Presents: An Analysis

As per usual, The Pokémon Company held a "Pokémon Presents", laying out some of the upcoming products for the year:

Overall, there weren't a lot of surprises, though I did enjoy seeing some of the upcoming work on the next part of Pokémon Concierge (slated for September), and I certainly hope Pokémon Champions (a 2026 title if I had to guess) will fill the void left by Stadium and Battle Revolution (and that it includes minigames and an over-the-top announcer).

All that said, the most anticipated part was seeing more of Legends ZA, which we did get, including the colorful cast of characters, and some of the new mechanics, including a position-based battle system, further bringing the series closer to what's been seen in the anime. Not much is known about what the primary objective of the game will be (perhaps you'll be battling Pokémon Trainer NiMBYs trying to halt redevelopment projects), but given that AZ is back and a company is involved, I expect it'll be something interesting.

If there was one disappointing element of this presents, it's that there seems to be very little beyond updates to existing games in the first half of this year, as ZA was given a "late 2025" date, rather than coming out earlier like Arceus. It all makes last year's ZA reveal seem even more premature. Perhaps if the Switch 2 is releasing in late spring/early summer, we could get a minor game/service there, though I'm not expecting much.

Poke Press Digest Podcast Episode 76-Discussing the Music of "Pokemon Shuffle"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast comes by to discuss the music of Pokémon Shuffle, a free-to-start title released on both 3DS and mobile. This picture-swapping puzzle game gave us some interesting tunes to talk about, allowing us to make comparisons to other Genius Sonority games, and some possible outside influences. As usual, there’s a game discussion after the outro:

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network

Slow Scan TV Information:

SSTV audio an be decoded by a variety of software:

Android
iOS
Windows
Wikipedia

Livestream: Discussing the Music of "Super Smash Bros for 3DS/Wii U" (w/Pikapi Podcast)

While not the most creative game names, Smash's fourth iteration still provided a boatload of new tunes. Anne from Pikapi Podcast helps me discuss some of our favorites:

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 75-Twin Cities Con 2024/The music of "Pokemon Art Academy"

The first segment (1:06-11:46) is a set of interviews from Twin Cities Con 2024*, where I got to talk to Haven Paschall and several others. If you want more, be sure to check the episode description for some written interviews from the event.

The second segment (12:46-40:00) is a discussion of the music of Pokémon Art Academy for the 3DS. Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to discuss the myriad of tunes featured in this…game? Regardless, you can hear us discuss its mechanics after the outro.

* A press pass was provided for this event.

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network
TCC 2024 SSBU
TCC 2024 Cosplay

Slow Scan TV Information:
SSTV audio can be decoded by a variety of software:

Android
iOS
Windows

Wikipedia

Josh Keaton Talks Tyler from Pokémon Concierge (Twin Cities Con 2024)

At this year's Twin Cities Con in Minneapolis, I had a chance to interview Josh Keaton, a long-time actor who played "Tyler" in Pokémon Concierge. Is stop-motion different from other voice acting?

A press pass was provided for this event.