Side Events (and More) at NAIC 2025

2025 marks NAIC’s second year in New Orleans. I was excited to visit the city again, but did it live up to my expectations?

Thursday

This year, I decided (based on cost and timetables) to fly out of O’Hare instead of Madison. O’Hare doesn’t really have that many direct flights to New Orleans, but I picked a 10 AM departure on American. Unlike last year, my departure left on time and I arrived as expected in the Big Easy. I decided to get to my hotel using the express bus line to downtown, which unfortunately still required me to walk nearly a mile with my luggage. At least I got some exercise that way.

Friday

This first day of the event started with a stop at the Pokémon Center. As Psyduck is one of (if not my very) favorite Pokémon, I had to restrain myself from spending too much on merchandise. I ended up picking up a playmat (partially to replace my Psyduck/Slowpoke mat I have yet to locate post-pandemic), a Psyduck light, a pair of socks, and a few other items.

Upon reaching the side event area, I was disappointed (and a bit confused) to find out that they had substituted a six-pack sealed Ditto format due to a lack of Build-and-Battle boxes. I was especially disappointed when I realized the screen I had seen on RK9 on my phone was actually a payment screen rather than a confirmation. That said, I still had plenty of fun in a series of TCG raids and a Puzzle League competition.

Saturday

Having made sure to register properly the day before, I was able to participate in both a sealed Ditto event and a TCG pocket event. Decked out in my Ringo Starr trainer costume (with the socks I had purchased at the Pokémon Center, no less), I managed to go 2-1 with a deck containing appropriately quirky Pokémon like Ampharos and Sudowoodo. I was less successful at the TCG Pocket event at 1-2, but at least my win came from over an actual opponent instead of a bye like in Milwaukee.

Sunday

After suiting up in my Michael Hutchence outfit, I decided I had enough energy to do another TCG raid, so I made that my last side event and cashed out my tickets on an incubator backpack and a Luxray deck box. I also took some time to wrap up some tasks from the Go scavenger hunt, earning myself a Suicune pin and a few other trinkets.

The last major stop I wanted to make was at the Play Lab, which now offers introductions to the TCG, Video Game, and Unite (possibly also Go). Having not played Unite since its release, I decided to give it another chance. Unfortunately, the experience largely reminded me why I wasn’t a fan of the game. Admittedly, our team was beaten very badly, but overall, it just felt like I wasn’t really accomplishing much there, nor did I have much a feel of being part of a group. At least I have more to talk about when we get to discussing this game on the podcast.

Monday

The only major event of my return trip was the 1.5-hour delay in my flight back to Chicago. After that, it was a typical bus ride back to Madison, dinner, and sleep.

Other Notes:

-There were Switch 2 kiosk set up demoing the updated Scarlet/Violet game. I already had my own system, but gave it a bit of a try to get a feel for the new Pro Controller, which seemed fine.
-I was a bit disappointed at the lack of an anime viewing room at this year’s event.

Overall

I had a great time at NAIC as usual. While they can always use more staff, it did seem to be better than Milwaukee Regionals last month. I do look forward to Worlds in August and (presumably) returning here next year.

Poke Press Digest Podcat: Episode 78-Anime Milwaukee 2025/The Music of "Pokemon Picross"

The first segment (1:10-8:40) is a pair of interviews from Anime Milwaukee 2025*. At this year's even, I was able to talk to a fan running a "Who's That Pokemon?" panel, and the winner of the Smash Ultimate tournament.

The second segment (9:22-end) is a discussion of the music of Pokemon Picross for the 3DS. Despite not enjoying the puzzles themselves, Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to discuss this slate of tunes.

*A press pass was provided for this event.

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network

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Side Events at Milwaukee Regionals 2025

As usual, I attended this year’s Pokémon Regionals in Milwaukee, WI, focusing on the side events available outside of the main competitions.

4-Person TCG Raid

At this point, TCG raids are pretty well-defined, though I did have fun with my Round-based deck and forcing the judge to figure out how Blaine’s Quiz Show should work in a format where supporters can be played on other participants. We were able to win both matches-despite me getting eliminated both times. It should be noted that my second match was slowed down a bit, because the judge had to divide his attention between two adjacent games (more on this later).

Build-and-Battle

Having missed out on the Journey Together prereleases (and with packs of the set difficult to find), this represented a great opportunity to finally pick up some of it. As far as the matches themselves, I went 4-2 across two events. In the first, I was 1-2, in part due to a low number of basic Pokémon in my deck (in hindsight, I should have included a Virizion from my packs to improve that number). The second try had me go 3-0, though part of that was due to an opponent that had to go to another event. Logistically, both events seemed to be slowed by communication issues (if possible, they should have used RK9 to distribute pairings).

Ditto Draft

This ended up being a pair of ones-and-dones, because the first of these was at the end of they day and only had two entrants, and the other because I flipped three tails using N’s Klingklang and didn’t get an energy on my last turn (on the bright side, getting knocked out gave me time to squeak into that second build-and-battle). Otherwise, these were pretty similar to other Ditto Drafts I’ve done, randomness and all.

Pokémon TCG Pocket

Obviously a relatively new event, the staff was clearly a bit fuzzy on certain aspects of this one. The registration forms didn’t have enough lines for the number of unique cards in a typical deck, and the instructions were unclear about whether you needed to write down just your Pokémon or also your trainers. In any event, I went 1-2 by virtue of a second-round bye, but I still had a good time, in part because this event seemed to go more quickly than others.

Pokémon Go Scavenger Hunt

After registering, I was instructed to select a set of tasks listed under one of three difficulties, with the higher difficulties awarding more points. As it turned out, however, the “medium” set of tasks were actually quite difficult due to requiring winning and capturing the Pokémon from a legendary raid, which was frustrated by the relatively low number of raids at the two gyms created for the event. I obviously don’t hold the Go event team responsible for that, but I’m sure they would have laid out the tasks differently had they known.

Overall

While I generally had a good time at side events, several issues were obvious. First, there were definitely fewer staff members than they would have liked (my understanding is that some staff invitations were sent out fairly late), contributing to considerable slowness in running events. Additionally, it appears there were a number of communication issues, partially related to the reservation system (OpenTable was being used, which I have seen at NAIC, but seems to be a recent addition at regionals).

Other Notes

-I continued my practice of cosplaying musicians as Pokémon trainers, adding a Ringo Starr costume to my repertoire. I got some looks, but also a lot of compliments.

-I had the honor of running into Cowboy Hat Caterpie, who was in fact wearing a cowboy hat in a Caterpie costume.

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

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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