Twin Cities Con 2024: Heracross Cosplay

Collin Magner

The following is an interview with Collin Magner, a Heracross cosplayer I met at Twin Cities Con 2024.

Where are you from, and how did you get into cosplay?

I'm from a small town in Kandiyohi County, MN. I've been crafting costumes since I was teenager, starting with a game my friends and I would play called "cardboard gladiators". In this game we would beat each other with cardboard swords while wearing protective cardboard armor. Since then, I've fallen into cosplay using the tricks I learned warding off papercuts.

What made you choose Heracross for Twin Cities con?

I was inspired by some excellent Pokémon fan art to do an homage of my own, as I express my appreciation for the franchise through my wearable cardboard creations.

What was the process of making the costume like? 

I started by sourcing over 30 boxes from a local retailer of uniform shape, then after sculpting the shape I wanted. This involved a lot of listening to the material and feeling what shapes it would let me create naturally. That and several hot glue gun burns.  I mounted the eyes (made from a single dollar store strainer painted yellow) and painted everything with gesso and a pearlized acrylic. 

What other cosplays have you done recently?

I was a caricature of an NPC from the Dark Souls franchise at my local renaissance festival-that one was a lot of fun!

What else did you do at the convention this year?

I attended several panels, met other enthusiastic cosplayers and Pokémon fans, and met some of my favorite voice actors   like Wes Johnson from Elder Scrolls and Tom Kenny from Spongebob!

A press pass was provided for this event.

Twin Cities Con 2024: Marc Thompson-From Daria to Rhydon

At this year's Twin Cities Con in Minneapolis, I had a chance to interview Marc Thomson, a voice actor who's been working since the 90's. Hear about his journey from MTV to Pokémon:

A press pass was provided for this event. 

Twin Cities Con 2024-Smash Ultimate Tournament Winner

Luke Thao

The following is an interview with Luke Thao, winner of the Smash Ultimate tournament at Twin Cities Con 2024.

Where are you from, and how did you get into competitive Smash?

Minnesota native-born in Minneapolis and raised in the Twin Cities area! I started competing at convention tournaments when I was in high school. I was always really competitive when it came to gaming, and Smash was one of my favorite games growing up! Back then, I had dreams of being in the FGC (fighting game community), and also I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I became an adult so I invested a lot of time into video games and going to tournaments here in there while in college-but of course we have to make money and survive so now competing is just a hobby for me, and I just started competing again recently after a good four or five year hiatus.

You tend to play as Dr. Mario. What do you like about that character?

I love Doc's move set! I really enjoy his projectile pressure with Megavitamins and how hard he hits with his aggressive looking moves like down-air and back throw. I love being able to express myself with Doc, a very disrespectful and explosive character when he gets going. I also like being the underdog, and he's considered bad and a lot of people don't expect to see him in tournaments.

Any other characters you use?

I used to play Roy and Marth. Both are really strong characters but I just don't enjoy them as much as Doc-and you see them a lot in tourney, so I wanted a character that's different. There was a time when I was having a character crisis and dropped the game for a couple years of its life cycle, but I just picked up again last year because of Doc and wanting a hobby my little brother and I can bond with.

Before the finals, was there a anything that stood out in the tournament?

Actually, before the tournament started, I met a young man named Joseph and he was thinking about competing and new to the scene. He was apprehensive but I told him to give it a shot because he had nothing to lose and could only grow from the experience. Convinced, he finally signed up for the tournament. He reminded me of myself when I was his age (19), it reminded me of the fire I had when I was discovering things. I ran a set with Joseph and practically became his mentor throughout his tournament run, teaching him things about the game and tech, all that fun stuff.

How did the finals go?

Finals was a little rough for me since my opponent (Saint) had a good few matches before me during his losers climb so by comparison I wasn't fully warmed up. He 3-0ed me and made it to winners grands. I was eventually mostly up to speed but I do feel like I wasn't playing at my strongest. Fighting games are so weird because you can be so consistent at times and then sometimes you just hit a mental wall and you legitimately aren't playing well in the moment. That said, I adapted and prevailed in the end, and it's always a treat to be able to fight someone as strong as you.

What else did you do at the convention?

My girlfriend and her sisters have a business (8bit_ichigo) crafting and selling their crochets and art so we were in the exhibitors hall in the artist alley for the weekend! I met a couple of my voice actor heroes like Troy Baker and Josh Keaton and it was a blast overall. I have dreams of being a voice actor one day so being able to meet the people in the industry is a great way for me to do some studying and have fun.

A press pass was provided for this event.

Twin Cities Con 2024: Haven Paschall Interview

At this year's Twin Cities Con in Minneapolis, I had a chance to interview Haven Paschall, voice actor and musician from the Pokémon anime. She's had quite a career on stage and behind the mic:

A press pass was provided for this event. 

Poke Press Digest Podcast-Episode 74-Discussing the Music of "Rumble U" and "Battle Trozei"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to talk about the music of Pokémon Rumble U and Pokémon Battle Trozei. Both games are small, but we were able to pick out a few tunes and make some interesting observations. In our feedback section, we talk about the connections we’ve made in our musical research, as well as an unexpected entry in a recent miniseries. Still want more? There’s a double 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

My Experience at MadEX 2024

Earlier this month, I attended the first MadEX convention at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI. While I was unable to schedule any one-on-one interviews, I did attend several panels and wanted to share some information:

Saturday, September 14^th

So You Want to Be a Pro Cosplayer?

As someone who’s been dabbling in cosplay recently (even if I have no plans to do it as a job), this was a panel I definitely wanted to see. All three panelists brought impressive costumes, and did a great job talking about their work and answering questions from the audience. One panelist (rightmost in the picture) had a particularly interesting story where they had used cosplay as an activity at the VA hospital in their area (the panelist was a veteran themselves) to help returning soldiers re-adjust to civilian life.

Mike McFarland

One Piece Q&A

While this was a panel primarily about One Piece, one of the panelists happened to be Mike McFarland, who had a few small roles in the Pokémon anime. During the Q&A portion (FYI, I generally tried to make sure I was towards the back of the line on these sessions so fans of the series could get their questions in first), I was able to ask him how the Pokémon roles came about, and it basically ended up being a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Ray Chase

X-Men ’97 Showcase

Another panel covering a hot show, this one featured Ray Chase, best known as Professor Cerise in Journeys. As it turns out, there was actually some overlap between his work on the two series, owing in part to Pokémon being a dub and X-Men being a pre-lay. The bulk of the panel was, of course, a discussion of the hit streaming series, and it was great to hear about the VAs experiences with the X-Men franchise and working on the show.

Sunday, September 15^th

Elizabeth Maxwell

How to Become a Hero

This My Hero Academia panel featured Elizabeth Maxwell, who dedicated Masters EX fans will recognize as the voice of Dana. I asked her about the role, and she mentioned how it was interesting to play a character with both an acting and non-acting side. She also implied some things were under NDA, suggesting this might not be her only character in the game, or that Dana might be featured in some future events. Regardless, it was good to hear about the ongoing production of MHA.

Robbie Daymond

LAVA: Loud, Annoying, and Very Annoying

This panel was primarily focused on some outrageously funny improv, but it did also have a Q&A portion, which gave me the opportunity to ask panelist Robbie Daymond about voicing Professor Willow in various Go-related media. He didn’t have a ton to say about it, other than he enjoyed the opportunity. At the very least, I expect it was more fun than when he was forced to hold water in his mouth while the other panelists tried to make him laugh.

Cosplay:

As usual, there was a variety of cosplay outfits on display at the event, as well as a cosplay contest for each day. Compliments to the many great attendees who put in the work to put them together!

Other Thoughts:

-I really enjoyed the panels that I went to this weekend (and I missed a few due to conflicts). There were some absolutely wonderful stories, including a voice actor who did some of their work from the hospital where a family member was a patient during the pandemic.
-The shopping was a bit limited, in part due to the size of the venue, and given that next year’s event is planned for August 2025, I hope they can attract/accommodate more vendors.
-Having some sort of dedicated open gaming area would be nice, even though there was a designated tournament area.

A press pass was provided for this event.

MadEX 2024: Smash Ultimate 1v1 Tournament Winner

Ahmet Kurter

The following is an interview with Ahmet Kurter, winner of the Smash Ultimate 1v1 tournament at MadEX 2024.

Where are you from, and how did you get into competitive Smash?

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! I got into competitive smash when Brawl came out because my cousins were obsessed with it, and entered my first tournament in 2014.

You tend to play as a fair number of different characters. Who are some of the more common ones and what do you like about them?

I have used over dozens of characters in my local smash scene. But some of my favorites are Sonic, Aegis (Pyra/Mythra), Joker, Wolf, Dark Pit, and much more! I use most of these characters because I like how they feel to play, or are from my favorite series (Sonic, Persona, and Xenoblade.) Of course, the characters my opponents are playing also tend to influence who I pick in bracket.

What happened in the earlier parts of the tournament?

My bracket run was pretty funny to me, because in winner's semi-finals, I fought Fatalis, who I knew from my local scene, and I knew that would be my hardest matchup for sure. After I won the first set we basically told each other "See you in grands" which was funny, and correct!

Fatalis uses Sheik from the Zelda series. How did that affect your overall strategy?

It affected my strategy a lot, to be honest. I like to rush in a lot, but Sheik is really scary for a lot of different reasons. Her frame data (timing) is so unbelievably fast and has very little cooldown so I often had a lot of trouble figuring out what I could punish. She is also very quick so running from her does not work that well, plus she has a projectile that is very quick and goes very far. Eventually my strategy consisted of me trying to kill Sheik earlier than she could kill me and beat out her hitboxes with bigger and more active moves.

After losing the first game in grand finals [against Fatalis], you switched over to Wolf from the Star Fox games. Why did you choose that?

That was a result of the experience my opponent had-they already fought two of my characters in winners’, specifically Sonic, and Aegis. I won game one there with Sonic, lost game two, then switched to Aegis which allowed me to win game three (with a convincing two-stock). But even after I won that first set it felt very stressful because I felt like I was not hitting him enough, and making a lot of incorrect decisions in advantage.

In the first game of grand finals I started with Aegis, but I lost (he two-stocked me this time), so I decided to try Wolf because I was not feeling comfortable in the matchup. Wolf having a projectile is already a huge change to the pace for the matchup, with Sheik having an incredible projectile in needles I also wanted a strong projectile to bait him into making mistakes when approaching me. Wolf also has very consistent and active hitboxes which allowed me to get combos more consistently than my other characters. The MVP move for the set for me was Wolf's neutral air. I used it a lot to punish his unsafe hits on my shield and to use when he is jumping at me from the ledge, so I could knock him back offstage again to reset the situation.

Technically, your opponent could have switched characters for later matches, but didn't. Did that surprise you?

Nope! Not at all. I have only seen him pick Sheik at locals, so I knew I was only going to fight his Sheik.

What else did you do at MadEX this year?

This was actually my first con, so when I first got there I walked around the whole convention to see everything, met up with my friends, talked with them the whole time, and talked to my GOAT Max Mittleman. For the whole tourney, I rocked Ryuji's codename Skull for my in-game name, so shout-outs to Max Mittleman for indirectly powering me up.

A press pass was provided for this event.

Livestream: Discussing the music of "Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon"

Over labor day weekend, Anne from Pikapi Podcast and I recorded a discussion of the music of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon. The polished podcast version will come out at a later date, but the raw audio can be enjoyed here:

Pokémon Worlds 2024: A (Partial) Spectator Experience

Unlike last year’s event in Yokohama where I spent very little time at the worlds event area due to a lack of access, this year I was able to secure a Saturday spectator pass for Honolulu. As such, I was able to spend a meaningful amount of time at the tournament site.

Thursday

Booking a connecting itinerary proved significantly cheaper than flying direct out of O’Hare (unlike London and Yokohama), so I ended up starting in Madison and making the short hop to Chicago before taking the 8-hour flight to Honolulu. The travel was not particularly eventful, though I did have an interesting conversation with my neighbors on the plane, who were visiting their son in the armed forces. After landing, I took a pre-arranged shuttle to my hotel.

Once I was settled in, I went to pick up my badge at the Hilton complex a few blocks away. The ballroom was in a rather obscure location, situated on top of a parking garage and requiring use of an elevator or escalators for access. After picking up my pass, I asked a few questions of one of the customer service reps to clarify some things.

Friday

The spectator pass gave me a slot at the Pokémon Center store, which luckily did not have to be on the same day as the spectator pass (I feel bad for anyone who had a single-day pass and had the Center eat up a significant portion of their time). My slot was for 11 am, but I decided to go early to identify the entry point. When I arrived, I noticed a large line, and it quickly became apparent that the store was behind schedule (apparently their point-of-sale system was having significant connection issues).

After being herded through several areas (including the parking garage), I finally got to go into the Center around 12:30 pm. I found the store to be well-laid-out, and I definitely appreciated the live musician performing there. As far as the actual shopping, I wasn’t particularly picky, so although a few things were out of stock, I was relatively satisfied with the selection. I ended up picking up two plushes (Riolu and Crocalor) and some sleeves.

Saturday

Naturally, my goal was to spend as much time at the event as possible since this was the only day I had a badge for. I arrived before events started, and got registered for the 9 am Build-and-Battle and the Pokémon Go Scavenger Hunt (I wish I had known about having access to the tasks in the app to get a head start on Friday).

After finishing 1-2 in the Build-and-Battle, I decided to get some lunch (I had missed breakfast). I found the selections on the top level of the convention center to honestly be pretty disappointing, particularly compared to the offerings at events in the Baird Center in Milwaukee (a similarly-sized venue). The food I ordered was okay, but I certainly would have preferred a wider selection.

At 1 pm, there was a panel discussing the localization of Pokémon Horizons and the production of Path to the Peak. While it was largely information I already knew, I did appreciate the opportunity to listen to some of the folks involved. Unfortunately, no questions were taken and no recording was allowed, so I don’t have much to share other than that.

After a brief stop at the anime viewing room and art gallery, I participated in the 4pm Chaos Cup, where I also went 1-2. I still needed to cash out both my side event points and the go scavenger hunt, so I took care of those and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday

I decided to do some shopping in order to see more of the area. I visited two Book-Off locations and picked up a variety of games (including a physical copy of Super Mystery Dungeon, since my digital version crashes my 3DS on startup), and some other media. I was able to finish my shopping and return to the hotel in time to watch the (admittedly disappointing) closing ceremonies.

Monday

My flight left in the evening, so I used some time to explore a bit of Waikiki before heading off to the airport. The return trip was fairly tiring (as usual), and it was good to return home.

Overall, I had a good time at this year’s event, though it probably would have been more enjoyable if I could have spent the whole weekend at the convention enter. That said, assuming I can acquire a spectator badge next year, I do plan on attending.

Other Notes:

-Given how crowded the main tournament space was and the unusual way the Pokémon Center line was woven through the facility, I expect this is the last time the Pokémon World Championships will be held in Honolulu unless a larger convention center is built or the current one gets a significant expansion.
-The closing ceremony definitely ended on a whimper. Announcing the next two years will be in the same state, followed by no Legends Z-A information (regardless of whether it’s a “competitive” game) was a major structural issue. Even with the announcements they did make, they could have been re-ordered for a better impact.

-The anime viewing room actually did have a schedule, but that didn’t seem to be made clear on the Worlds website, which seemed to imply the room would cycle between episodes of Horizons and Pokémon: The First Movie, when in reality there were several different movies shown throughout the weekend.
-Shout out to the guy who had us guess Pokémon anatomy while we were in the parking garage waiting to get into the Pokémon Center. It made things a bit more bearable.
-I cosplayed as Michael Hunchence from  INXS as a Pokémon trainer like I have at previous events (Friday the 16^th was actually the band’s anniversary). Unfortunately, the only time I ran into an Australian was on Monday. He got a kick out of the picture I showed him.
-While the food at the event was disappointing, as usual I got some great meals out of the local restaurants:

In addition to this scrumptious entrée from Eggs n’ Things, I also ordered food from Kyochon 1991, Betty’s Burgers, Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, and Fresh Catch Kapahulu, all of them delicious.

Poke Press Digest Podcast-Episode 73-What's the best version of the English Pokémon Theme?

Anne from Pikapi Podcast drops by to help me discuss several versions of the English Pokémon theme. Listen in as we compare and contrast renditions from the TV show, movies, and beyond. Oh, and if by some chance you were wondering how “Born To Be A Winner” fits into all of this, don’t worry, we cover that after the outro:

Links:

Pikapi Podcast

Poke Casters Network

Livestream: Discussing the music of "Pokken Tournament (DX)" w/Pikapi Podcast

Anne from Pikapi Podcast drops by to help me discuss the music of Pokken Tournament for the arcade, Wii U, and Switch. Tune in and find out what we got out of this modestly successful game's soundtrack:

Livestream: Pokken Tournament DX livestream with Pikapi Podcast

In preparation for our upcoming music discussion, Anne from Pikapi Podcast and I recorded a livestream of us playing the Switch version of Pokken Tournament. Neither of us claim to be experts, but we did try to explore a large portion of the game: 

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 72-Discussing the music of "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast stops by to discuss the music of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity for the 3DS. While not the most popular entry in the series, it still comes with a wide array of impressive new tunes, giving us plenty to talk about. As usual, we have a game discussion after the outro. In our feedback section, we discuss the ongoing opportunity (or perhaps risk) of doing a remake of Pokémon 2000:

Links:
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network
Pam Sheyne Interview
Pokémon 2000 Mockup

Pokémon NAIC 2024 Side Events Review

As someone with more of an interest in socialization than competition, I typically spend most of my time at Pokémon events playing in side events away from the main tournament. This year’s NAIC was no exception, and I wanted to share my experiences.

Side Event Generals:

As usual, side events were in the back part of the tournament area, away from the main stage. Registration was handled via OpenTable (for ad-hoc events) and RK9 Labs (for scheduled everts). No physical event tickets were used for registration. 

For ad-hoc events, players would check in at a set of desks and would then be directed to a set of tables to wait for the event to fill up, at which point a judge would come over and have all the players for the event gather to be led to the appropriate table. This process worked fairly well, but I think it could have been improved by making sure that the person reading the list announces the kind of event being started and by making sure each name has at least a first name and last initial.

Scheduled events were considerably simpler. The event would be announced along with its location, and any pairings or standings would be posted in paper and on RK9 Labs itself (this was actually my first experience with getting my pairings on the website, since prior events had only really used them for the main competition).

TCG Raid:

These were run as standard four-person pods against a judge using a jumbo card as their attacker. I played three of these over the weekend (two against Toxtricity and one against Galarian Rapidash). Rather than using my Vivillion/Marowak deck (nicknamed “Spinal Tap”) as I had in prior TCG raids, I brought out my expanded “Round” deck with Seismitoad. The raids went more or less as expected, and the only thing I really wanted to mention is that using a die to keep track of shared supporter usage and the number of cards the judge has left to play during their turn (also, I recommend the judge only use their die to count the overall number of natural cards to be drawn, rather than increasing the number when a draw card is used, as it reduces the risk of losing count). We won all three encounters.

TCG Build & Battle:

I played in several of these, all of which used the Twilight Masquerade set (great aesthetic for New Orleans, by the way). At this point, this is a well-known format, and my only suggestion is that since this set contains Ace Specs, the judges should mention that the one-per-deck limit still applies, unlike the four-of-a-card limit that is waived. I was 5-1 across the two events.

TCG Ditto Draft:

Technically, this is “sealed” rather than a draft, as you are given cards to use instead of taking a card and passing the rest along. Also, the first round uses a 20-card deck, so you end up using all the cards in the pack and adding basic energy (as opposed to a pack battle, where you typically select a cards from your pack and build a 10-card deck). If you make it to the second round (this event was single-elimination), you get an additional pack and expand to a 30-card deck. I was able to make it to the finals, where I was clobbered by a Greninja ex.

VG Chaos Cup:

In this event, each seat had a rental team listed on it, and a code for retrieving that team (one participant noticed the actual in-game team differed slightly from what was on their sheet). We played three rounds, and used a different team each time (on the chance that we got the same team again, we were given the option to use a team from an adjacent table instead). The biggest difficulty I had with this was actually procedural, since I’ve never competed in VGC, and since this event was on Saturday, we were able to use some VGC docking stations, which I had seen but never used. I’m happy to report the other players were more than willing to help me with the process, which I quickly got accustomed to. I went 2-1 in this event.

VG Booster Draft Cup:

No, you’re not misreading it. This is a new side event the combines aspects of the TCG and VGC. Prior to round one, players are placed into groups (typically of four, though ours had five), open a pack of cards, take a card, then build a team based on the cards they drafted. The exact rules are too detailed to list in full (and not completely firm), but basically you were able to use any Pokémon you had a card for, its immediate evolution (FYI, Twilight Masquerade does have Eevee), or if the Pokémon doesn’t exist in Scarlet & Violet (including the DLC) and you don’t have access to Home, you can substitute a tournament-legal Pokémon of the same type. Any non-Pokémon cards you draft allow you to attach a held item to one of your team members.

I didn’t have much trouble drafting cards to create a team of six (as well as four items), thanks in part to my collection from various raids, but I soon discovered I was at a disadvantage not having that deep a knowledge of the competitive VGC field, as well as not having trained a large number of my boxed Pokémon in IVs or EVs. As a result, I went 0-3 in this event, though I still like the overall concept, and may consider it again once it is more fine-tuned (provided I have time to build up a stable of better Pokémon).

Go Scavenger Hunt:

At this point, Go scavenger hunts have been pretty well figured out, though I do have to note that one of the tasks was somewhat awkward. You could either evolve a Vigoroth with a visor (which I never saw), or get the fully-evolved Goodra from the community day (which was Sunday afternoon, near the closing time of the event). Also, it would be nice if we could get something besides wristbands and pop sockets for those intermediate rewards-I think I have more of the former than I have limbs.

Ticket Redemption:

When redeeming tickets, I make a conscious effort to pick something for myself, as well as some things that can be given away for door prizes at future league events. For myself, unfortunately the incubator I wanted was picked up by someone else while I was in line, so I got a Rapidash-themed dual deck box and a booster pack. For the league, I picked up one of all five of the playmats on offer, so look forward to that if you play at Pegasus Games in the near future.

Non-Side Event Notes:

-As with Orlando regionals, I cosplayed as “Michael Hutchence as a Pokémon Trainer” all three days, with some interesting reactions. I do plan on diversifying the musicians I cosplay as, though finding the right combinations can be difficult.

-The Pokémon Center store was about what I expected. I picked up some apparel and some sleeves.

-Being able to pick up my spectator badge at the airport was a nice bonus that I hope continues for other events.

Overall, I had a great time at NAIC 2024, and look forward to other events in the future. The additional space compared to Columbus seems to have been used to good effect, and the staff was great as always.

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 71-Anime Milwaukee 2024/AI Character Songs

The first segment (1:06-39:08) is a series of interviews from Anime Milwaukee 2024*. As usual, I was able to meet with a number of voice actors and talk about their work on the Pokemon franchise. With roles in miniseries, Pokemon Masters, and the Detective Pikachu games, these performers will give you a wide perspective.

The second segment (39:51-57:09) is a quiz, where Anne from Pikapi Podcast tries to guess the subjects of a series of AI-created character songs. Play along and see if you can deduce the identities behind these tunes.

*A press pass was provided for this event.

Links:

Anime Milwaukee
Pikapi Podcast
Poke Casters Network

Jordan Dash Cruz Talks Tierno & More!

At this year's Anime Milwaukee, I had the opportunity to talk to Jordan Dash Cruz about his work, including voicing Tierno in Pokémon Masters EX: 

A press pass was provided for this event.

Anime Milwaukee 2024: Patrick Seitz discusses acting in Pokémon Generations, Detective Pikachu, and more!

At Anime Milwaukee 2024, I got to opportunity to interview Patrick Seitz, a  voice actor who's worked several time in the Pokémon franchise, including the Generations, Detective Pikachu games, and Pokémon Masters EX:

A press pass was provided for this event. 

Anime Milwaukee 2024: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament Winner

Joe Muszynski

The following is an interview with Joe Muszynski, winner of the Smash Ultimate tournament at this year’s Anime Milwaukee.

Where are you from, and how did you get into competitive Smash?

I'm actually local-from the Milwaukee area. I got into competitive smash back in 2022, though there wasn't a scene in Milwaukee at the time. due to COVID ruining things, so I started competing online.

How did you eventually start competing locally?

At that time, I was working at a restaurant that had a game room attached to it and I brought the idea of local tournaments up to my boss. He said he knew some people and every month on Sundays, Magik4FGC would hold multiple tournaments that lit a spark in me, as well as others in the Milwaukee Smash community.

"Hero" from Dragon Quest seems to be your favorite character to play as. What do you like about him?

Hero is probably my all-time favorite character in Smash. I love the design behind him because he's designed to simply be fun and silly and I think that matches with me extremely well. It also doesn't hurt that one of my favorite JRPGs of all time is Dragon Quest 11, and the character of him is replicated perfectly into Smash. On top of that, there's the dopamine rush of randomly killing someone at 0% with thwack or catching someone off guard with a snooze or a shield break. He has so much depth to him that it doesn't really feel like anything else in the game-he's definitely a unique character (the only character I think comes close is Shulk because of his Monado Arts). I also love being able to change my stats on the fly.

Other than the finals, is there a match that stood out in the tournament?

One of the other matches I had a lot of fun with was Winners’ finals, when I fought against a Pyra/Mythra. I know a lot of people dislike fighting them due to how versatile they are, but I find them a blast to fight, and I feel like I have a great understanding of how to approach them. The person I was fighting was very skilled, and if I remember correctly that match was relatively even, but I caught them off guard with a snooze, which was the ender of that match.

In the finals, you were facing a player that used the character "Joker" from Persona 5. What's that matchup like?

Fighting Joker can be tricky, because the Joker player can either be extremely aggressive or play super passively until they get Arsene. As such, playing against Joker revolves around trying to match their pace. Since a lot of Hero's moves are slow, you have to make the Joker whiff and punish them when possible. Additionally, with Hero's down-b menu you have to constantly mix up what you're doing with it, because if I'm always throwing out projectiles he's gonna jump over it and punish me that way.

What else did you do at Anime Milwaukee this year?

My girlfriend and I played a lot of the arcade games at AMKE I even hung out a friend and we played some Call of Duty: Zombies and tried out a bunch of games on the GameCube. Besides that, I got to see my girlfriend do her first ever cosplay photoshoot where she dressed up as Chompette. We watched a bit of the cosplay awards which was pretty awesome to see-it honestly made me wish that I had cosplayed this year. Otherwise, we mainly just hung out with friends it was a really good time.

A press pass was provided for this event.

Young Couple Laura & Khoi discuss their Pokémon roles

At this year's Anime Milwaukee, I had the opportunity to interview Laura Stahl and Khoi Dao, both of whom have worked in the Pokémon franchise. Laura has voiced characters in several miniseries, and Khoi is the voice of Tim Goodman in the Detective Pikachu games:

A press pass was provided for this event.

Chris Hackney discusses his roles in the Pokémon Franchise (Anime Milwaukee 2024)

At Anime Milwaukee 2024, I had an opportunity to interview Chris Hackney, a  voice actor who's worked on a number of projects within the Pokémon franchise, including the Detective Pikachu games, several web series, and Pokémon Masters EX.

A press pass was provided for this event. 

Why it Works: We're A Miracle

The de facto ending theme of the first Pokémon Movie's dub has an interesting story behind it. Starting off as an unrelated demo and deemed "too adult" for the target audience, the song was given a second chance and rewritten to include elements from the movie:

Transcript:

Some songs start in one place and end up somewhere very different. That’s what happened with “We’re A Miracle”. Deemed “too adult” by Christina’s label, the demo sat around for about a year, but somehow managed to find the right eyes and was sent back to David Zippel for a rewrite. With a few tweaks, a song about an unlikely couple became an amazing retelling of the Ash/Pikachu relationship. Of course, to some degree the parallels were always there, as Christina does sound a bit like our ten-year-old hero, coincidentally enough. In any case, do you have any thoughts on this song’s journey? Be sure to let us know. Thanks.

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 70-Discussing the music of "Pokémon Conquest"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast helps me discuss the music of Pokemon Conquest for the DS. This quirky crossover gave us a lot to talk about, including instrumentation, Japanese history, and a much more recent Pokémon game. On top of all that, there’s a game discussion after the outro that covers...much of the same:

Editor's Note: I state in this episode that One Direction did promotional work specifically for this game. They were brand ambassadors during this time, but I was unable to find a promo for this specific game.

If you're just looking for a snippet of our discussion, you can check out a short here:

Links:

Pikapi Podcast
Pokemon Conquest History
Poke Casters Network

Recap: Side Events at Pokémon Charlotte Regionals 2024

At this years' Pokémon Regionals in Charlotte, NC, I had the opportunity to try out a number of side events in both TCG and VGC. Tune in and found out what I experienced: