Report: Anime Milwaukee 2026

Once again, I attended this year’s Anime Milwaukee event, this time not only as a press member, but also as a panelist.

Thursday

As is usually the case for Milwaukee events, I took a bus rather than driving to the city from Madison. This time, I purchased a ticket from Jefferson Lines (who runs services from the Twin Cities to Milwaukee each day), only to find out that the bus was running roughly an hour behind schedule, forcing me to wait on the UW-Madison campus for a while. All that said, the rest of the trip was pretty ordinary.

Friday

I went to the press office in the morning to pick up my pass. I had mistakenly believed I had press sessions that morning (in reality, they were Saturday and Sunday), so that left me time to attend a pair of Pokémon trivia panels-one that got volunteers from the audience, another via Kahoot, both interesting. After those, I proceeded to do some shopping in the vendor hall, and that evening I attended a “Cooking With Pokémon” (exactly what you think) panel, then returned to my hotel room.

Saturday

This morning I actually did have an interview-in this case with Dani Chambers (Shelly’s voice in Pokémon Masters). This was originally supposed to be a single roundtable session where outlets would take turns asking questions, but instead we were each given 10 minutes to conduct separate interviews. This makes editing easier, so the change was fine by me.

The afternoon was fairly crowded, with a Smash Ultimate tournament at 2, Nintendo cosplay photoshoot at 3, and an interview with Dorthy and Tom Fahn (who were wonderful) at 4. While I was able to get cosplay photos, the Smash Ultimate tournament had ended before I could get back following the interview session, but those are the types of tradeoffs that happen at these events.

At 7:15 PM, I started my panel on restoring media with machine learning (slides). Attendance was sparse (15-20) people, but given the niche subject, not surprising. Despite the erratic wi-fi at the convention center, I was able to demo the audio aspect of my presentation just fine. Afterwards, one of the attendees talked to me, having realized they knew me from high school, which was an interesting surprise.

Sunday

After taking care of two interviews (Xanthe Huynh and Felecia Angelle), I used my remaining time at the convention to attend panels on diversity in anime (which has improved, but still has a ways to go), and an introduction to paneling at conventions. The bus ride home (this time on Badger Bus) was relatively uneventful.

Overall

My convention experience was exceptionally smooth this year, despite participating from multiple angles. AMKE has made good use of the additional space added to the Baird Center, which is reflected in the larger number of panels at this year’s event. I can definitely recommend it as a well-run event.

Other Notes:

-There was a wonderful display of Kimono at the show, where I was able to attend a presentation on the history of the art form.
-The best meal I had in Milwaukee was likely from Zebb’s Restaurant (watch the staples on the bag, though!), from which I ordered a custom omelet and banana bread:

Press access was provided for this event.