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.
