Interviewing the Fonz, er, Fahns at Anime Milwaukee 2026

At this year's Anime Milwaukee, I had a chance to interview Dorothy and Tom Fahn, asking them abut their careers across multiple pop culture franchises:

Looking for just a bite?

A press pass was provided for this event.

Dani Chambers Talks Playing Shelly in Pokemon Masters (Anime Milwaukee 2026)

At this year's Anime Milwaukee, I haid an opportunity to interview Dani Chambers, who voices Shelly in Pokemon Masters EX. Watch and find out how she got and approached the role:

Press access was provided for this event.

Felecia Angelle (Anime Milwaukee 2026)

At this year's Anime Milwaukee convention, I got to interview Felecia Angelle, who has had a number of voice acting roles, including in Pokémon Horizions:

Press access was provided for this event.

Xanthe Hunyh Explains Ann and Maushold (Anime Milwaukee 2026)

At this year's Anime Milwaukee, I was able to talk to Xanthe Hunyh about the variety of roles she's played in Pokemon, including Evolutions, Masters, and Horizons: 

Press access was provided for this event.

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.

Poke Press Digest Podcast: Episode 81-Twin Cities Con 2025/Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon Music

The first segment (0:50-9:26) is a pair of interviews from Twin Cities Con 2025*, where I got a chance to talk to the winner of the Smash Ultimate tournament, and interview a video game musician.bg

The second segment (10:29-45:14) is a discussion of the music of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon for the 3DS. This entry in the sub-series has a massive amount of content, and the soundtrack is no exception. Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to cover it, including a game discussion after the outro:

*A press pass was provided for this event.

Links:
Twin Cities Con
Brian Koenig
Pikapi Podcast

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

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.

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.

Excerpt: Voice actor Martha Harms explains how music shaped her career

In this excerpt from a press session at Anime Milwaukee 2023, voice actor Martha Harms explains how she participated in music growing up, and how that led to her working in voice over:

A press pass was provided for this event.

Anime Milwaukee Website

Anime Milwaukee 2013-Pokemon Video Game Tournament

John Williams

Me: Hi, I’m Steven Reich, here at the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency in downtown Milwaukee at Anime Milwaukee 2013. I’m here with John Williams-no, not that John Williams-one of the participants-he actually placed second-in the “Elite Four” Pokémon video game challenge here. First off John, this is sort of a specialty tournament-it doesn’t strictly follow the VGC rules. What were the basic rules for this tournament?

John: Well, they banned [some] legendaries, like Palkia, Dialga, Manaphy-you know, the casual legendaries that you’ll meet in game. They did allow Keldeo however, which I thought was pretty cool-I didn’t really use it, but going on, some of the rules were you couldn’t have a Drizzle team-you couldn’t have Drizzle and Swift Swim on the same team. Also, they didn’t have an item clause, which I thought was pretty interesting, and I did take that into consideration. Another thing is that you could use as many of each Pokémon as you like-you could use a full team of Tauros if you wanted to.

Me: Definitely some interesting rules there. So basically there was a preliminary stage where you had to battle against some of the [convention] staff members. What was that like and how did that go?

John: It went pretty well. I did have a close encounter with the psychic Elite Four person. It actually came down to me having [Impostor] Ditto. I ended up copying his Reuniclus, and my Ditto is Scarfed, so I ended up going first [and taking his Reuniclus out]. After that, we were both down to our last Pokémon, his last Pokémon Gallade had Shadow Sneak, but it didn’t do enough to KO Ditto, so I ended up Shadow Balling him and winning that match. I think Ditto was probably my VIP for this tournament.

Me: And after you finished off the convention’s Elite Four, you then had to face off against other people who had beaten them, how did that work?

John: Yes, what had happened was there was actually only one other person who had done it, so we had to face off for the champion’s spot. It could have gone better if I had led [with a better Pokémon]. He led with a Salamence with Intimidate, and I led with my Therian forme Landorus which also had intimidate, and it just got kind of messy.

Me: If you had a chance to do it over again, would you change anything on your team or something like that?

John: I probably should have led with my Zapdos, because it has Hidden Power ice, and I almost guaranteed would have been able to take out both of his Salamence with it.

Me: Well, all right, thank you very much John. This has been Steven Reich, at Anime Milwaukee 2013, with John, one of the top finishers of the Trainers Rendezvous  Pokémon Video Game Tournament.

John’s Team:

Landorus ~Therian Forme~
-Intimidate-
Outrage
Earthquake
Protect
Stone Edge
Item: Lum Berry

Zoroark
-Illusion-
Protect
Sucker Punch
Counter
Flamethrower
Item: Focus Sash

Gastrodon
-Storm Drain-
Stockpile
Recover
Earth Power
Scald
Item: Brightpowder

Zapdos
-Pressure-
Hidden Power -Ice-
Thunderbolt
Thunder
Heat Wave
Item: Choice Scarf

Infernape
-Blaze-
Fake Out
Close Combat
Mach Punch
Flare Blitz
Item: Focus Sash

Ditto
-Impostor-
Transform
Item: Choice Scarf

Preview: Anime Milwaukee 2013

We recently got a chance to ask Crystal Hampton a few questions about this weekend's Anime Milwaukee 2013:

PokePress: How did Anime Milwaukee get started?

Crystal: In 2007, the Anime Milwaukee convention was formed by the Japanese Animation Association, which is an anime club at UW-Milwaukee. It started off as a one day convention on the day of a blizzard. Only about 50 people attended. Since then, the convention has blossomed! The UW-Milwaukee club members, with the help of local anime clubs in Milwaukee and staff from nearby anime conventions helped the con grow to 3,500 attendees by 2012. Too large for campus, Anime Milwaukee moved to the Hyatt Regency hotel and Delta Convention Center in 2011. Anime Milwaukee is now the 6th largest of all conventions in Milwaukee and the largest anime convention in Wisconsin.

PokePress: What activities might be of interest to Pokemon fans?

Crystal: You will find tons of fun Pokemon related events in the Pokemon Trainers Rendezvous room, all weekend long! Wear your Pokemon cosplays because there is a cosplay contest! There will be a Pokemon Elite Four and Snap tournament, fun panels, and lots of gaming. Even challenge the Anime Milwaukee convention chair to the Pokemon Trading Card Game! Outside of the Trainers Rendezvous room, find more Pokemon fans at the cosplay meet-up at 1pm on Sunday.

PokePress: What are some of the other things going on at the convention? Which guests are back, and who are the new ones for this year?

Crystal: Anime Milwaukee partnered with the Distant Worlds Concert to welcome Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy composer) as a special guest. Special guest voice actors are Chris Cason, Todd Haberkorn, Alexis Tipton, and Ian Sinclair. Special guest comic artists are Trevor A. Mueller, Alan Evans, and Russell Lissau.

The Anime Milwaukee Rave has been extended and has more DJs for you to party with, Saturday night! Another dance option is the charity Masquerade Ball on Friday night! Continue to groove to the beat with the Pillowcases (The Pillows cover band) and Arc Impulse (video game rock synth). If you like chess, you're going to love Cosplay Combat Chess! Check out the Anime Milwaukee website to find out how to participate.

PokePress: Where can people find more information about the convention?

Crystal: Find out more information, check out the schedule and map, and more on the Anime Milwaukee website. To find out more about Pokemon Trainers Rendezvous, check out their website!

Preview: Geek.Kon 2012

I recently got a chance to talk to Katie Hatheway, one of the staff members from this year's Geek.Kon convention near Madison, WI about this weekend's event:

How did Geek.Kon get started?

Geek.Kon started when a few members of MACS [Madison Area Costuming Society], a few anime enthusiasts, and a few tabletop gamers talked to a group of UW-Madison students and collectively agreed that it would be awesome to have a multi-genre convention right in town. Six years later, we've moved to a larger venue, and we're still going strong!

Eric Stuart (voice of Brock for seasons 1-8) is a guest at this year's convention. What will he be doing there?

Eric's doing some pretty neat stuff for us! You can catch him Friday night opening our rock concert, at Q&A panels and signings throughout the weekend, and performing again Sunday afternoon.

There's also a Pokemon video game tournament. When will that be?

That's a Pokemon Black/White tournament, and that's Saturday evening at 6pm. If you're not interested in competitive play, we'll also have a portable meetup area that will be open all weekend.

What are some of the other things going on at the convention?

We have a great tabletop gaming room this year-there will be representatives from Total Party Kill Games as well as Rio Grande, there to answer questions and show you how to play. We also have a Masked Ball Friday night with live music, a costume contest and trivia challenge, and a special screening with a shadowcast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Where can people find more information about the convention?

Go to www.geekkon.net for general information, as well as access to our community forum. We also have a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/pages/GeekKon.