Anime Milwaukee and Midwest Gaming Classic 2024
First of all, I want to apologize for the delayed posting. I started writing this post on April 23rd, but I didn’t publish until now. Laziness is the big contributor, but there were other personal issues I was dealing with. I don’t want to go into details right now (or possibly ever), but I don’t want to make parts of my private life public.
It is that time of year again. That time of year where I attend two conventions in Milwaukee that I have attended for over one decade. I am course talking Anime Milwaukee (AMKE) and the Midwest Gaming Classic (MGC). I must say that while I enjoyed my time at both conventions, I didn’t end up taking as many photos as I did last year. I am honestly trying to put into words as to why I have so little to say and show about events that I have been attending for around one decade. Before I talk about each convention, I want to clarify that because both conventions were held within one month of each other (AMKE was held in March of this year instead of the usual February, MGC being held in April as usual) I will be combining my experience at both conventions into one blog post. With that out of the way, here we go:
Lets start with Anime Milwaukee; after all, that convention took place first. As I was treking through the crowds of con goers and browsing the vendors hall for any merchandise that can catch my eye, I kept thinking to myself, “I remember these booths”, “I remember this store”, and “Oh, that food vendor is still around! Good for them!”, among other things. I helped out a friend with having their photo taken with a guest of honor, I bought some nice merchansdise, had some good food, and I spent time with friends close to me. As this was happening, other thoughts crossed my mind.
The most prominent thought was something akin to “Been there, done that”. Everything that I wanted to show you I already showed last year, or it just wasn’t something caused me to drop what I was doing to capture it. Even the voice actors, who I read up on before the con, didn’t make me excited like the ones that came last year. The only actor that was prominent to me was the VA for the lead character of Final Fantasy 16 (FF 16). Certainly a worthwhile guest, to be sure, but FF 16 didn’t appeal to me for whatever reason. The only things that I photographed were various cosplayers; not a bad subject, but the ones I captured were people cosplaying as video game characters.
It was at this realization that I ended up connecting several dots:
I was attending an anime convention even though I barely watch anime, if at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like anime, it simply isn’t my favorite hobby.
I don’t entirely recognize everything that is happening at the convention.
I spend most of my time wandering between the vendor hall and the video game room.
With these dots connected, I am Captain Planet!
Just kidding.
When these dots were conected, I started asking myself ”Why am I attending AMKE”? With that question asked, the question “Why did I ever come here to begin with?” To answer the later question, I started attending AMKE when I heard that a particular internet celebrity I like would be holding a Q&A panel and signing autographs. I will talk about the celebrity in question later on in this post.
As for why I still attend AMKE, I like meeting up with friends from long ago who attend. I would do volunteer work for the convention.
Maybe it is simply me getting older, not enjoying AMKE the way I used to, but my desire to attend AMKE for the entire weekend just isn’t there anymore. I will likely attend for one day only going forward. Unless there is a voice actor or some other event happening on convention grounds that excites me, in which case I would go the entire weekend. Because of this, I will share my favorite photos of cosplayers with you.
Next up, we have MGC. I will admit, this convention is far more up my alley, with video games being my number one favorite hobby. I believe I should state that, even though this convention also has a lot of “Been there, done that”, it is the kind that I can still find something that is both familiar and different at the same time. I was still able to enjoy myself here much more than I did at AMKE, and it felt like every vendor in the exhibition hall had something unique to sell, to the point where someone could find that one special item that they would call a treasure. There was (again) the display featuring the work of Ralph Baer, the man credited as the father of video games. Before I continue, I will share photos of cosplayers.
While looking though what I captured at MGC, I was only able to find these three cosplayer pictures. This is not photos I took on one specific day, these are the only ones I took throughout the entirety of the convention. As to why I have so few compared to AMKE, I surmise it was because I was also trying to enjoy myself as an attendee. Of the few that I am am able to show, however, it is the final cosplayers that are of peculiar note.
They aren’t cosplayers at all. The two people you see in the picture are actually the original models for the characters Chris Redfield (dressed in green, portrayed by Charlie Kraslavsky) and Barry Burton (dressed in red, portrayed by Greg Smith) from the original Resident Evil video game released in 1996. Bear in mind, I don’t mean voice actors, I mean the people who would provide the faces and physique of the characters. I wasn’t even aware that they would be guests! I am excited about this because Resident Evil was not the first of its kind for gaming, but because it literally defined the genre of “Survival Horror”; a genre of gaming where the goal is not to defeat every enemy in sight but escape the scenario you are in while managing minimal resources as the game attempts to scare you.
Now we have a booth run by a group that specializes in repairing old computers in an effort to sell/give them to underprivileged people. I cannot remember the name of the organization, but it inspired my fiancée to do the same for people in our area. In addition to selling fixed computers and video games at MGC, the also had an area dedicated to teaching people how to take apart video game controllers that are broken, so the pieces can be disposed of properly, thus cutting down on e-waste.
The guest of honor seen here is Doug Walker, a content creator made famous online over 15 years ago with his character/web series “The Nostalgia Critic”. After all these years, all of the ups and downs that he and his production company (Channel Awesome) have gone through (which I will not talk about here), he is still a favorite of mine. He started out reviewing old movies in an over-the-top manner, then branching into other ventures, including livestreaming video games once a week (hence why he and his crew are at a video game convention). I always enjoy seeing him because, when he was last a guest at AMKE 2012, he was doing a review of the Hayao Miyazaki film “Ponyo”, where he asked the audience of the Q&A panel to take part in the video with him. I was among the attendees of this panel, but that is not what was most memorable for me.
I took part in what was once his most popular running gag: the “Bat Credit Card”. Let me explain the origin of this gag. One of his earliest reviews was of the Joel Schumacher film “Batman and Robin” starring George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell. At one point in the film, our two heroes arrive at an auction selling women to date (this is not trafficking, they were rich women for rich men to date). The auction is attacked by the villainess Poison Ivy (played by Uma Thurman) who uses mind control pollen on the two, which causes them to start bidding on her. They keep bidding until Batman pulls out a credit with the bat symbol on it, where he proceeds to say the line “Never leave the cave without it”. Doug’s reaction was immediately popular and went viral:
Because of how popular this gag was, any time he would sign autographs at convention appearances, fans would say “Bat Credit Card” to him, at which point he would run up to that fan (if possible) and pretend to violently assault them. Take a guess as to who said the line infamous line:
I apologize for the way this was filmed (I’m pushing 40, I use old fashion terms for recording video). I set up a camcorder to record the panel and when I said the line, one of my friends handled the camcorder for me, but forgot to zoom out due to being excited to see the gag take place. Once I finished running around the room and returned to my seat, people looked at me and thanked me for I did. It is a favorite moment in my life. I felt like a mild local celebrity. I like making people smile.
Here we have another content creator with a large following: Jared Knabenbauer, also known as “ProJared”. He started his online presence working for ScrewAttack (a video game media website), then broke off into doing video essays on his personal YouTube channel, now focusing on livestreaming. He had a controversy a few years ago, but he seems to be recovering well.
The final photos I have to show you are some miscellaneous moments at the convention. First, we have a series of games and accessories for a console I don’t recognize. Second, some puppets that caught my eye. I don’t know the context of the puppet’s creation, nor do I know what their purpose is, but seeing puppets at a video game convention was quite a head turner for me. Third, my fiancée photographed me trying my hand at wall climbing for the first time. Finally, he and I try our hand at a card game called “Quick Flip” from a company called “Game Smiths”. The simplest description I gave give you is “think of it as a more aggressive form of Uno”.
With that, I can officially call this a wrap. As I stated before, while I still enjoy going to these conventions, I will likely attend only one day for each. Of course, there are exceptions to this stance; for example, if there is a voice actor or online content creator that I like, I will attend for longer periods of time. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and for your patience with how long it took to finish this entry.