when you go to the bathroom at the Anime Convention…
Otherwise you get…
Dad-Maru-chan!!!!
(I realize, I look a little crazed…it had been a long weekend)
Anime Midwest
Music You Need
Mega Ran
Aka: Random, Random Beats, Raheem Jarbo.
I first came across Mega Ran’s music after attending Anime Midwest in 2015. My younger son and I wandered in to his show on accident and was really blown away at his live performance.
After the con I looked into his music and have been a fan ever since.
He is a Hip Hop artist who is associated with the nerdcore genre. His music covers a broad range of topics, but is often about his obvious love of video games.
Check out a few of his videos below.
Please go and support Ran!
I am looking forward to seeing him again this fall on tour!
Myself and Mega Ran at Anime Midwest 2016.
Future Cosplay Plans
As anyone whose read my little blog knows that I attend Anime conventions with my two boys. Again, this year, we will be attending several. We will be going to Anime Milwaukee, Anime Central, and Anime Midwest.
I have cosplayed in the past and last year got a devious idea. I thought: “What might be fun to cosplay, be funny, from a show I like, and embarrass my children at the same time?”
And then it came to me:
Mami Tomoe!
I could be a magical girl! Even better, I’m not going to shave my beard! Even better than that, I could let my beard get all burly! Even better than that with ice cream on top, I could walk around with a cigar in my mouth and call myself ‘Manny Tomoe’.
My children are horrified. I am delighted. The cosplay is on order.
Pictures to come later this year.
I’m such a bad dad….
Music For Your Consideration
My biggest love (besides family) is my love for music.
Whenever I get exposed to something new I want to share it with others So today, dear reader, I share these bands with you.
I have mentioned all of these guys in my Anime Midwest posting, but I thought I’d give them a separate post.
Mega Ran (aka Random)
A former teacher turned nerdcore (or chiptune) rapper, Mega Ran has some great music. I caught his show by mistake at Anime Midwest, but am really happy I did. He is amazing live. So, I got a couple of his albums and he got a new fan.
Check out his website:
Ytcracker
Also at Anime Midwest, I did not actually catch his show, but did see him on a couple of songs during Mega Ran’s set. A former hacker and early nerdcore rapper, ytcracker has some really good music as well. I got two of his releases and have enjoyed them quite a bit, especially the thought provoking “Cognitive Dissonance”.
Visit his site:
http://www.ytcracker.com/v2015/
Face Time Police
A couple of brothers delivering what they term as “pop macchiato” put out some unique and catchy tunes. I caught their small acoustic set with my 11 year old and bought their CD. We have been enjoying them since.
Visit them as well:
http://www.facetimepolice.com/
I hope you enjoy these bands and if the convention you go to feature some smaller, unknown (to you) bands/ artisits: Go and check them out! You never know what you’ll find.
Cosplay With Kindness Documentary
Cosplay: Literally “Costume Play.” Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character).
Cosplay is often a fun way to express your fandom. It helps show others what you like, escape into a character, and bond with other fans be it characters from sci-fi, comic books, or anime.
I have cosplayed. My sons have as well. I have done Kensei Ma from Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple and Yuugo Tennouji , aka “Mr Braun” (Steins Gate). My son has done Kululu from Sgt. Frog.
It’s fun. And I have had nothing but good experiences, as has my son. In fact, earlier this year at Anime Milwaukee, my son got invited to participate in the Masquerade (Cosplay competition) where everyone was very welcoming and supportive to him.
This, however, is not everyone’s experience.
I became aware that bullying was a thing in the cosplay community last year at Anime Midwest while attending voice actor, Greg Ayres’s panel: “Why Your Fandom Sucks”. He told a few horror stories where some fans take things too far and ruin the experience for others. It was through Greg Ayres’s Facebook page that I became aware of the documentary: “Cosplay With Kindness”.
The film maker was inspired to do this documentary after attending Greg Ayre’s “It Gets Better” panel at Anime-Zap. It is to address, and hopefully combat, bullying in the cosplay and convention going community.
Please support this project if you are able.
Go like their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/CosplayWithKindness
Or help support their gofundme:
http://www.gofundme.com/CosplayDocumentary
And please visit their website to learn more:
http://cosplaywithkindness.org/
Cosplay and conventions should be fun. I remember when I saw the “Why Your Fandom Sucks” panel Greg saying (and I paraphrase): “There is no wrong way to cosplay. If you are not the same size, race, or gender as the character that you are cosplaying as: Who cares? You are being a fan. If your outfit is not professionally perfect: It doesn’t matter. You are being a fan and sharing your love of something with others.”
That struck a chord with me. As a parent, and as a bit of an outcast myself, I appreciated this message. Support this project.
And more than anything else: Be kind!
-As a side note. It was my experience at Anime Midwest and seeing the Greg Ayres panel in 2014 that inspired me to start this blog.
Anime Midwest 2015: 3 Teens, 1 Pre-teen, and a Tired Dad
Anime Midwest has come and gone. I am tired, but really happy. It was a blast and is my favorite Con so far. I packed up my two sons, their cousin, and my older son’s friend (my best friend’s daughter) and headed out early for Chicago. A nice option from the con: this year they started mailing badges for pre-registered attendees. However, I forgot to click the box for my boys to get their badges mailed so we had to pick theirs up at the con. Since we got there early, there was no line: no problem. We checked into the Hyatt Regency O’hare, got our badges, and brought all our stuff in to get ready for the con. The first panels, merch room, and other events began at 12 noon. My younger son and I went to see the opening ceremonies and the teens went their own way. It was a packed weekend and I had a hard time figuring out how to divide it all up to explain it, so here I go.
Panels and Guests
As I said earlier, the first panel that we attended was the opening ceremonies. This is where the convention staff do a little intro and introduce the many guests in attendance. It was running a little behind so we did not see the entire thing.
We left to see the “Meet Billy West” panel. Billy West is the voice actor known for Futurama (playing Phillip J. Fry, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, Dr. John Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan), Ren and Stimpy, and a host of other roles. A great speaker and seemed to be a genuinely humble guy who really enjoyed talking with the audience. If you ever have the chance, go and see him.
We also caught the tail end of “Meet David Matangra”. He has a much larger catalog of anime credits than I was aware of but some of his more notable roles are: Bertolt on Attack on Titan, Daichi on Say I Love You, and Tomoya in Clannad. We only were able to hear about the last 10 minutes of his panel where he was talking about theater and some upcoming work he was doing. One thing you find is that a lot of the American voice actors have a background in theater.
Most of the other panels we caught were on Saturday.
We started off with “Reviewing 101”. This was an interesting panel, but more focused on You Tube style reviews. It was put on by a person who was a My Little Pony reviewer (among other things). It was informative anyways and a good slow way to start out the day.
We also caught part of the “Meet Caitlynn French” panel. I found out from that she has serious nerd cred being not only a anime fan, but a video game player, and table top gamer. She was recently announced as the voice for Shiro in No Game No Life (which she was very excited about). My son’s main reason for wanting to meet her was for her roles in AKB0048 (Suzuko) and Girls und Panzer (Hana). She is also a pre-school teacher in her non-voice acting life. My son spoke to her briefly after the panel and she was very cool to him.
The highlight panels for me on Saturday were the Greg Ayres panels: “Why “Your Fandom Sucks” and “It Gets Better- Anime Con Edition”.
“Why Your Fandom Sucks” is a panel on how fans can go off the rails, take their fandom a little too seriously, and how this can ruin things for others. Greg told horror stories of where fans did dumb things, outrageous things, and sometimes downright hurtful things all kind of tied to their various fandoms. It is a panel well worth attending if you have a chance. Greg is a good storyteller and the over-arching message of the panel is a good one: Be a good fan, don’t be a jerk, make a supportive community of fans, and that as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else there is not really a “wrong way” to be a fan. As a parent I can get behind this kind of message and find it to be important.
“It Gets Better- Anime Con Edition” is based off the “It Gets Better” project which was started in response to a series to teen suicides where kids were being bullied for being (or perceived as being) gay. Greg hosts this panel to talk about bullying of LGBT teens and bullying in the fan community as well. Being the parent of an openly gay teen, this is another panel I truly appreciate.
The only other panel attended that weekend by my younger son and I was the “Boxers or Briefs- Multi Guest Q&A” on Sunday morning. This was a rapid fire Q & A panel where any silly question was asked. Many of the guests were recovering from heavy partying the night before and it got pretty raunchy. Oh well…I knew there would be some questionable parenting moments at the con. I have come to accept this will happen.. he did find the repeated answer of “three dicks” to be hilarious (best in context I guess) as any 11 year old would. Guests : John Swasey, Caitlynn French, Greg Ayres, Chris Rager, David Matranga, Joel McDonald, Chuck Huber, Sonny Strait, Spike Spencer, Chris Cason, Blake Shepard, DC Douglas, and Eric Stuart.
There were many other panels I would have loved to seen, but only so much time in a weekend to see it all.
Concerts
Anime Midwest really shined in the amount of musical guests they have…really quite a great line up of acts. I saw more than I planned on seeing (which was great) and wish I would’ve seen more.
Face Time Police
We wandered on this performance on the mini stage off of the Con Sweet ( a place for con-goers to get free rice, ramen, and soda). The duo does songs inspired by anime and video games. They had a lively acoustic set which was pretty enjoyable.
Brentalfloss
A comedian and musician who has a popular You Tube channel where he does video game music “With Lyrics” put on an entertaining performance. We ended up in this show thinking we were coming to the end of the Mega Ran and K-Murdock concert so we could be early for Steam Powered Giraffe, but everything was behind schedule so we saw most of Brentalfloss’s set. He was very fun and my son liked the “Mad Libs” song he did (a largely inappropriate version of “Let it Go”).
Mega Ran and K-Murdock
After Brentalfloss these guys came out and..damn! I am thrilled I got to see them! I had no prior experience with Mega Ran, but he was awesome live. He is considered to be the best known video-game influenced musical artist out there and is licensed by CAPCOM as their official rap/ hip hop artist. They ended their set with YT Cracker coming up on stage with them: it was awesome! I have gotten a couple of his recordings since the con and really like his stuff. Check him out!
Steam Powered Giraffe
We saw them last year and had to go see them again. The steam punk inspired robots putting on their show that is both music and comedic performance. They put on an excellent, entertaining show and are well worth a watch. My boys and myself were all looking forward to seeing them again.
Raves
There were Rave dances on both Friday and Saturday nights. The teens attended the rave on Saturday until around 1:00 am and I checked it out a little as well. While I don’t really dance to rave music, I could appreciate anyways. I like what I saw of Greg Ayres set more than the first and my older so liked his more as well. The downside of curfew for teens: they happened to leave right before $1000.oo in small bills was thrown into the audience. They weren’t happy to hear they missed that.
The Cosplays
There are always so many great cosplays, so many that I don’t know, and I always mean to take more pictures, but never seem to get enough.
Holy Madoka! There were a lot of Puella Magi Madoka Magica cosplays at this con. I got so many pictures since my son was stopping everyone to take his own pictures of them. I have thought it would be hilarious/ disturbing if I cosplayed as Mami Tomoe sometime, but not shaving my beard and walking with an exaggerated “man” walk while complaining about the other magical girls and about getting older…
Metalocalypse
Zapp Brannigan cross-play and a minion.
Not sure who they all are, but video game related I think. They all did great jobs on their costumes.
Nudist Beach (Kill La Kill) and Mekakucity Actors 
Clannad (Tomoyo and Tomoya) and Full Metal Alchemist (Lust and Greed) 
Danmachi (Hestia), Ouran High School Host Club (Tamaki), Dragon Ball (Master Roshi) 
Nisekoi (Chitoge and Onodera), A Spiderman, No Face, Winry Rockbell (FMA), and Stein (Soul Eater).
A few more pictures I took. A Jon Snow, some colorful people, and “Kawaii-Vader”.
It wouldn’t be a con without a couple of furries…
My favorite photo I took. A cross-play of Death The Kid (Soul Eater)
The kids
My son finally got Chuck Huber to autograph the headpiece for his Kululu cosplay, which was awesome.
Lesson: Never leave a horse mask unattended..
A ramen lunch at Mitsuwa is always a good idea.
Exhausted kids on the way home means a job well done.
It was a good weekend.
It’s Convention Time Again!!!
Anime Midwest: July 3-5
It’s time to pack up the kids and go to another convention! This time I am taking my 2 boys, their cousin, and a friend all to Anime Midwest in Chicago this coming weekend. 3 teens and a pre-teen. When I tell most people this, they shudder. However, the 3 teens will probably ditch me for most of the time and so it will just be me and my younger son.
We attended this one last year and really enjoyed it and I have been looking forward to this con more than any this year. There is a ton to do: concerts, panels, gaming, raves, a maid cafe, and much more.
Check the website for full details:
Highlights for me:
Steam Powered Giraffe
A truly enjoyable steam punk inspired musical act that are a lot of fun!
Greg Ayres
Voice actor ( Clannad, Ouran High School Host Club, Deadman Wonderland, Free! Eternal Summer), DJ, and Project Beck. I saw Greg’s “Why Your Fandom Sucks” panel and really enjoyed it due to it’s (despite the misleading title) message of inclusion and trying to maintain a supportive community of fans. As a dad I can get behind this message.
Chuck Huber
A voice actor known for roles in: Full Metal Alchemist, Soul Eater, Black Butler, One Piece, and most importantly, Sgt Frog. As some of you may have read before, my younger son is a Sgt Frog fan and cosplays as Kululu. Chuck Huber was the voice of Kululu and so he (my son) wants his head piece autographed badly.
David Matranga
A voice actor who has been in several shows including Attack on Titan, but more importantly for me: Clannad. My first real show that drew me into anime. I’d be interested to see a panel with him.
Billy West
The voice of several characters on Futurama including the role model for all men: Zapp Brannigan. Also known for tons of other American voice work ( Jimmy Neutron, Ren and Stimpy). ” Brannigan’s Law is like Brannigan’s love, hard and fast.”
Samurai Dan & Lady Gillian
They know martial arts. They teach you a few things. They are hilarious. Enough said.
There is so much more going on, many more talented voice actors and other interesting guests attending. Check out the website to see all of what they have to offer. I will post some updates about the convention sometime after.
-Most images are from the Anime Midwest website. I do not own them.
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