Anime Milwaukee started in 2007 as a 30 person club at UW-Milwaukee. Now, it's celebrating it's Sweet Sixteenth and the attendance was just shy of 18,000. While it's still considered a "smaller con", it brings in over $3 million to the Greater Milwaukee Area. I'd gone once 6 years ago with my boy while he was still in high school and collecting manga. Since then, it's gotten more and more involved with animes, voice actors are here, famous cosplayers show up to judge the masquerade every year. There are artists who work directly with animes, artists who do fan art of characters from anime, those Vocaloid things (I still don't quite understand them but my son is a HUGE fan), fan art of streamers and v-tubers.
My son is now 23 and I've gone to AMKE for the past three years - 2022 sucked (I went with the wrong person who was way too controlling for my 51 year old self to deal with). 2023 was amazing and fun since I went with one of my kpop friends who is into anime, voice actors AND kpop - my son stayed with us in the hotel room last year and it was a ton of fun. This year however was even better!
I'm not much into who voices what character in what anime. I leave that to my son and friends.
However, when someone like Yaya Han is there... watch out! She is one of the most famous cosplayers and business women in the cosplay world. She is brilliant, crazy talented and amazingly sweet and down to earth. A lot of people who do autographs have things to sell, like their books, pictures of what character they voice and they sell their autographs, you have to purchase something for that autograph. If you want a picture with that person, it's $20 or more.
Miss Han calls herself a 'fan first'. She gives out free autographs and free photos. I'm a huge fan, I've watch and admired this woman's life and career from the very beginning. I got to her autograph session 30 minutes early and was FIRST IN LINE!!! My friend Kelly came in shortly after me (she's another fan girl) and the people were so nice and let her in line with me.
Like a true fan girl, she came out and I started squealing and bouncing on my toes (mind you, I'm 53 and that probably looked very disturbing to all who had to witness it). She said hello and let's get started. I was frozen, took me a second to realize I'm going to meet this woman, in person and not watching from the audience during cosplay contests. I immediately started to sob. Yaya Han stood up, was around the table in a flash and hugging me. I settled down to ask if I could please have a photo with her. She agreed, then did a beautiful little pose for me.
There were maybe 20 people in line when she came out but it was steadily growing. Yaya wasn't rushing me one bit and listened to me babble about how I've been watching her grow from a cosplayer into someone who had her own show (the Heros of Cosplay), judging several shows that I've watched in person or on YouTube later... she now has her own sewing machine that she helped design, she has her own sewing line and she makes all of her designs either by commission for some anime, manga or just for her own gratification.
When she signed my book, she wrote "Dearest Kathy, thank you for joining me in my cosplay world. love, Yaya Han" Of course, I started to sob again but my friend Kelly yelled it was her turn. LOL! Kelly cried too, just so you all know.
I cherished this meeting, bragged about being 1st in line to meet her on my fb page, the AMKE official page as well as messaged several friends. I even called my Dad, I was so excited.
Being part of AMKE is always fun, always special and when you're there with friends, it's unforgettable. I'm not very limber but I took a beginner's kpop dance class - learned Super Lady by (g)idle. I was able to do 80% of the choreography before my body reminded me that I'm not able to bend like that anymore. Well, there was a KPop Rave that night, Super Lady came on and I was out there with all these young and some professional dancers - doing the moves I could. After the song and I moved out of the dance area, I was tackle hugged by the instructor who taught it to our panel of people earlier. He told me how proud he was of me for getting out there and doing it. Again, I cherished that. Gave me more confidence.
Every Tuesday night, my friend and I attend a kpop dance class here in Milwaukee, taught by a professional dancer who runs his own crew. I told my friend who is 20 years younger than me and a great dancer that I want to start taking classes. My body may be broken with disabilities but you know what? Being praised for learning a little bit of choreo from 1 song, now I know I can do more. She will be telling me which songs are a bit easier to help me ease into the class.
All in all, this year's AMKE was wonderful. I had a blast, spent under $200 (yay me!) and had fun experiences all around. My friend had her schedule of panels that she was interested in, I had mine, and my son just spent money buying fan art of anything possible (figures too). He's 23 with a disposable income so yeah... It seemed his favorite pastime this weekend was taking photos of the cosplays, mostly cute girls (duh. He IS 23), some guys as well from different animes that he watches. Ryan did however, go to some panels - he learned how to play Mahjong the proper way, went to the Digital Underground Club Friday night and the Rave Saturday night and got some autographs of voice actors too.
All day Saturday and today (Sunday), Kelly and I had the same panels that we wanted to do together. Amazing time for everyone. So, this was my weekend. If any of you reading enjoy anime, comics or gaming and there is a convention close to you, try to go, even if it's only for 1 day. Gen Con is held in August every year in Indianapolis, ACEN - another anime convention is held every May in Chicago area. There are comic cons everywhere, LA is one of the most famous ones. Just try it out. Or if you are a regular, please comment what your favorite part is. I'd love to know.
Conventions like this make me happy, satisfied with how I spent my weekend and relieved I wasn't at home with my husband and calico cats. Here's looking to more fun times and the fun of trying to tetris everything we bought into my small car.
*bows* Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk
