Anime Midwest 2024: The Good, The Bad and The Smelly
It’s 6:30 on a Wednesday. The night’s eye crust lingers on my eyes as I reflect on my 2024 markets and initiatives, while keeping one eye open on any notifications from my day job. Such is life. Getting into the habit of writing down my thoughts before too much time passes (looking at you, Karoshi-con 2024. It was a good con, I could do better. Will try again for 2025).
I have gone to every Anime Midwest since 2017 (obviously excluding 2020 since that was COVIDy COVID. No one went outside then) and while I think a few things have fallen off, they are beginning to improve after industry shake ups outside of their control.
The Good
One of the things that upset me the most post 2020 was the quality of the gaming room. I remember in the past where the gaming room was in a giant, roomy Hall within the convention center. Plenty of room to walk around and plenty of arcade games of many genres (and Pachinko, if you’re into that sort of thing). The disruption caused the convention itself to do the game room themselves (at least it felt like that, based on the quality) and that resulted in consoles that did not have all the updates downloaded to it (rendering them unplayable) and tiny and sad rhythm game rooms with limited offerings.
But for 2024 they brought back outside companies doing the game rooms so now we have:
– The Fighting game room with multiple consoles that work.
– A more roomy rhythm game room with more than DDR style games.
– A PC game room that featured niche games on Chromebooks.
The tabletop game room was also improved by having its own vendor Hall in a sense. More indie game companies set up shop to sell their latest offerings, which I felt was pretty cool.
There were areas to paint minis, though it looks like I either missed it, or playing Warhammer 40K wasn’t available at Anime Midwest this year.
Anime Midwest also improved the food options. After 2020, they brought in food trucks so people could eat outside and they had diverse offerings of Filipino food in addition to the standard hot dogs and fries.
The vendor Hall also had boba tea, barbecue sandwiches, a mac and cheese stall and the return of walking tacos (I was miffed at their appearance last year as I didn’t think they gave you a lot of meat). Wild Bills soda stood strong, and my husband and I kept our cup from 2 years ago, so we were still able to get free refills without buying a new cup (just had to buy a wristband).
The Bad
While the energy was better, the game room was better, and the food was better, there were definitely times I was fighting for my life.
Last year was apparently the last year Kopf cons were creating booklets. I used to enjoy collecting con booklets to see “HookedOnCozy” in print, the vendor Hall map, and the con schedule in print. None of those options were available. Instead, you had to hope you had unlimited data, 5G and/or good signal to look at the schedule on the website. I found that the map was essentially unusable on mobile.
It’s likely more eco-friendly to not print out a booklet, but the signal in the hall is so poor it’s a difficult experience. A workaround could potentially be to have large maps that people could read, kinda like what you used to see in the mall.
Also, I’m not sure if I missed it in some kind of email, or if it was always this way and I just didn’t pay attention, but the con lets in Platinum Badge holders 30 minutes early into the vendor hall before the general public. This was fine on Friday since I get there stupidly early to set up and then panic crochet, but for Saturday and Sunday, when the vendor Hall doesn’t open until an hour before the general public, that’s no bueno! There were so many of my peers that definitely don’t show up until 20-30 minutes before or even right when it opens so Platinum Badge holders walk the floor to a vendor Hall with half the vendors in it.
On Saturday there was also a weird snafu with the doors being closed. I stay at the Hyatt at Midwest, so I walk to the connecting hallway to the vendor Hall. Right at 9 there was a huge line and the door was locked. I waited longer than I should’ve, in hopes that they would open the door. After about 10 minutes I had to go back where I came and take the long way outside to the front of the Donald E. Stephens convention center to set up. I was so tired!
While having a lot of food options was great for guests, it did make for a weird smell combo: soup and barbecue is not a candle I would want in my house.
Leaving the vendor hall into the game rooms, I do wish they would put them in bigger rooms or have a fan or window. With legalized marijuana, the fighting game rooms smell awful. I’m not that much of a buzzkill to tell people they stink or demand they spray, but as an avid fighting game lover, my love of Soul Calibur is eclipsed by the smell of skunk weed. This is honestly why I appreciated the PC game room. Only a handful of people were in it. The hum of a 3D printer in the background was soothing, and I was able to game in peace without weird smells. It would’ve been a 10/10 experience if the business running the PC game room had bothered to bring proper mouse pads for all the games. Unlike the rubber trackballs of my youth, apparently modern computer mice can’t work on white surfaces very well. It made gaming hard. But a slab of cardboard was not the vibe as that didn’t work very well either.
Hot Take: If You Advertise a Convention as Family Friendly, You Need Family Friendly Spaces
The last old lady grievance I have is that Anime Midwest needs to stop branding itself as a family friendly con. I’m not going to say that they need to ban lewd art. That is unrealistic for the anime community, unwanted by most of the anime community, and it’s a core part of the anime community. But when I think “family friendly”, I don’t think of a bent over 2B print or paddles for purchase.
This year Anime Midwest offered that kids can come free on Sunday, and while I found all of the child sized Rengoku and Tanjiro cosplays to be really cute, and I had some respectful children enjoy my booth, having young people in artist alley didn’t seem right. The best artist alley does is cover up nipples on the women in lewd art. It’s an avenue of exposing children to content I’m not sure is age appropriate.
What could work is having a kid friendly section of the con if a con is going to advertise itself as family friendly. Could there be an All Ages Artist Alley? Kids panels where they could connect with each other, make friends, and discuss the anime they enjoy? Back in my day (*old lady voice*) we had Yotsuba&!. But I’m also approaching my mid 30s and I’m not up to date on any new all ages manga. Perhaps someone can point the way? Food for thought. I hope people can experience manga and anime in an age appropriate way and truly enjoy all that the medium has to offer.
Let the Nerd Flag Fly Anyhow
With the good and the bad, the thing I enjoy the most is always the conversations. It is my personal belief that conventions exist to converse with people on niche topics. I talked with one person about Sonic the Hedgehog, from its Genesis era, to Sonic Boom. Spoke to another who said that when he heard of Chainsaw Man he didn’t want to get into it because it was popular. He saw one fight scene with Power and was quickly converted. I waxed poetic with another about my belief that Pikmin 4 is a solid game, but second to Pikmin 1, which I consider to be Pikmin’s purest form. These moments make my heart come alive, and forget my random grievances.
The next convention on the horizon is Anime Magic, a con I’ve never been to. I’m hoping it’s just as great if not better than Midwest, but we’ll see. I’m going to spend this next 50 or so days building up the stock I sold at Anime Midwest. See you there!