Articles
Musings direct from our members
Anime Central 2025 – Across the Board
We’re a few days from Anime Central, Chicago’s biggest anime convention fondly known as ACen. So we asked AnimeChicago teammates what they were most excited to see and attend. Plan your weekend along with us so you don’t miss out on your favorite panels, events, and industry talks! Download Guidebook to draft your schedule. What’s…
2024 Annual Report: A Year of Connection
18 years later, and AnimeChicago not only keeps the lights on – we’re strengthening our social ties daily. Tough times call for resilient communities. Our focus is uniting Chicagoans through all things Japanese pop culture but we can aim higher than that. That’s why we stepped up against social isolation, connected people with kindness, and…
Con Food Strategy Guide
With convention season getting into top gear, we at AnimeChicago would like to offer some advice on one of the biggest hangups that many con-goers overlook – food. As such, we’ve provided a handy strategy guide to ease your worries and streamline your choices. The Baller Strategy: Enjoy all the fine dining and expensive food…
Manga Spice Cafe
AnimeChicago’s Interview series highlights local organization leaders, artists and personalities. Today we’re chatting with the anime-influenced artist AnimeSpice about her latest crate business Manga Spice Cafe! AC: Tell us a little bit about yourself, and how Manga Spice Cafe started out.AS: Back in my high school days, I was the project and event planner for…
A Brief History of Anime and Manga: From Zen Cartoons to Sailor Moon
As caveat, we will be exploring anime and manga from a Western perspective and this small summary is by no means a complete history of either medium. Early History: Woodblock Prints and The Japan Punch As a traditionally pictorial-centric country, as evidenced by the use of images in early Edo period (1600-1868) scrolls and Zen cartoons…
Anime Marathons & Session Beers
Some anime you watch in the same way you’d enjoy a fine glass of whisky – slow, and with contemplative revenance. Other series are just so damn fun that you can’t stop watching, like eating a box of Girl Scout cookies. So, what beer should you pair with your all day anime marathon – a…
Furious Spoon
Boasting three locations in the city of Chicago and creating lots of buzz with two successful Kickstarters, Furious Spoon capitalizes on the Ramen craze. With locations in Logan Square and Wicker Park and an outpost in the Financial district’s Revival Food Hall, Furious Spoon is one of the largest ramen restaurants the city. I last…
Across the Board: Anime Directors
The AnimeChicago team meets weekly and we sometimes we find ourselves in heated discussions about anime. Here’s just one of the many topics we’ve covered. (As before, we have kept the responses anonymous to protect the innocent.) Who is the best current anime director? “Makoto Shinkai has absolutely knocked it out of the park with…
Lessons from the Scrubbin’ Bubbles: Tabletop Gaming in the World of One Piece
Warning: Minor spoilers for One Piece. I’ve been a fan of the massively popular shounen adventure series One Piece since I was in high school. Getting into One Piece is a massive project; as I write this, it’s running strong with no end in sight at eight hundred and fifty six chapters. There’s a lot…
What are AnimeChicago’s Favorite Anime?
When you first join the AnimeChicago Meetup page, one of the questions you answer is, quite simply, “What is your favorite anime?” That’s a topic everyone loves to talk about at our mixers and various other social events. However, we never took a look at your responses in earnest, until now. What did you all…
Across the Board: Anime Studios
Did you know that the AnimeChicago team meets weekly to plan all the great events around Chicago? Just like every other anime fan out there, we sometimes get into heated discussions about anime, even in the middle of planning! So we thought, let’s bring some of those conversations to you and give you a window…
My Favorite Anime of 2016, Erased: A Time Traveling and Character Driven Delight
I was blown away by Erased, which is called Boku Daki ga Inai Machi in Japan. I consider myself a bit of an author, and I’ve written all types of things from short films to fiction. From a writer’s point of view there is great character development in this anime. You see the main character…
A Small Taste of Craft Beer in Japan – Part 3
Hitachino Nest turned around my disappointing Kyoto craft beer experience. At this point, my opinion on Japan’s craft beer scene was positive, though not overwhelmingly so. However, the last few days of our trip would prove that Japan is quickly becoming a craft beer destination, in the most unexpected ways. Shimokitazawa – Poutine and Hefeweizens…
Ramen Review: High Five Ramen
I’ve been struggling to come up with something to write for AnimeChicago for the longest time when I stumbled upon Jamie trying to guide fellow anime fans in the right direction for ramen. For me, Ramen = Life is a motto that I can easily live by. While everyone is going to have different tastes…
2016 Annual Report: 10 Years and Counting
When I registered AnimeChicago.com in 2006, it was a small dream. Chicago lacked a central guide for all the anime clubs and Japanese events around the city, and I wanted to solve that. Never did I imagine it would become the 800+ member club it is today. The collapse of Borders in 2011 and scarcity…