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…
Round Table Round-Up: Paranoia Agent
Welcome to the first ever Round Table Round-Up, where we highlight topics and ideas discussed in a recent AnimeChicago Round Table. This article covers director Satoshi Kon’s television series Paranoia Agent. As pointed out by Neil, our discussion moderator, Paranoia Agent was formed as set of experiments based off of story “scraps” that Kon had…
Review: Summer of Scandal
If you attended ACEN (Anime Central) over the Summer, you may have seen waves of con-goers proudly displaying shirts emblazoned with the letters S-C-A-N-D-A-L. In case you mistakenly thought that otaku throughout the Midwest simultaneously developed a sudden obsession with the ABC political drama of the same name, allow me to enlighten you: Scandal is…
Chicago’s own UNIQLO Opening on Friday Oct 23
In case you’ve missed my previous posts, I’m a bit of a UNIQLO fan. I’ve worn a variety of UNIQLO pants exclusively for the last year and a half, and you’ll have to pry them from my cold dead hands. Chicago’s flagship is opening next Friday and I am so jazzed! The clothing line lands somewhere beyond…
The 2015 Anime Research Project
You may know tons about anime fandom, but did you know that anime academics are a thing? The number of ethnographic books and anthropologists studying our community is astounding. There’s even an annual research project that catalogs thousands of responses from international anime fans and crunches the numbers. It’s administered by Dr. Stephen Reysen, an Assistant Professor and his team at…
17 Ways to Celebrate Evangelion’s 20th Anniversary
October 4th 2015 marked the 20th Anniversary of the seminal, and often argued about, anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Don’t know how to celebrate such an important milestone? Don’t worry, AnimeChicago has your back with these 17 suggestions. 17 suggestions, 17 Angels, see what we did there? Fill your bathtub with orange tang, put on…
Anime Central 2014: Pre-registration and hotel blocks open Oct 1st
Set your alarms, mark your calendars, pester your friends. Pre-registration for the 19th annual Anime Central opens this Thursday, October 1st. It coincides with Hyatt and Embassy con-block registration, which offers hotel rooms at discounted rates. No time has been announced for either event. These rooms get snatched up faster than you can draw transmutation circles. ACen itself…
Heaven or Helles: Death Parade
The series Death Parade centers around the lives and work of Arbiters, whose job it is to judge the recently deceased souls and determine those souls’ ultimate fate. The method that the Arbiters use to achieve this goal involves pitting two souls against each other in various games in an attempt to elicit desperate emotions…
Black & Wit: TekkonKinkreet
For this month’s Anime Round Table, we watched Tekkonkinkreet, the tale of two orphan brothers, Kuro and Shiro, who are living on the streets of the dream-like Treasure Town whilst fighting against the Yakuza, possible aliens, and ultimately the inner workings of their own minds. Kuro, whose name literally translates to “Black”, is the older…
Cowboy Beerhop
Welcome to our new column OTP where we combine anime with amazing things! AnimeChicago member Jeremy P. has an exquisite palette for great beer and great anime. Here are his recommendations on what you should drink while watching our January Round Table selection. Cowboy Bebop is such a deep and vast series that to pin one particular style or theme is definitely difficult, if not downright impossible. So…
Announcing – Chicago Premiere of Princess Kaguya
AnimeChicago is packing the house for the the premiere of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya at the Siskel Film Center. We will be attending the 7:45pm screening on December 5th. So far, the film has a 100% critic rating from nearly 50 reviewers according to Rotten Tomatoes. Help Chicago’s anime fans out! The Chicago release was pushed back a…
Nakama Toys
AnimeChicago’s Interview series highlights local organization leaders, artists and personalities. We’re chatting Mary Warren, one-half of Nakama Toys, Chicago’s newest toy store featuring anime, video game, kaiju, vinyl, gashapon, and other exclusive collectables from Japan. AC: Who is part of the team?MW: Husband and wife team Mary and Bryan Warren, the head honcho’s, the big cheeses, and toy…
Call for Attack on Titan Cosplayers!
Local studio Seth Deming Films is producing a live-action short. They’re big fans of the series and want to feature local Attack on Titan cosplayers in their film. The test shots in their YouTube pitch video look amazing! So if you’re interested in this project or know a cosplayer who might be, contact them via Twitter or Facebook as soon as possible.
Alternative Manga Panel Guide
“…in terms of popularity and sales, manga in America can be divided into Naruto and everything else. Aren’t most comics “alternative” to most of America? So what the hell. For the purposes of this post, the manga under discussion are Awesome Manga, all the titles that are too smart, too weird and/or too old for…
AnimeChicago at Anime Central 2014
AnimeChicago will be making waves at this year’s Anime Central, where multiple board members will be hosting panel discussions all weekend. Join AnimeChicago at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, May 16th-18th, to discuss Japanese culture, hang out, and have fun! On Friday, May 16th Ruben will be hosting two panels, Visions in Motion: Auteur Theory in…