Because Mari Ijima made a concert appearance at the Japan Festival in Arlington Heights this year, it seems like a good time to look at the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series. Although slightly less popular in Japan than other mainstays such as Mobile Suit Gundam, Macross attained a cult following in the U.S. due…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
You can find part one of this craft beer adventure here. Osaka had showed me that Japan’s beer scene is not to be ignored, but my brief time in that city was not enough to capture even a glimpse into the overall craft beer culture of the country. Lucky for me, our trip had just…