Right up to about 4pm Friday, I wasn't sure I was going to go to
AnimeIowa.  Originally I was going to meet a friend there, but he was
unable to attend.  So I would be going knowing no one.  Finally, I kinda
said "What the heck - what else you gonna do this weekend?"  So I threw
together a suitcase.  I almost left without directions - just that it
was in Iowa City.  Fortunately I remembered, and printed the AnimeIowa
web page - "Highlander Inn, Exit 244, I80."

Hopped in the car and made the 5 1/2 hour drive to Iowa City.  Driving
through Iowa, I looked up and was part of a rainbow.  Having grown up in
Portland, Oregon, I saw rainbows all the time.  This was different,
though.  The sun was very low over the horizon and shining through some
clouds.  The result was that only about three degrees of the rainbow's
arc was visible.  Those three degrees were very bright, however.  I
spent a long time looking at the bright rainbow fragment while driving
down the highway, trying to figure out what it meant.  But, as one of my
friends once said, "Sometimes a rainbow is just a rainbow."

So about 10pm I roll into Iowa City and get off at exit 244.  I then
took a 45-minute tour of Iowa City (typical college town) looking for
the highlander.  Finally, I pulled into a Quickmart with very friendly
employees.  They pointed me off in the right direction - it turns out
the Highlander is off of exit 246.

I met another friendly Iowan at the Highlander check-in counter.  It
turns out that she, too, is a writer.  We had a pleasant discussion
about grammar and stuff.  Something my online friends and I argue about
all the time is "in the future" versus "in future".  She had never even
heard of the "in future" usage, and agreed with me that it sounded
unnatural.

Dumped the bag in the room and found that the con suite was almost
directly opposite my room.  They had the usual selection of junk food,
but they also had bananas and carrots.  I munched on a few of both.  The
salsa, however, was terrible.  Still, brownies points to the staff for
their well-balanced selection.

Wandered around, checked out the video rooms and the game room.  Not a
lot of attendees were evident.  I went back to my room, took a shower,
then went to watch some anime.  I didn't like Bastard - if you're
invincible, what's the point?  I only saw the very end of Plastic
Little, so I couldn't form an opinion, only that the bad guys conformed
to every "stupid evil bad guy" syndrome I've ever heard of.  "I could
kill you know, but let me gloat for a while until you find a way to beat
me."

Back to the con suite.  Ate more fruit, talked about writing and high
explosives.  (Don't try to open up a Civil War canister with a drill
press.)

Enough.  Time for bed.

Woke up and went shopping!

I was honestly surprised by the selection for a first-time con.  I was
expecting lots of SM CD's and a few other knickknacks.  There were,
indeed, many SM CD's, but there was a decent selection of legitimate
CD's as well.  And there was tons of manga, merchandise, all sorts of
stuff.  A good turnout.

Now, I went down to AnimeIowa in a Robotech mood.  I've been working on
a Robotech fanfic, and it's raised all sorts of nostalgia for me. 
Robotech meant a lot to me in college.  I read all the McKinney books
and everything.  It was the discovery that behind Robotech was something
called Macross that got me into anime in the first place.

So I picked up some 1986 Robotech trading cards, some Macross
Illustrations, and Perfect Collection #8.  I also picked up some Video
Girl Ai tankoban, and some Masion Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2 Graphic Novels,
as well as one of the Ranma 1/2 tankoban I was missing.

I met Enrique Conty there, who was doing a good job of enthusiastically
promoting Anime Central, which I pre-registered for.  It sounds like
Anime Central will be an excellent con - I'm very much looking forward
to it.

Went back to my room and looked through my trading cards - I got 35
originals.  25 to go if I want the whole set.  I also looked at the
illustrations, which got me all oogy inside.  They reminded me strongly
of all I love in Robotech.  <sigh>

Went to the Anime Club meeting.  Here was where all of the clubs who
came to AnimeIowa met to exchange ideas.  I was vaguely interested in
starting one in Minnesota, and was surprised to find other Minnesotans
there as well.  We adjourned and talked about what we would need to do
to form a club.  I have high hopes.  Kudos to AnimeIowa for getting us
together.  :)

Found a Mickey D's for lunch - read one of my MI graphic novels while
eating.

Went back to the con and watched All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku
Nuku.  Never mind that I've seen it a dozen times and have written five
fanfics about Nuku Nuku - it's still a pleasure to see.  And it was
especially nice to share that feeling with other people, who seemed to
like it too.

Went to my room to leaf through my VGAi tankoban (really have to learn
to read Japanese one day) while watching Florida vs. Tennessee.  I was
rooting for Manning, so the result was disappointing.

I then wandered over to the gaming room and discovered - Macross!  A
Japanese game for the Sega Saturn.  I played it for a while.  The
gameplay wasn't the best, but the cutscenes were awesome.  Now I have to
buy a Japanese Sega (or an American one and mutilate it) and the game. 
And learn Japanese so I can read what Lisa (er, Misa) is saying to me.

I was one of the first to arrive at the Guest of Honor banquet.  By pure
coincidence, more Minnesotans were at my table.  We talked a lot about
anime (half the fun of convention is just being able to talk in real
life about your passion for the genre).

The food was *great*.  Among the best of these kind of banquets I've
ever been to.  Except for the onion rings.

So then the phenomenon known as Steve Bennett (of Studio Ironcat) took
over the mike.  He was very enthusiastic about the con, talking about
his initial fears of hicks, twisters, UFO's, and children of the corn
were quickly put to rest.  He was also afraid that the convention would
be very small, but he would have been determined that "all five of the
attendees would have a good time".  Fortunately, there were many times
that number in attendance.  He called AnimeIowa a microcosm of the
bigger, more experienced cons to be found elsewhere.  He also saw Studio
Ironcat stuff in a comic book store for the first time - and it was in
Iowa City.  He was *very* excited about that.

He told a funny sexual preference story.  Ask him.  :)

I ducked out a little early because I wanted to see "They Were Eleven". 
A cute story.  Hilarious food fight.

The cosplay was a little late in getting started, leaving attendees
milling about the lobby for about fifteen minutes.  All of the seats
were quickly taken, but it wasn't crowded or hot like other cosplays
I've seen.  The stage was easily viewable from everywhere.  There *is*
an advantage to not having thousands of attendees.  :)

And the first costume was - Rick Hunter!  I was completely floored - I
was already in a major Robotech mood, and this was a sign from the gods
that I was blessed in coming.  Or those are the thoughts that flitted
through my mind, anyway.  The costume was very good, too.

There was a ten-year-old Sailor Moon.  I tell you, natural hair doing
the meatball thing looks a lot better than any wig.  It didn't go down
to her ankles, of course, but it was still a great costume.

The third contestant pulled a gun on the judges.  He was followed by two
Ranmas (one of either gender), a Generic Bad Guy(tm), and an
eight-year-old Super Sailor Moon - her costume was *very* nice.  More of
the natural hair thing, too.  Then there was a Kasumi somebody (not
Tendo).  And, finally, Ayeka and a floating log.  These were very
elaborate costumes, and very well done.

Everyone got a prize, and Ayeka won the best of show award.

While we were waiting for the judges, the MC (who was also from
Minnesota) asked the audience how many of them were at their first anime
convention.  A good 80% of the audience raised their hands.  This just
goes to show how what a potential market there is for conventions in the
Midwest.  You folks in California, Texas, and the East Coast don't know
how lucky you are.  Fortunately, Anime Central is also coming to provide
some relief.

The audience also did a good job of the Jeopardy theme to encourage
haste on the part of the judges.

After the cosplay I went to the Game Room Fighting Contest.  This turned
out to be much less interesting to watch than I had hoped.  I went to
the dance, but nobody was there.

Finally, I went to go watch Video Girl Ai.  I'd seen it once, a long
time ago.  I enjoyed the chance to watch it again.  There was a large
audience for it, too.  They stayed the whole three hours (until 2:30am)
to see all six OAV's.  The room was very cold - people were using
blankets.  I suffered in my short-sleeved shirt.  This is an awkward
time in the Midwest, where it can be hot and humid in the day and drop
like a rock at night.  Anyway, the audience seemed to really like Video
Girl Ai, even if they mostly seemed as disappointed in the point chosen
as the ending as I was.  (Sorry for the grammatically twisted sentence
there.)

I went to the con suite, where Stephen Bennett was holding sway.  We had
a fascinating, thought-provoking discussion.  He talked easily with
everyone in the con suite, and provided some insight into a lot of
things.  I left with a lot to think about.

I finally went to bed about 4:30am.

Got up and checked out at 10am.  I was torn between two events - a
discussion of the ethics of fansubbing, and episodes 44-46 of Sailor
Moon.  Perhaps fortunately, no one showed up for the fansub debate, so
the choice was made for me.  Episodes 44-46 are the climax to the first
season, which DIC abridged in its dub.  Here was the complete story,
with honest-to-goodness death scenes.  Everything made a lot more sense,
especially the battle between the Senshi and the DD Girls.  The ending
was nice, too.  However, one thing I think the dub did much better was
choose the appropriate background music for the climactic battle between
Beryl and Sailor Moon.  "The Strength to Carry On" just rocks, and is
the perfect music for the scene.  "Moonlight Densetsu" just doesn't cut
it.  It's a great opening song, but not so good for a tense, climactic
battle.  There were a lot of people watching these episodes, reaffirming
my belief that magical girl shows are as popular as any other form of
anime.

I took one last look through the dealer's room, but found nothing else I
wanted.  Actually, there were several Macross CD's I would have liked to
have owned if only they'd been pressed by someone other than SM.  I went
to the game room again and found people playing the Macross game.  They
had gotten further than I had in my fifteen minutes of frantic gameplay,
so there were seeing cutscenes I hadn't seen before.  I recognized them
as being lifted from Macross: Do You Remember Love.  It was neat to see
them digitized.

I decided to leave on that note.  While I wanted to stay for the
screening of Macross:DYRL, it's a five hour drive to the Twin Cities and
I wanted to get home before dark.

AnimeIowa was a great convention.  For a first-time con, they did a
simply fantastic job.  It was great to see people from my region sharing
the same passion I do.  There were very few glitches, and the staff was
professional, courteous, and responsive.  The only thing I might
complain about is that sometimes there wasn't a lot to do.  If you
didn't like what was playing in the viewing rooms and didn't want to
play console games or go to the dealer's room, you were kinda stuck
sometimes.  I'm sure as word of this well-run con spreads, they'll get
more people offering to do programming and have a much better selection
next year.  The viewing rooms were great, with easily-seen projection
screens and everything on time.  I'd like to see more new stuff in the
programming (I was kind of hoping to see the Shin KOR movie, for
example), but again I imagine this will get better next year.

AnimeIowa was a fulfilling experience for me.  I'm glad I decided to
go.  If they do this well on their first try, I can't wait to see what
it's like next year, or the year after.  Folks, mark it on your calendar
now - go to AnimeIowa '98.  I hope to see you there.

-Richard
-Now watching Robotech