AnimeIowa 2000 If this document appears improperly formatted, you're looking at the same one I am. Events: *White Lightning Productions industry panel: The trials and tribulations of being a small comics press... Very few of which I remember in detail. @_@ Afterwards a couple of us stuck around and got to play the card game in semi-production, "Henshin! I'm a Magical Girl!". Lots of fun. ^_^ (Obligatory Plug: Artists, get paid for drawing art for Henshin! I'm a Magical Girl, and bring closer the day when I can play it again!) After that we played a round of "Sakura", a romantic comedy parody card game which Kris had just put together about a week (I think) before AnimeIowa... I was one of the first two playtesters. ^-^ *Had brocoli, carrots, and potato chips for dinner. Note for next convention - if expecting to be at the con until midnight, get some dinner beforehand... *First thing next day was "Drawing in an Anime Style", run by Robert DeJesus. The program book describes him as "Disgustingly Good Artist", and it's definitely accurate. He is GOOD. He did a drawing to show how to draw a female face, was using marker so everybody could see, which means no erasing the guidlines... and it's still a /really/ cute picture. Lots of techniques and tips I never would have thought of... Hopefully I'll be able to work some of this into my own attempts at fanart. *Fanfic panel: @_@ It was interesting, but I remember next to nothing of it. ^_^;;; There was a funny little Slayers mini-fanfic by Kris Overstreet.... A summary could never do it justice, so hope that he gets it typed up! ^_^ (Or makes a recording... The vocal effects were fun. ^-^ ) *Art of Cosplay: This was alternating encouragement and discouragement... Showed some nice cosplay pictures from other cons, talked about different ways of doing costumes and just the general idea of cosplay, as well as things to watch for making a costume... *Is now considering a cosplay idea for next years AnimeIowa... ^-^ * Cosplay... gets it's own section in the report. ^-^ Ran around frantically trying to get photographs of all the cosplayers I liked. ^_^ Covered half the con looking for the girl cosplaying as Fuu (a different one from the one at the Studio Ironcat table). Went back to my motel and ate the leftover half of a spicy italian sub, surprisingly good after having been squashed around in my bag for a few hours. ^_^; Sunday... Mainly did a lot more looking around in the dealers room (and often wished for more money), played another game of Sakura (with a winning harem for "The Unlucky Guy" that Kris seemed to find rather disturbing...), and watched more anime. Left at 4 after they kicked everyone out of the video rooms so they could start cleaning up. (Lots of jeers from people who wanted to see the rest of the Ranma OAVs.) === Cosplay: Oh wow. *_* This probably isn't the first cosplay I've been around, but it's the first one I actually cared about... and it was incredible. This alone made going worthwhile for me... Now for some random mentions... The first cosplayer I saw was at the Studio Ironcat table in the DR, dressed as Umi (Magic Knight Rayearth). I'm pretty shy at the best of times, and since I wasn't sure what the ettiquette was about taking pictures I was even more nervous... But when I finally did ask her, she was very nice and explained how things worked. She had a very nice costume too... though I almost think she would have looked better with her natural hair than the wig... Should have gotten a picture of her that way too. ^_^;;; More at Studio Ironcat... Hikaru, Fuu, Belldandy, and Lina Inverse (well I think Bell and Lina were at SI...) A girl in the video rooms dressed as someone whose name I don't remember from X... *Knows someone who will really want to see that picture ^-^ *). Catsuit Sakura... *_* There was also a Tomoyo in the cosplay saturday night... Who I didn't get a picture of. ;.; A sizable portion of the FF8 crew... No Quistis though. Washuu, complete with little mecha-Washuu on her shoulders saying "You're the greatest Washuu!" and such. Utena and Juri, doing a skit that I hope someone else has described somewhere, since I don't think I can do it justice... Five Magic Knights, Four Sailor Senshi, Three Duelists, Two Ifuritas, and One Underdressed Catgirl! === Video rooms: Annoyingly, the way other things scheduled the thing I ended up watching the most of was Ranma 1/2... The series I've already seen the most of. Still, there was some interesting stuff... Ranma 1/2: What, you thought that was all my comments? Not by a long shot... Even though I've already read a lot of the manga, the anime still adds a lot of fun stuff (the chem club with their land mines... which they later set off themselves... comes to mind). The added stuff may not have been in the original, but it works anyway. Ranma 1/2 OAVs: All of the above and more... There are some great moments if you're a Ranma/Akane fan in the first few. Of course, something happens to ruin it quickly (It /is/ Ranma 1/2 *sweatdrop*), but still nice. The first opening song is really good (a favorite now for me), and has really nice animation to go with it. Animation with an incredibly yummy looking Akane... <3_<3 Adolescense Mokushiroku: AKA The Utena Movie, or (as inspired by someone calling it AM), The Anthy Movie. ^-^ Various impressions... Ohtohori Academy: Washuu would be proud to have a lab like this, I'm sure of it... That architecture's got to defy at least a few laws of physics... Juri: Pretty. ^-^ Wakaba: Is it just me, or is her chest a lot bigger this time around? Utena: You thought the yuri was blatent in the series? Even more so in the movie. I approve. ^_~ Anthy: *Eyes shine with lust* Overall: o_O Huh? ... Any more than that will have to wait until I get this put up on a web page and can put in a spoilery subpage... Legend of Basara: Watched a few episodes of this to fill in time between a panel and the Anthy Movie... picked it mainly because it was in the same room. Doesn't look like the kind of thing I usually like at first glance, which is why I was a bit surprised to find myself liking it quite a bit. Coming in during the middle of episode 9 made things a little confusing, but it still worked. There were a few things that bothered me though... but I'll save those for a later spoilerpage. And last but not least... it was around 11pm saturday, , I had nothing in particular to do, but didn't feel like going back to the motel yet, so I wandered around a bit, looked into video room 3, and said to myself "What the heck is /this/?" The 'this' in question being... D4 Princess. I had a spare hour, caught about 6 episodes... No, that doesn't mean I ended up staying 3 hours or so, the episodes are 10 minutes each. This has got to be one of the silliest, most insane anime I've ever seen. I don't feel up to describing it, so I'll let this site do some of it for me... http://www.odysseyanime.com/D4P.html [This is apparently where the fansubs are available as well...] Doris is called the "Drill Princess". The princess part probably has to do with her social position (part of a family so rich that she can live 13 years without learning about money), and the drill part coming from that in her panzer form she has a drill... on her head... *Looks up at all he's written* Gee, can you tell I like this series? ^_^ === The Loot: Four cel work portfolios: Experiment 45-EEE (Washuu gives various anime females breast growth hormones o_O) Half-Crazed (Various Ranma 1/2) The Other Half (More Ranma 1/2) Natsu Yatsumi ("A print portfolio of cels from Summer '96") Collected Ninja High School, Volume 11 The Dirty Pair Book 3 : A Plague of Angels (I didn't think uniforms skimpier than the ones in Original Dirty Pair were possible o_O ) Cream & Sugar #1-3 ( h_H ) The Magnificent Milkmaid #1 ( O_O h_H ) Under the Rose (A... Nadesico??? ... doujinshi. Kawaii but confusing... and who's that guy getting in the way of the yuri scenes?) Not Ninja High School, Special Edition, No. 1 Vol. 1 1998 Edition (No, I'm not sure how many of those make this actually different from anything else either...) Geobreeders Book One: Phantom Patrol - Learning to Love the New Job (Sugoi!) Waky Tabaky, Issues 1 and 2 ("Alternative Japanophile Magazine".) Adolf: A Tale of the Twentieth Century (First time I've ever seen a hardcover graphic novel...) Seraphic Feather, Volumes 1 and 2 (Covers make it look like it ought to be a hentai. It's not... I think...) Posters (Which will be described more... later.) Cutey Honey model (A little plastic thing that originally cost about 200 yen, comes with some rather dubious looking candy...Not really too bad looking, though I'd rather have the one of her redheaded form.) Two boxes of chocolate Pocky 1 box of Topo (Which apears to be something like inside out pocky...) Cutey Honey t-shirt (Has not actuallly arrived yet... ^_^;;; ) === Well, I could probably say some more, but I want to get this thing out now... Beware the improved version when I get around to looking for webspace! ^v^ -Eterna, the self-appointed Avatar of Confusion. "You know here's how it goes - you and me we'd meet on the street and then I'd say "outa my way!" I don't know how you can confuse me so But hey maybe today with the waves so blue, I can be true to you Who knows? Maybe I'll say the word "love"...!?" -"Love Panic", _Ranma 1/2_