Anime Iowa: 2001


MOCHI > The Scrapbook > Convention Memories > Anime Iowa > 2001

For most of Saturday, the members of MOCHI were scattered across the convention. Between bouts of finishing up work on a costume for the masquerade, Daifuku Mochi came down to moderate a panel and prowl the dealer's room. Sugar Bomb also did costume work while fighting off a cold. Spiky Mochi was still MIA at work. Toasted Mochi was channeling his Energizer Bunny powers to juggle panels, video rooms, and several friends (making sure they had fun at their Very First Convention).

For the first time, the other members of MOCHI had a fairly easy time finding Toasted Mochi. Since he was being a "mother hen" to the volunteers manning the video rooms, he had a pretty clear "orbit" around the convention. Branching out from the main "nerve center", he could be found walking around the main registration area, main programming, the atrium, or one of the panel rooms -- with the very occasional "escape" to the con suite.

The con suite was up on the seventh floor, close to the elevators. There was the usual array of convention food and goodies: plenty of sugar and caffeine to, er, help you get through experiences like watching Digi Charat at an ungodly hour of the morning. Over the course of the weekend, there was even some okonomiyaki to be found. Okonomiyaki are basically savoury (not-sweet) pancakes that started out in the Osaka region. The batter is mixed with diced / shredded vegetables and other goodies (like shrimp, pork, or octopus), then fried up on a griddle. [There's a okonomiyaki recipie in the Anime Iowa cookbook too! - Toasted]

During our wanderings, we stopped up at MOCHI's temporary H.Q. to see if there were any messages from Spiky. Sadly, things had not gone smoothly and he was due back in to work on Sunday morning.

To take our minds off of Spiky's misfortunes, we stopped by the art auction. Items in the art show that had received several offers would go up for auction. There was nice selection of pieces this year. One popular one was an anime spoof of a famous painting.

Afterwards, a contingent of MOCHI went to see the pinata raffle. Daifuku wouldn't let us put up any pictures of the actual event, but we did sneak in one of the aftermath. The Pink One was surprisingly tough: it took a tire iron to -- [Daifuku glares.] -- er, nevermind.

Since several members of MOCHI were more involved with helping out with the convention, we fielded a small entry for cosplay: the Empress Azalyn and her "Imperial Pet", Paco Paco from Irresponsible Captain Tylor. There was a brief last-minute rewrite of the skit since Spiky Mochi wasn't going to be around to reprise his role as a "Stage Ninja". Toasted Mochi was going to be busy helping out backstage.

The return to the Collins also meant a return to having a "green room": a place for the cosplayers to sit down and hang out before going on-stage. It was nice to be able to sit down while we waited for the masquerade to get underway. It was really nice to have things like a full-length mirror and access to a repair kit.

This year's judging line-up was a bit different. They chose one "pro" (Steve Bennett), one costumer (Elizabeth Sloane), and one "fan" (Kevin Lillard). We thought that it worked out to be a pretty good mix. Elizabeth has a good eye for the kind of craftsmanship and hard work that can get glossed over because it's not obviously impressive. Kevin is one fan who has seen a lot of costumes .... And Steve has been a judge at Anime Iowa so often that he is practically an AI tradition all by himself!

Several entries were ones that we had seen earlier in the year, like the large Lodoss group (that eventually took best in show). A dancing Moogle (from Final Fantasy), that had been sighted at Anime Central, also waltzed away with a prize. There were also some beautiful costumes that we hadn't seen before. Daifuku's favorite was a pair from Inu-Yasha: Inu-Yasha and Kagome.

Although the masquerade got started much later than planned, the short time limit on skits meant that we all got out at a decent hour. [Yay! - Sugar Bomb] Toasted Mochi was unable to resist the gravitational pull of the video rooms and soon settled back into his orbit.

There was no Spiky Mochi at the masquerade or waiting for us back in the room.

[Day Two]