MOCHI > The Scrapbook > Convention Memories > Anime Iowa > 1998

Anime Iowa 1998 capped our first year of cosplay. Whew! Things were a bit odd for us. First, this was our first smaller convention: after something the size of Anime Expo, it was quite an experience going to a show where you could expect to see everything without going full-tilt 24 hours. Second, Toasted Mochi had to leave early to catch a flight back home for a family reunion and Spiky Mochi got rerouted before he could drive down to meet us for the masquerade, so there were some last minute revisions to our entry. but it was enough fun that we decided to inflict ourselves on -- uh, visit Anime Iowa again.

It was enough fun that we can't remember enough to do our regular per-day writeup. [WHAT?! Is there something that you guys didn't tell me about?! - Spiky Mochi] (Just joking!) Really: with it being the last convention and all, we were way too tuckered out to write anything down and our memories just aren't what they used to be ....

General impressions of the convention

The Highland Hotel was somewhat "tucked away": other than a gas station down the hill, there wasn't all that much within easy walking distance. (Admittedly, we found some interesting gurana bean + caffeine + major sugar kick drinks at the gas station, but we shall leave the, uh, chemical experimentation notes aside for the moment.) Having missed Anime Iowa 97, we weren't sure how much growth there was, but there was enough growth that some con attendees had to go to an overflow hotel.

The main video room (the one with the huge display screen) showed quite a variety of shows. One of the things that surprised us was that there were more titles shown here than at some of the larger conventions we'd been to! Forevermore, Anime Iowa will be credited (or blamed, depending on which side you take) for sparking our interest in Crayon Shin-chan. We'd never seen anything quite like it before, either in its art style (cruder than we expected) or like its protagonist (which was also cruder than we expected). *sweatdrop* Daifuku Mochi would watch a scene unfold, gasp as she read the subtitle, and turn to Toasted Mochi, saying "He didn't really say / do that, did he?" Where Toasted would reply, "Actually, he was even ruder than you think."

We also attended the cosplay panel, run by Catherine Schaff-Stump and Elizabeth Sloane. Both of them have a great deal of experience with anime, SF, fantasy, and comic costuming -- and, from that vantage, had a lot of good advice about how to pace yourself and your expectations. [Daifuku pre-emptively waves her mallet before any of the others can comment.] We explicitly blame them for adding more fuel to our cosplaying flame and encouraging us to continue exploring this part of fandom.

The masquerade itself was a short and sweet affair. Afterwards, the innaugural pinata (this year it was P-chan, from Ranma 1/2) was whisked away to the swimming pool area to meet its doom. A few swift strikes of the bokken and ... well, you get the idea.

This was also Sugar Bomb's first convention with his new auto-focus camera. We took plenty of pictures during the masquerade, but let's just say that this was a learning experience and most of those people might come after us with pitchforks and knives if we posted all the photos that managed to come out.

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