Anime fan Richard Kim told people at his Friday panel that he really, really wanted to get a UFO catcher doll out of a Japanese machine - and he finally got it, after several hours and spending...well, let's just say that Kim likes anime and manga enough to have lived in Japan three times, making a living as a teacher and squirreling away enough money to be able to buy bargain-rate used manga from Japan's many used comics stores. Kim said determined fans can fly to Japan for several hundred dollars during the off-peak travel season, or get a teaching job through the JET program. Once there, expect expenses to be high and living quarters to be cramped, but be ready to live in a fan's dream world where items inaccessible in the U.S. are easily available. 

Listening to Kim's presentation was Fred Perry, the Gold Digger artist, glad to get to Katsucon after a stint at Anime Weekend Atlanta III.

Kuni Kimura told the story of how he and Steven Bennett arrived at the name for their Studio Ironcat publishing house; they came upon a piece of Japanese artwork named "Ironcat" and borrowed the name. Bennett, a Civil War buff, wanted to name the studio after a figure from the 1860's but was outvoted, so to speak.

Colleen Doran, one of the leading women in American comic art, said she was moving toward the manga style for ten years, and didn't know it. Her first view of a carefully-crafted manga story was a revelation: "This is what I've always wanted all my life, it's so beautiful and American comics are so ugly," she said. Doran acknowledged that most manga is not top-rate, but she also said she has tired of the grim-and-gritty trend in American superhero comics, flawed copies of The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller's reinvention of Batman. "You get 37 million yahoos who don't understand what Frank Miller was doing," said Doran.

Animeigo has been at the forefront of bringing anime to American audiences, and Robert Woodhead has been at the helm of the North Carolina company. His efforts have been so successful that Animeigo faces stiffer competition in bringing Japanese titles to the U.S. Still, Woodhead perserveres. At Katsucon, he spoke of looking at the Detective Conan,Lupin, Bubble Gum Crisis television and new AD Police series, along with live-action non-samurai films from Japan. On the seemingly endess sub-versus-dub controversy, "That's an accessibility issue. the last thing a video rental store wants is for a person to pick up a tape and say `That looks interesting...it's subtitled...uh?'" Woodhead said Animeigo would continue to make both subtitled and dubbed versions of its anime properties.