 New faces at AnimeIowa started with Toshi Yoshida, the Viz Video producer who had never traveled to Iowa before and joked that he didn't know where Cedar Rapids was. Yoshida also said that the Friday event was the fastest opening ceremony he'd attended. |
 Also an Iowa newcomer was Shinpei Itoh, whose Miaka and Miyu characters from Hyper Dolls adorn the fans' three-day badges for the convention. Itoh was expected to talk about his new projects during the weekend. |
 More familiar to Iowa fans was Indiana artist Robert DeJesus, who has attended all of the AnimeIowa conventions. Before the opening ceremonies, DeJesus already had drawn his first commissions in the dealers' room. |
 Charles Piehl spent the afternoon scrambling with the volunteers who set up the main events room, then mentioned at the ceremony that AnimeIowa had around the same number of fans register in advance (427) as attended the entire convention in 1999. |
 Steve Bennett of Studio Ironcat greeted the fans and noted that neither of his parents would be on hand: his father has been ill and his mother stayed home in Virginia to care for him. Kevin Bennett's Steve's brother, traveled ahead to Hawaii for his wedding to Sachiko Uchida, scheduled for a couple of days after the convention. |
 We're going to be larger than we've ever been," said con chair Noel Burns. "We can't help that." The convention officials noted that they planned to move back to the Collins Plaza Hotel in the north end of Cedar Rapids for 2001. |
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