A typical convention trip for the author leaves no time to rest. AnimeIowa isn't typical. The author arrived at the Collins Plaza Hotel after six hours on the road, checked into his room, looked around, went to the hotel restaurant and ate breakfast, looked around some more, saw there was a high-speed Internet port in his room, drove down the street to an office supply store and bought an Ethernet cart for his laptop, went back to his room, installed the card, got the high-speed access up and running, looked around some more and took a few pictures, then crawled on top of the big bed in his hotel room and took a nap. When he woke up there were still two hours to go before opening ceremonies.

During the same time at Otakon, the author had taken several hundred pictures of costumers and missed dozens more. AnimeIowa was so small and peaceful that there was less to miss and time to relax. That's why one prominent fan (hint, he carries a spatula) said he skipped Otakon in favor of AnimeIowa.

The trip came a week after the author put his car in a friend's repair shop for some work. It was the first time the author needed to get a steering wheel replaced, although it wasn't as bad as it seemed. And it was a used wheel from a car with a burned out engine; the friend said it previously had been driven by "Little Jimmy." At least Jimmy's old mirror and hubcaps were in good shape. 

The author usually drives on I-74 to get to AnimeIowa. He couldn't tell this year because he didn't see the highway for the first three hours of the trip; the fog was that bad. After a while, the author let common sense take over and he fell in line behind a bunch of trucks and let them punch their way through the grey stuff. Although traffic seemed a little odd west of Bloomington, Ill. on Friday morning. The author didn't learn until after he got to the convention that workers at the big Mitsubishi auto factory in Illinois had gone on strike around the same time he had driven past the road leading to the plant.

The fog didn't slow the author very much, the accompanying rain didn't cause any flooding along the Mississippi River, and the author was able to get to Iowa on time.

However, the author still hasn't gotten to What Cheer yet. Instead of traveling to the unusually-named Iowa farm town, he turned right at Iowa City and drove to Cedar Rapids for his third trip to AnimeIowa.

The 800 or so who live in What Cheer was less than number of people who showed up for AnimeIowa, just short of 900 through Saturday, after which the author had to hit the road for home.

The author was one month too late for the Walcott Truckers Jamboree at the Iowa 80 Truckstop. Don't laugh; the mid-July gathering of truck drivers and antique trucks drew three times as many people as Otakon.

And while this site calls attention to Iowa's rural and rustic background and how that makes a jarring contrast to an anime convention, Iowans do the same thing - but they do it even more blatantly in public. And they do it with one of the most beloved graphic icons in the state's history.

At the same time that AnimeIowa was underway, Cedar Rapids was flooded with sculptures based on the famed "American Gothic" painting by Grant Wood. But what made the "Overalls All Over" program closer to cosplay than to high art was that the sculptures were wildly decorated by area artists. One pair was wearing do-rags and biker leathers, another pair was wearing baseball and hockey uniforms, and yet another pair as a mermaid and a fisherman. And we're certain that Iowans preferred the sculptures dressed as Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty to the pair that was blue and naked.

(Baltimore had been decorated with fish sculptures when the author spent most of the Otakon weekend there earlier in the month.)

AnimeIowa fans had to pull out all the cosplay stops to outdo that art display, and they did. And the author was involved in a way he really didn't expect.

This convention trip placed the author in an unusual spot. The start of the adventure came with an E-mail message in late July. "AnimeIowa has decided to shift this year from just having the guests of honor do the Cosplay judging, changing our panel to one guest/pro, one costumer, and one fan.  If you'd be willing, we'd love to have you be our first-ever fan judge."

Wanting to always be seen as a nice guy, the author accepted. It wasn't until a couple of hours later that reality set in. Being a judge of any kind means being impartial, but the author has lots of cosplaying friends who attend AnimeIowa. How could the author be fair to everyone and make them happy, especially after hearing some of those friends complain about judges' decisions at previous costume contests?

The author had a plan. He stopped at an office supply store and bought some stationery, then hauled a printer with him to Cedar Rapids. After judging the costume contest, he would quickly print the winners' names on the stationery, seal the results in envelopes and gave them to the master of ceremonies. All for the sake of showmanship, of course.

The author was slower at the process than he wanted, but it worked, more or less. The judging took less time than the printing, and  the author made some errors on the certificates (he actually misspelled some of the Mochi entrants' names.

As for the judges' decisions, visitors to this site have a right to know the reasons for the selection of the winners. The Lodoss War group, which had been seen earlier in the season at Anime Central, just had the best combination of stage presence and costuming. Steve Bennett enjoyed an unexpected rendition of his Ironcat characters. 

While the males in the Neon Genesis Evangelion group basically didn't have any costumes, the female made up for it with a perfect Rei Ayanami school outfit. complete with red contact lenses. There's an interesting story behind that costume; the girl who made it said that she put the dress and blouse together in one day, which is a remarkable achievement.

The author's choice for his award went not so much to the Dejiko costumer as to the girl who made a Lain Iwakura outfit that the author has never seen at a convention, the sweater and cap that Lain wears during the title sequence. The costumer got the look of the cap just right, adapting it for a differently-shaped human head so it looked just like the animated character's outfit.

There could have been a half-dozen other entries that got honorable mentions, but AnimeIowa prefers to have a limited number of awards and a fast-paced costume contest. The stage presentations took 40 minutes and the judging and printing took 32 minutes (and the printing was the slowest part of that).

And then, after feeling good about what seemed to be a job well done, the author made a fool out of himself by losing the plastic bag that contained the memory cards that held the costume contest images. Fortunately, AnimeIowa staff bailed out the author and recovered the bag from exactly the place where the author had left it.

So it's time to pack all this stuff away (the author looks at his hotel room and wonders how that gear ever fit in three bags and a box) and get back on the road for home, from which the author has some very, very strange plans for the end of September...