Anime Iowa!

Wow, Anime Iowa. Almost didn’t make it this year, and this time I went on Friday. I should have just gone on Saturday like I did last time. Ah well. Spent way too much money and way too much time goofing off. At least last time I saw way more anime. Then again, it seemed like I didn’t like any of the anime they were showing this time.

Lesse, let’s take this on a day by day basis.

Friday:

Drove there starting around 5pm. Got into Cedar Rapids around 6:30. I then started looking at shoe stores to find some shoes that would look good with my black slacks and the flame shirt I got at Hot Topic. I ended up buying some Dr. Martin’s. They’re nice, but a tad on the uncomfortable side for $140 shoes. I hear they’ll loosen up. If they don’t, it’s back to the store for them. If I’m spending that much on anything, it had better damn well not inconvenience me. ^_^

Got to the CON around 7:15. Registered for all 3 days, ‘cause it was cheaper that way. Called Rob Hansen to tell him about the CON to see if he wanted to hang out there with me, and wandered around the dealer room for a little while as I waited. I looked everywhere, but I could not find the damn Battle Angel wall scroll. I will own that damn thing if it kills me! Gah.

As it turned out, Rob couldn’t afford to stay, so we just went to Chilies for something to eat, and rented some stuff at Blockbuster after we found out that 11pm showings don’t seem to exist at the Windsong. Bastards. We rented some pretty blah anime, Kiss of the Dragon w/Jet Lee, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (as Rob hasn’t seen it before.) We ended up watching Jay and Silent Bob that night, and I went to bed around 2am.

Saturday:

Long, long day. I went to the art room, and found, to my extreme pleasure that not only was there an awesome artist there, but that I found a couple of her pieces that I wanted. The artist’s name is Kitsune, and I’ll have to go to her website and look around a bit. I might have to commission something from her, knowing now how good she is. I mean, wow. I ended up paying a large amount of money for one of her pieces, but more about that later.

Spent some time gabbin’ with the artists in “Artists Row”. Found a couple of good webcomics I’ve never heard of before, but look good. Then while in the dealer room, I talked to a couple people selling “$2 comics!”. One of them, Bad Moon by Iberium Studios, was very good. The storyline is one of those “Aliens take over the world from the inside” things, but the art is good. I’ll give it a chance. ^_^ I spent a while watching Anime. Nothing really stood out in my mind, which is sad… it all used to make such an impression on me. Or maybe they just picked blah filler anime for the spots I managed to actually watch. I didn’t watch the Cosplay, ‘cause I ran into Chris there (as I expected.) We ate really quick at the mall, and then watched some anime composed entirely of 10 minute shorts. I mean… 10 minute shorts. 26 of them. That’s the whole series.

I did, however, wait until the cosplay was over to watch the aftermath. That was fun. I almost want to say you’ve never lived until you’ve seen a 6'4" guy walking around in high-heels and a Sailor Moon outfit. I almost died laughing. I sat down to rest (on a chair that didn’t make my ass feel like someone with a lead pipe was beating me like a pinata, like the chairs in the screening rooms) where I had a good vantage point of all the amusing costumes. I talked to some really cool people I hope to run into in the future for a little under an hour, I’d guess, and then went to watch eX-Driver. Not a bad Anime, and one of the only memorable ones I’d seen the entire stay. Then I went back to Rob’s place and hit the sack.

Sunday:

Woke up, got ready, straight to the CON. I spent my morning until about 12:30 at the art auction. All of Kitsune’s stuff except for the piece with the little kids was there, and all of it went for at least $40. There were a couple of notable exceptions, mainly there were four that fetched over $70. The one that got best in show went for $85. I got mine for $110. Doh. ^_^ I just wish the little kid bastard didn’t bid it up that high. I figured it would go for about $60, and it would have, if he weren’t fighting me for it.
Grr.

But that’s not the scary part. There were a couple cell prints, one in particular was of Beldandy, Skuld, and Urd of Oh, My Goddess fame, and some dirty old man and another guy fought over it until it reached $235. Yikes. Score one for the dirty old man. Then one of the Kitsune’s I wanted went to another dirty old man for $48 ‘cause I didn’t want to keep pushing it higher like it probably would have gone. I’d already spent enough damn money thanks to the overanxious kid. My guess was that all of her stuff was in the $40 - $70 range, and if it weren’t for my abnormality, I would have been right. The fact the one I bought went for $110 says it was overvalued thanks to our rampant bidding. Doh. ^_^

Notable mentions from Kitsune’s stuff at the auction are: this one which just looked cool, this one which I let go for $45 because a kid asked me nicely not to outbid him. It was really good. She really does awsome work. This one got best in show and went for $85, and this one went to $75. Let me note, that not a single of her auctioned items went for less than $40, and over half of them went over $60. She is damn good, and I hope she brings it upon herself to go professional some day. I complain that I paid $110 for the one I bought, but I’m glad she’ll get the money. She deserves it.

I went to get some lunch, picked up my art and looked for Chris so I could show it to him, but he must have left ‘cause I couldn’t find him in any of the showing rooms, or wandering around. So I went back to Rob’s house, watched the rest of our videos, and came home. All in all, a successful trip, though a very expensive one. I’ll have to make sure I don’t do that again for a while. And next time, make sure I bring more money to that damn auction so I can get more than one thing, and not have to pay disgusting amounts of money for it.
Heh.

And that’s the tale of woe. Now I’m home, and it was a long weekend. I almost can’t wait to get back to work tomorrow.
Almost.