My favorite fan take on Iowa was the ~5 pages of doujin running with the 'They're normally-raised human girls with ship souls and they literally wear their gear' version of What The Fuck Do We Make Of This Canon...

...Where we find out that she's a former CalTech student who was closely involved in developing the US version of shipgirl 'tech'.

She only sounds like a dunce because she cracked her first book of Japanese study literally on the trip over to report for duty at whichever naval base.

(Also, she looks fantastic in buttoned-up flannel.)

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Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!