What was your schools anime club like? And Happy 4th of July!

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 06:45:49 UTC #1

First off! Happy 4th to everyone:)

To start: Our anime club was really unsocial. It was like held once a week in some art class.
Most times the students were either stoned or chilled back. Not much ever happened except maybe a quiz at one point. Quiz questions if I recall were mainly easy from mainstream stuff and the hard ones we're niche animes. A little party happened during the last week of class.
One of my buds ended taking a lot of cookies from a chick resulting our group to bail from the club.
(This was over 10 years ago) Most of the high school year, we mainly hanged by the library or ventured through a creek behind our school.

The latest pages for our work is also up! Feel free to check it out dudes! :3

rainbowolfe 2019-07-04 09:20:08 UTC #2

I had good times at my anime club, but man was it hell. I was the President, the Vice President, the Secretary, and the Accountant (the real VP, Sec, and Accountant were just figureheads T_T).
At minimum I'd organize an anime viewing every week at lunch. I made an Excel sheet that would let us randomly select an anime each week. Was also responsible for organizing activities for any school-wide club events...

lartianmartian1 2019-07-04 11:18:08 UTC #3

I didn't have an actual anime club until college. I hadn't even seen much anime up to that point, and even now! The one I was a member of is supposedly the largest of its kind on the east coast? That might've changed by now, it's been a while. They also host a con every year and it was the very first con (anime/manga, western comics, whatever) that I've ever been to. I was never on the E-Board. I didn't really have the time, or the devotion lol. I made some of my closest friends there, and also some of my least pleasant memories of the entire college experience. The college was majority male, so were most of the members, and a few of them (not all) were just straight up jerks. It was a mixed bag, but I'd likely join all over again. Meh

BobbyjoeX 2019-07-04 14:08:13 UTC #5

rather bad tbh, it wasnt really an anime club and then it morphed into strictly video games later on cause there was more of a majority of that crowd showing up

azzy-m 2019-07-04 14:19:02 UTC #6

We don't really have an anime club, sadly. Our clubs aren't set up by students, but rather the school/teachers.

Cavechan 2019-07-04 14:26:10 UTC #7

My school didn't have an anime club, but the library in the next town over had an anime club. They had a sound proof room there so we were able to be loud and obnoxious. We never watched anime there though, we just talked and had fun hanging out.

Then they decided to move us out of the sound proof room and into the actual library and got mad at us for not being quiet enough and eventually kicked us out. Gee, ya think?

But we made lots of friends there so we just did more hanging out at people's houses.

GesuGesu 2019-07-04 19:25:18 UTC #8

My high school had a sad anime club. Basically it kept dying and reviving every other year due to lack of members or people willing to start one up again.

In university, my anime club was GIGANTIC. 1000s of members, $1000s IN FUNDING. We had constant events and collaborations such as maid/cosplay cafes, valentines/halloween dances, booths at local anime conventions... Being a member gave us discounts at certain sponsor stores too like at hobby shops or anime shops. I ended up friends with the executive members for a certain year and I'm still friends with that group today.

As an alumni, I'm still welcome to drop by their anime viewings, artist hangout, board game night, dinners, movie hangouts, and karaoke sessions. I still have access to their public discord server and chat in it. The club now collaborates with other universities to make CROSSOVER UNIVERSITY ANIME CLUB EVENTS. My local weeb community is POWERFUL.

Kura 2019-07-04 20:04:00 UTC #9

The 'official' anime club in my high school was small and full of white dudes that wouldn't stop talking about the Japanese and Japanese culture and how ideal Japanese women were. It was really awkward and no one really wanted to join them. Most anime fans gathered outside of the club in a bunch of un-official ones depending on how we participate in the fandom, cosplayers, fanfic writers, fanartists, collectors, you get the idea.

The only time I associated with them was during some sporting event that was hosted in my city. There was cultural pavilions to represent different cultures or whatnot, I was put on the Japanese pavilion even though I wasn't Japanese cause "Asian, CLOSE ENOUGH" I guess, and had to teach guests how to make paper cranes.

Anyways, these fuking dudes from the anime club were also there in cosplay, and were always harassing me and the other Asian workers there if we were being too loud or lively, because Asians are supposed to be submissive and people come here to see REAL Japaneses Asians (which I was not because I'm not Japanese, just Asian) not the bastardized Canadian-Asians. They would constantly remind us that we needed to act mature and be respectful because we represent 'anime club name' and the 'Japanese Association of city name' who run the Japanese pavilion. Then they would go and fight each other with their foam swords in the crowd hitting people that got to close to them in the head cause I guess they were doing 'fight demonstrations' which... were not connected to any fighting styles of Japanese culture but fights from anime.............

We got paid in manga from the 'Japanese Association of city name' for helping out with the event, the members of the anime club took all the popular or well known titles. I ended up with a bunch of later volumes of some old manga called 'Akachan to Boku' because none of them knew what the hell it was and therefor didn't want it.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 21:27:53 UTC #10

That brings back memories. My school had a video game club, but it only lasted 3 months. Due to theft the club leaders had to shut it down. It was sad to see it go, but someone had to ruin it for everyone.

Wumbl 2019-07-04 21:36:02 UTC #11

We didn't have one.
We briefly had a cartooning club that a couple of other kids ran in the library but it was not very good.

My school was SUPER posh so there were not very many asian kids there, and very few kids with nerdy commoner interests. I was only there bc of a scholarship so I was kind of an outcast oof.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 21:39:33 UTC #12

Whoa dude! That sounds awesome. 1000s of members! Our high school had less than 20 members.
My group unfortunately made up 25% of the club. Anime was pretty niche in our area since it was a retirement town.

The most that ever happened was at our local library, but it was a mix between Anime and video games.
It was sadly for a day. After graduation we went separate paths.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 21:58:22 UTC #13

Yeah I can relate as well. Our library did something similar, but it was sadly only for a day. It never happened again after that. We mainly did lot of hanging around at friends houses.

Man, that brings back memories. During our senior year we completely ditched prom and just did what we usually do.
Hanged out, sleep over, played video games and board games till 6am. Prom tickets were outrageous. If I recall prices were $100 a pop with tax. Doesn't include a ride and dinner for your date.

We figure it was not worth paying to be around people we hate. Plus the music was really bad.
From what I learned the day after, it was uneventful. Some of the students that paid were just stuck socially awkward in a big room. One chick wondered if I went, but I nodded nah. She sort of felt sad, but I wasn't sure what to make of it.
I don't regret my choices till this day.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 22:37:25 UTC #14

Whoa I'd be embarrassed too if I had to affiliate with that crowd. That feels cringey.
Now I wonder what their career choices might be? For some reason I picture them easily in a fraternity. Wouldn't put it past them getting drunk.

Thanks for sharing your story dude!

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 22:44:10 UTC #15

That sounded like plenty of work, but at least your club was active which is good.
Our club was completely unorganized for some reason. Our club was started by a group of girls and an art teacher.
Wish they could have selected an anime to watch each week.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 22:49:13 UTC #16

I can feel the same. Our club during the high school year was a mixed bag. During some semesters we even stopped showing due to inactivity. We at least checked once a month though.

The video game club was growing momentum for our school at the time but it closed down fast.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 23:05:00 UTC #17

I see. Same here as well. The minimal requirement (for my school) if I remember
you had to get one teacher and five students to form a club. They had some papers at the office to fill out.

The video game club was held in the multimedia room. The schools multi media teacher was supposedly in charge, but he was never around most time. The room was crammed with more than 50 students. One ridiculous incident I can remember was a student having to light a match to get the Wii motion sensor to work during a smash tournament.
The person who brought the console forgot the sensor bar which made it impossible to get past the menu screen. We never knew an open flame would force the Wii motion sensor to react. I highly wouldn't recommend it. The flame had to be lit on a newspaper roll.

Jenny-Toons 2019-07-04 23:25:03 UTC #18

Our anime club was pretty cool. In high school, we watched a lot of Japanese anime, talked about the type of story-telling behind them and the choice of art and culture representations (like if they used different styles of paintings or art scenes and whatnot).

We also went to the Midwest Anime convention a few times! It was my first experience actually going to a convention and see cosplays and buying my first set of manga series (mostly Bleach before the ending). So I can see it was a pretty good thing while it lasted.

I don't think I've seen one in my university as of yet.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 23:25:48 UTC #19

Ah, I see. Yeah, we didn't have many asian students as well. Our school mainly was divided into
typical cliques you see around most schools.

AxeWinston 2019-07-04 23:29:24 UTC #20

That's cool! Your experience sounded a lot better. I think my first con I went to was with a friend somewhere on the West Coast. It was a small one. We had to take a one and half hour bus ride just to get there. The overall experience was good.

skicoak 2019-07-04 23:45:03 UTC #21

Didn't happen in the states in the 80's based on my experiences. Nothing about comics either.

Sounds pretty hit or miss from the testimonials above.