Anime Club Stories

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Anime Club Stories

Postby ngsilver » Wed Jul 27, 2011 8:53 am

Going on the current trend of comments about anime clubs in the vent thread, figured now's as good as any time to create a thread for it.

So, what are your experiences with anime clubs around you? Do you go? Are they open? Do they creep out out? Details!


~~~~~~~~~~~

Me, I've been involved with 2 anime clubs. 1 at each college I've attended. When I was as UK (University of Kentucky) I joined the local club known as AMUK at the time (hahah, we're running amuk haha......). It was your standard spread of mostly guys and a few gals, some creepers, some not. I became friends with the president and by my 2nd semester I was defacto Vice President, and actually got the job my 2nd year. While I was involved I helped grow the club from about 12 members who would show up for meetings to about 40 regularly, with a 100'ish membership base and major showings moving us to the theater on campus. Fun times. Probably my biggest accomplishment is when I helped the president at the time draw up a new constitution that we were able to vote in and changed the name to UK Anime, which I hear is still around today, sporting the same constitution with a few minor changes. I later became president and then there was a big fallout between me and my vice and well... I left the club and moved. As far as the demographic was concerned, we had I believe more female members then male actually, and generally the club as a whole was made up of mostly 'normal' people.

I currently attend and try to help grow the anime club at UofM Dearborn. I'm currently an adviser and webmaster/forum admin for the club, helping to advise a group of members that include those a decade younger then me. It's an interesting dynamic. The club is made up of mostly guys. There are a few girls in the club and what ones are there are fairly normal, but they are the rare breed that hasn't been scared away by the rampant immaturity, especially in the presence of... "BOOBIES!".... Probably my most overused comment is 'this is why we're a sausage fest' as I often point out the reason we generally lack female members is due to every guy in the room staring at any girl who walks in the room, usually blurting out, 'ITS A GIRL!' At the very least, for the most part, the club is generally sociable however. We'll go out to dinner after club meetings on Friday nights and hang out during the week. Now if only I can get them to advertise more around campus and make the viewing environment a little more inviting to everyone. I fear this may be an up-hill battle, but who knows what new members will bring this fall.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Copycat_Revolver » Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:23 am

Once upon a time...

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THE END
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Nya-chan Production » Wed Jul 27, 2011 9:34 am

ngsilver wrote:Incoherent babbling stuff

I can't shake off the feeling that you look like Madarame now |:

As for me... we don't have clubs. The end.

The closest I can think of is an otaku tea room I attend to regularly...
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Wed Jul 27, 2011 10:27 am

I ran and helped found my Highschool one back in 02. Nobody ever really had ideas or desires for any sort of events. We tried a t-shirt sale once to raise funds and ended up with our costs covered and a huge bag of excess T-shirts that nobody wanted. I think the most successful thing we ended up doing the 2 years I ran it was getting a group together to go to Anime Boston 03 and 04. Everyone talked me out of trying to start one up at my University (as I mentioned in the other thread) because there was still political fall-out present from the last club's downfall baked into the Student Union rules and regulations (or so I was led to believe). I ended up pointing the club that started there in 09 in the direction of the old club's constitution so they could have some sort of basis for starting out - it turns out an alum I knew from a couple of DnD games was the old club's president and wrote the constitution herself.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Castor Troy » Wed Jul 27, 2011 10:54 am

I never bothered with the gaming and anime clubs in high school since I had a group of friends I hung out with regularly.

I didn't get involved in an anime club until 2002 when Ikasu, NeoHentaiMaster, (both are members of the .org but no longer active), and I were coordinating and judging the CSUN (California State University Northridge) AMV contest. Most of the people were quite normal there.

We stopped going after CSUN stopped having their amv contest and they revived themselves as Mimokicon years later. CSUN's too far from me and most of the club has probably graduated since then.

The only time I've dealt with "weaboos" and insane otaku has always been online. Maybe I should be grateful. :uhoh:
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby ZephyrStar » Wed Jul 27, 2011 11:01 am

Went to our college one, it was fairly bad. Too many people hung up on who was a bigger otaku (OH YEAH, well, I IMPORT AND EAT POCKY ON A REGULAR BASIS! YEAH), who had seen what and who had not, why (insert Naruto, DBZ, Bleach, One Piece, Death Note) is the best anime conceived by mankind ever, and yeah.

I was hesitant to go to cons because of this kind of behavior, but once I met a lot of the regulars from this site, cons are super fun because I get to see them.

Currently I attend an anime meetup group in my city, and so far it has been pretty laid back and chill. Mostly older fans.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby ngsilver » Wed Jul 27, 2011 11:58 am

Nya-chan Production wrote:
ngsilver wrote:Incoherent babbling stuff

I can't shake off the feeling that you look like Madarame now |:

Other then checking google image for pics, I have no clue what you're talking about. And from the designs I see, yeah, couldn't be farther from that I don't think ^^()

And you are probably right, what I said was mostly incoherent babble. The big thing to take from it was, my first club had girls and most of them weren't the creepy weaboo or fan-girl type, while my current club is a giant sausage fest and what girls we've been able to keep have been the creepy weaboo fangirl type.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Kariudo » Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:14 pm

My first anime club wasn't really an anime club, it was more of a gaming club (and by gaming, I mean halo. And I suppose I should mention it was in High School). So we'd have maybe 30 guys acting like douches while playing halo...and maybe 10 people (including a few girls) watching anime in another room. One of my friends ended up taking over after I graduated and the club grew.

I've been involved in my college's anime club since I was a freshman. It was only about 10-12 people (myself included) when I first started to go, but it grew over the years to somewhere between 40-50 regulars (with a respectable number of girls, though there are still more guys). There are a few creepers, but I'd say most of the people are rather normal. Attendance for the past 2 years has dropped, which I attribute to two things. One reason is the format change (went from watching complete series with members bringing in a few episodes of a random series each meeting to theme nights), the other is the convention that has taken up nearly all the money the club gets (save for member fees) for the past 4 years.

Other than that, my college's club has had a few other distinctions:
-One of the most well attended student orgs
-One of the (if not the) most diverse student org
-We sued part of the student government, and won

yeah, the UW-Milwaukee student government has pretty much been corrupt since I started going there. We sued the student allocations committee after they denied funding for Anime Milwaukee due to rules they made up on the spot (and they don't allow submission of anything during the allocations hearing...so they pretty much ruled us out before we even showed up). Also, that reminds me of the year the SAC lost our paperwork (which had to be done in octuplet...or nonuplent if we wanted to keep a copy) which forced us to be the very last hearing (meaning they're way past the point of having given out all the money they're going to give)

tl;dr
my college animu club is a pretty cool guy, eh has girlz and doesn't afraid of student government
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby ngsilver » Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:27 pm

Kariudo wrote:tl;dr
my college animu club is a pretty cool guy, eh has girlz and doesn't afraid of student government

Almost polar opposite of UofM D's gaming club. does afraid of student government ^^()
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Nya-chan Production » Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:01 pm

ngsilver wrote:
Nya-chan Production wrote:
ngsilver wrote:Incoherent babbling stuff

I can't shake off the feeling that you look like Madarame now |:

Other then checking google image for pics, I have no clue what you're talking about. And from the designs I see, yeah, couldn't be farther from that I don't think ^^() (...)

Madarame from Genshiken, that should help a lot. Particularly this:

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No.

Madarame is the most moe character in Genshiken.

No, seriously.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Castor Troy » Wed Jul 27, 2011 3:24 pm

I feel like watching Otaku no video again.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Kitsuner » Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:01 pm

There used to be an anime discussion group at the Barnes & Noble near where I used to live. I remember there being only two other members, and the employee leading the discussion, as it were, loaned me a book with philosophical/psychological essays about salt and a VHS copy of Twilight of the Cockroaches. In exchange, she borrowed some Excel Saga and Cutey Honey DVDs from me.

Due to confusing scheduling, I never attended another meeting of the group and never saw her again. I'm pretty satisfied with our trade though. |:>
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby ShatteredFlame » Wed Jul 27, 2011 8:11 pm

The anime club at my school was a collective of the biggest cynical assholes I've ever met. Plus the males were all very ugly and would trade their hideous girlfriends every other week, it was disgusting.

I'm not even trying to slam anime fans but that is honestly my experience. It was funny because I went to a high school where sports were the main focus, yet that stereotypes about jocks beating up the nerdy kids could not be more far off. They would try to be friends with the anime fans but most of them just showed nothing but disrespect for anyone that wasn't in their little club. And the majority of people you would see making out in the halls would be those anime kids.

Me, I let some of them know I liked anime but avoided that club at all cost. The worst was hearing a bunch of internet memes like "the game" being shouted between them, it would bother me that I knew what they were talking about.


I'm starting my first year of college soon and there is an anime club there. None of the anime kids from my school are going there and it's in a different state so I'm curious to see how it is.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Fay-Sa » Thu Jul 28, 2011 1:49 am

I started the one in my high school. Nothing more then friends sitting around watching anime and getting us out of class around 3 period. The club died a year after I left.

There a local one that happens once a month and mini meetings every week. I only go to the monthly one once in awhile. Reason being that there are only two people there that don't drive me crazy and the club works with the local cons. The head of the club been to Japan many times and he use to work in film editing back in the day (the guy in his 70's at least) and the other just a really nice guy. It's kinda funny since they are both way older than me but their easier to talk to then most people my age hehe.

Outside of the quite members I avoid the others as much as possible. There are also this mother & daughter that are there at both the monthly and weekly meetings and everyone pretty much convinced that the daughter has some real mental issues..doesn't help they fight like pre-teens at every meeting. They wanted me to share a room with them so it would be a 'girls only' room and not a co-ed for a con coming up...I lied and said I already had a room. There also this one guy who a complete pig and has no respect for women.

Also I avoid the mini-meetings cause one of the members and I butt heads. He likely the most bull headed 'prueist' I ever known. While I have no issue if you like sub over dub or vice versa, that fine I respect that and all I ask is for the person to respect what I like. This guy however doesn't care. Having someone insult you cause you bought a DVD from Funimation instead of the "Malaysian version" aka bootleg and using terms like "American garbage" when regrading those who work with US anime distribution companies (and he doesn't just mean VA's..he means everyone) is really annoying. Mainly cause he the one who brings it up all the time and will go on and on about it when there really no need to. Sad thing is his wife way nicer and I like talking to her, just not him.

Did I mention I have to work on con staff with them =(

Finally the (now former) head of this local high school anime club invited me as a guest to one of their meetings...I honestly couldn't get out of there fast enough. Everyone was so out of control and was nothing but a shouting match. Needless to say I 'politely' declined the 2nd time I was asked. Through I did go to the girl's graduation party which was almost as bad.

So yea..outside of my little get together in high school the clubs kinda suck around here. I heard there was on at IU but as far as I know it's now gone.
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Re: Anime Club Stories

Postby Davis 51 » Thu Jul 28, 2011 1:03 pm

I'm the VP of my University's Anime Club. When I joined as a freshman, we had maybe 25-30 members and 10 regulars. Now our member/email list is hueg, and our regulars are anywhere between 30-60, thanks to some amazing leadership by our past few presidents and my own volunteering to turn us into a campus mainstay. We are putting on a small "convention" this year, and are looking to make our presence known through the local area and not just the university.
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