Back when I went to this one community college they had an anime club. Since back then I was totally new to the world of Japanese media, I decided to join up. When I joined up, there were many people running it. Then after a few years someone took over, and the club didn't seem to be as popular.
And then a friend of mine took over, and he ran the entire club by himself, and did everything. He even took over the running of the website from me because there wasn't "enough naruto" on the site (at that time he was a die-hard Narutard).
Eventually it was too much work for him, he said he couldn't run the club and work and go to school, so the club died. I kinda blamed myself, I could have kept the club running but didn't have enough anime.
I eventually graduated and went my own way.
Now there's a new club. I found out about it when I bumped into some people passing out flyers. The people who run this new club at my old college seem like nice people. And they have a screening every week.
Strangely enough, even though I told them I'm the old geezer of the group, that I knew how the old club was run, and they could come to me for advice anytime (where I'd ramble about how tough it was in the old days, with VHS tapes and, and walking to the club uphill both ways, and how all these punk-ass kids have it good with their DVDs and torrents), yet they don't ask for any advice.
Yet, I feel they are making some mistakes in running of the club.
- They show all anime dubbed. This is the first club I've ever seen do this. I would prefer subtitles.
- They show a non-anime, non-Japanese movie every week as well. This week it was Hook, last week it was The Cell. I don't think an anime club should have non-anime movies in it.
- The running series are licensed ones they've bought or rented. One of the risks of showing licensed stuff is the fact that the US company might complain. Another club I go to gets around that by showing only unlicensed anime.
The series they are showing are Samurai Champaloo, Speed Grapher (both Funimation), and Noir (ADV, and the fact I know the companies of each of these scares me!). I don't know about ADV but I've heard Funi can be assholes to anime clubs. I worry about this the most as I don't want to see legal action ruin this club.
- Last week they announced an AMV contest for this Halloween. I know for a fact that unless you're damn good, you can't make a good AMV in 2 weeks. Also, half the club is going to be gone at Youmacon that weekend.
So, what do you guys think? Should we show non-anime movies? Should we be playing things dubbed or Subbed? Should they use licensed anime? Any other helpful suggestions?










