Anime Club Stories

[Qyot27]

There was one at my high school when I was a senior (read: '03-'04). I attended it for a small group of friends that I made through the club (including the club's president) or knew from being on Yearbook staff with me. Unfortunately, the club imploded during the second semester due to a mixture of problems that plagued it - not being able to keep the attendees in line, way too much noise in the science classroom it was held in, etc. I edited a club advertisement (ironically, one of the two highest-hit/download videos I've done, and one that even got uploaded to the Tube a few years back) that was intended to air on the school's morning news program, but it didn't actually air until the club was pretty much dead.

My sister noted that a new one started up a couple years after that (that was also held in one of the Lit department's English rooms, so carpeted floors and normal desks), and while it was somewhat better managed, the immaturity and disrespect for the club officers got even worse. In both clubs' cases, the officers were probably a significant portion of the core female members, trying to deal with the rest of the club, which seemed to be construed of mostly loud, obnoxious guys (with a few exceptions, but not much in the way of keeping things civil). There was an AMV day that my sister had me stew up a compilation DVD for, but I can only vaguely remember if she said that they showed it.

The second incarnation of the club did seem to have better outside support, though - there's a local anime store that they got help with over sponsorship. Don't really know how it's changed, since my sister and her friends are into the con scene now, and are way too old to still be attending a high school anime club.


I also attended a couple meetings at the USF anime club after one of the officers contacted me randomly through the Org and invited me (about six months after I'd graduated high school). They'd seen the advertisement on here, realized that I lived on the other side of Tampa Bay, and yeah. Didn't really come to much, although I did see Cat Soup, the last episode of Excel Saga, and was introduced to Galaxy Angel through them.

[guy07]

I went to a Anime club at college once. I learned that I really don't get along with those sorts of people ...

[Radical_Yue]

"I love anime conventions but I fucking HATE the fans." - Suberunker


I always assumed that anime clubs were just mini-anime conventions, only without all the good stuff a convention has to offer. Kisanzi and I met one of the members of a local anime club while we were at the airport on our way back from Anime Expo. After listening to him fan-gasm over a cheap necklace he purchased at the con, I decided I never wanted to go to the local club

[BasharOfTheAges]

"I love anime conventions but I fucking HATE the fans." - Suberunker


I always assumed that anime clubs were just mini-anime conventions, only without all the good stuff a convention has to offer. Kisanzi and I met one of the members of a local anime club while we were at the airport on our way back from Anime Expo. After listening to him fan-gasm over a cheap necklace he purchased at the con, I decided I never wanted to go to the local club

I suppose it depends on the club and the con. I've seen plenty of maladjusted neck-beards, hyped up squueing children, and aspie mouth-breathers at cons, but never had an issue with them at a club. It seems by most of these posts, that my case was rare and that's all there is. I suppose the tone of the thread lends itself to a fair amount of selection bias in posting though.

[8bit_samurai]

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

Pretty much this.

The one time I did went to an anime club back in college, the people there were actually pretty cool, laid-back bunch, though a little on the loud side (well, the girls were, at least). I didn't go back since they were watching and discussing stuff I wasn't really interested in at the time.

[Hathor Liderc]

I got a million of these stories! I'll just start out with one of them for now.

Basically, back in college, my anime club had a rivalry with the Christian club. For the longest time, they would call us 'sinners' and 'blasphemers' because of our interests and we shrug them off. One day, they switched presidents. Instead of their usual routine, they this guy wanted to try to be more friendly towards us in an attempt to convert us and invited us to a joint anime/christian club bowling event. A lot of my friends, who were just plain sick of them pestering us, decided to mess with them a little. My friend Eric, went, posing as a drunk. Two other members, Edward and a guy we call 'Kuno', dressed in drag, posing as a gay couple. My friend Mike, went to the event wearing devil horns and wielding a plastic pitchfork. Lastly, my friend, Ivan, came to the event using the name "The Sex Offender."

During the event, whenever Edward or Kuno bowled a strike, the other would get up with them, and they'd start freaking each other, while the club stayed away from my friend Ivan. Later on, Eric began acting sick. My friend, Adrian, asked Edward to get him some water. A few minutes later, Edward comes back with a clear liquid, to which Adrian shouts, "I said 'water' not vodka!" Edward replies in a very effeminate tone, "Oh, its all the same!" There were two other members of the anime club that just went, one of which was Mormon and the christian club spent most of the evening trying to convert those two instead.

The entire event was videotaped, but after so many years, the tape has been long lost.

[Koopiskeva]

How does someone like that even have a wife in the first place?

I honestly have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine.

Blackmail.

[Kariudo]

I got a million of these stories! I'll just start out with one of them for now.

Basically, back in college, my anime club had a rivalry with the Christian club. For the longest time, they would call us 'sinners' and 'blasphemers' because of our interests and we shrug them off. One day, they switched presidents. Instead of their usual routine, they this guy wanted to try to be more friendly towards us in an attempt to convert us and invited us to a joint anime/christian club bowling event. A lot of my friends, who were just plain sick of them pestering us, decided to mess with them a little. My friend Eric, went, posing as a drunk. Two other members, Edward and a guy we call 'Kuno', dressed in drag, posing as a gay couple. My friend Mike, went to the event wearing devil horns and wielding a plastic pitchfork. Lastly, my friend, Ivan, came to the event using the name "The Sex Offender."

During the event, whenever Edward or Kuno bowled a strike, the other would get up with them, and they'd start freaking each other, while the club stayed away from my friend Ivan. Later on, Eric began acting sick. My friend, Adrian, asked Edward to get him some water. A few minutes later, Edward comes back with a clear liquid, to which Adrian shouts, "I said 'water' not vodka!" Edward replies in a very effeminate tone, "Oh, its all the same!" There were two other members of the anime club that just went, one of which was Mormon and the christian club spent most of the evening trying to convert those two instead.

The entire event was videotaped, but after so many years, the tape has been long lost.

That reminds me of the "rivalry" that was going between my college club and one of the Christian groups. In reality though, it was just unfortunate placement. For part of one year, the room we were in was right next to the ballroom where the Christian group was. Their band would start practicing/sound testing right in the middle of our meeting, which made it hard to hear the animu.
We ended up moving our meetings to the next floor up (and on the opposite side of the building), but eventually they moved into the banquet hall right across the hall. I think this went off and on for 2 (school) years.

Also, one year the anime club shared an office with a sorority. I never really had much business in the club office, so I didn't get to see if many lulz ensued. However, there was one time when the sorority offered to participate in a mixer. I dunno if they just left it to us to organize or what...but instead of bowling, non-anime movie, or something along those lines, we ended up putting together a video game night (mostly Wii sports and Warioware smooth moves.) It wasn't a total bust, but as one might expect...there wasn't exactly a whole lot of mixing (and not a lot of people from either group showed up.)