Anime Club

Started by Ammorin, November 19, 2009, 05:30:40 PM

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Ammorin

Hi everyone! I'm not sure if this is in the right category...

Anyways, I am the president of my highschool's anime and manga club. We first started out as really exciting and fun but now we're running out of ideas! We've been trying to start a manga since last year but no on cooperates. I don't want to be demanding but it might just be something not everyone is interested.

Anyone have any fun club ideas or activities? :D

Sorry! Forgot to mention that we're high schoolers. :)
Fanime Attendee 2008 - Lin Yao (FMA)
Fanime Attendee 2009 - Aristocrat Gentlemen
*Fanime Attendee 2010 - Lolita, Nadeshiko Fujisaki (Shugo Chara), and maybe Yue from Rune Factory 2

PyronIkari

Quote from: Ammorin on November 19, 2009, 05:30:40 PM
Hi everyone! I'm not sure if this is in the right category...

Anyways, I am the president of my school's anime and manga club. We first started out as really exciting and fun but now we're running out of ideas! We've been trying to start a manga since last year but no on cooperates. I don't want to be demanding but it might just be something not everyone is interested.

Anyone have any fun club ideas or activities? :D

Age group would help a little... but.

Most Anime clubs don't do crap. They get together, they watch eps of a series over time, they talk about it. That's really what most clubs do and that's all. Some try to organize get togethers, and stuff like that... But yeah... age group would help.

Ammorin

Oh sorry We're high schoolers :D

Yeah we plan on having a Christmas anime movie viewing.
Fanime Attendee 2008 - Lin Yao (FMA)
Fanime Attendee 2009 - Aristocrat Gentlemen
*Fanime Attendee 2010 - Lolita, Nadeshiko Fujisaki (Shugo Chara), and maybe Yue from Rune Factory 2

LordKefka

#3
It's a bit hard to find things to do from experience especially if you meet like... once or even twice a week. Lots go, few actually care about what's being shown. Had games set up everytime and AMVs once in a while before screening. Even so, people left after those. Half the people who stayed for the screening paid attention. The other half wouldn't shut up... yeah. Anyways, enough about horrible stories back at University of Iowa...*cough*..

Some of the things we did was like Halloween screening and cosplaying, x-mas screenings with the room decorated, fundraising auctions to buy food and snacks for future screenings, games, AMVs ( though from what I remember, it only worked a few times before people didn't give a crap anymore), apples to apples, show and tell ( I guess people brought their most valued anime item and shared it with people :\), and etc. I think once I tried to get creative and showed Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back for old time sakes but it didn't work even though people showed interest when I hinted it.-_-;

Mostly, anime clubs really just do screen every meeting. I think there was another club called SWAMP which was "associated" with UoI that had like meetings every 2 weeks and went 4 hours non-stop showing stuff. Went to check it out and there were 3 people there.

If you want to grab their attention with Anime, show action and funny stuff. Movies work. I think the first meeting I showed Girl Who Leapt Through Time and everyone loved it.

EDIT: I'll add a little more to it:

I remember in High School when club was ran, there were only 3 meetings a semester. Each meeting was pretty well organized with food like sushi and pizza provided. School gave me a big budge ($500) to work with so I went nuts. Pretty much it's a 2-3 hour meeting. A showing, dinner, then another showing to end it. Simple as that.
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PyronIkari

LordKefka... Highschool club. Not college. They are very limited in what they can really do.

Anyways. Really, I never found the point of High School anime clubs, and was in agreement with my high school that it shouldn't have one. It doesn't accomplish anything and there's no academic gain to it.

But that's besides the point. I don't know how bright these kids are in this club of yours (nor how bright you are), nor how much they understand about the culture or what they're even watching/reading. A good club event would be to actually learn about the parts of anime beyond the visual and to learn what is referenced and how why things in the culture reflect it. So not only are you understanding the anime better in detail, but you actually LEARN SOMETHING REAL ABOUT JAPAN \o/ YAY!

Uhm, a series you can do this with... ... ...

I'd say start easier, use something that references the culture on a more basic understanding of general culture. Jigoku Shoujo does this rather well. Not only are there the basic mythological beings but there's also the entire overtone of JP culture as a whole. Understanding why people make the decisions to do. The Japanese mentality of doing something huge in the dark, over confronting the problem in daylight. How self-sacrifice is a common tone, and how the greater good is more important than the self. Self-loathing and hatred.

Uh another good theme that's common in a lot of series is bullying. How bullying in the states is different than bullying in Japan. In the states, bullies bully to make themselves feel better, where as in Japan it's more about making the person hate everything and everyone in the world.

Those are just ideas and something you can do that is active and accomplishes something. With this though... make sure you know what you're talking about. Don't just assume stuff you read on the internet is right. And if your audience is up to learn and listen, it may work out, I'm sorta doubting it though since most high school kids are idiots, and most don't want to learn about what they're watching. I mean, hell this forum is mostly 20+ yo's and they're just that bad.

LordKefka

Quote from: PyronIkari on November 20, 2009, 01:26:58 AM
LordKefka... Highschool club. Not college. They are very limited in what they can really do.

Yeah I know it's hard. Kinda sucks too not to mention there are like teacher "moderators" who really hawk at the type of stuff you screen.

And oh, lol:

Quote from: PyronIkari on November 20, 2009, 01:26:58 AM
I mean, hell this forum is mostly 20+ yo's and they're just that bad.
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Anime Central Press, 2008
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Kawaii_the_ULTRA_chibi

>_> I was 'Brigade Leader' Of my schools anime and manga club, but do to some lets say 'disagreements' between me and the vice president it quickly went down hill. :] Anyways during our club meetings we would occasionaly hold 'drawing parties' and vote on whos drawing is best. But you can also play games like anime related charades and guess who X3 you don't have to just screen anime, which usually doesn't work out because nobody wants to agree with anyone else on what to watch
Best Anime ever: Ojamajo Doremi

PyronIkari

Quote from: Kawaii_the_ULTRA_chibi on November 20, 2009, 03:35:45 PM
>_> I was 'Brigade Leader' Of my schools anime and manga club, but do to some lets say 'disagreements' between me and the vice president it quickly went down hill. :] Anyways during our club meetings we would occasionaly hold 'drawing parties' and vote on whos drawing is best. But you can also play games like anime related charades and guess who X3 you don't have to just screen anime, which usually doesn't work out because nobody wants to agree with anyone else on what to watch
The majority of people can't draw, you just bored the hell out of all of them, and made the less talented ones feel crappy. I doubt most of the people involved are capable of really critiquing and helping other really approve, so I don't see the real point of this. And things like Anime charades and stuff, are really childish and kinda boring to most people. I don't think high school students(or older) would really enjoy that. Maybe in middle school or grade schoool... but yeah.

As for what to screen. That's up to the officers of the club, and frankly... their opinions should be a reflection of what to show the club, not what they want to watch/show. The point is to expand the minds of the people in the club. But also doing so in a way where they stay interested. Most people that join anime clubs start out with nothing more than what they've seen on TV. Making them watch certain shows is not only disinteresting, but it'll go over their heads. At CalPoly Pomona's anime club, they showed a wide variety of shows, but slowly advanced into the difficulty of the shows. Like they started with shows like Hime Chan no Ribbon, and what not, but then showed shows like Vandread and Mahoromatic as the year went on. And discussion about the shows were often completed with club members asking questions about parts they didn't understand, as well as club leaders explaining different nuances or details that the club may have missed.  From there members started to expand on their own and trying to figure out stuff on their own. Again, it's up to the members, but as people running a club, you're basically running it for them, not you.

Ammorin

I like these ideas and true we're not very bright. Half our members like to spazz but it adds laughter to the meetings. :)

Screenings seem to be the majority and that's already planned for the club. Anime manga and games sounds fun especially if we add Apples to Apples into it. I love the sushi idea but no food allowed in the library. Oh well, there's always outside.

Thanks you guys for the ideas! Hopefully our next meeting will be more "exciting" :D

Oh! And the club is coming to Fanime :D Fun! That's the best thing I'm looking forward too.
Fanime Attendee 2008 - Lin Yao (FMA)
Fanime Attendee 2009 - Aristocrat Gentlemen
*Fanime Attendee 2010 - Lolita, Nadeshiko Fujisaki (Shugo Chara), and maybe Yue from Rune Factory 2

kaizoku

why dont you find someone who can teach how to draw and perhaps hold some lessons. that covers the academics and im sure many students would love to learn how to draw.  you can also hold gaming tournaments open to other students and not just the club members. you might even be able to raise some funds if you charge a cover.  just some ideas that i wished my anime club had back in high school to keep me interested in staying.

Jerry

#10
Does your anime club have a teacher/ adviser? I would imagine a Japanese teacher would come in handy- besides learning the japanese the academic thing would be to utilize why you like this particular genre [anime/manga etc...] and try to approach it from a "what else could we learn from this pop culture? Learning about general Japanese Art, general Culture, Traditions and fashion are more "academic" ways of enjoying it while being social and fun at the same time.

I could understand how club might blur between a hobby and social activites. Heh, anime fans being productive members of society...  Most of the time it seems like most highschool fanboys and fangirls have short attention spans or learning issues:


But all joking aside, whether its just another social/hobby club or something more thats totally up you and your members. Just do your best and make it fun. Hopefully you will learn something cool.


Here' an example of we did as a club, we tried to share Japanese culture with others-
Keep in mind this was a college club, and our budget allowed us to do lots of stuff.
Our website.   http://www.sweetpeastudio.biz/2002archive/sites/JCC/jccindex.html

General info about- [very dated info but still interesting]
Holidays - http://www.sweetpeastudio.biz/2002archive/sites/JCC/holidays.html
Festival - http://www.sweetpeastudio.biz/2002archive/sites/JCC/matsuri.html
Sushi    - http://www.sweetpeastudio.biz/2002archive/sites/JCC/sushi.html
Sake    - http://www.sweetpeastudio.biz/2002archive/sites/JCC/sake.html

Cultural Demos [meetings] like:
Art demos


Music Demonstrations Like:

the Koto                                                             Taiko Drumming

Ikebana - aka art of flower arrangement


We even goof around in Sanrio Costumes!


We also had Martial Arts Demos, Tea Ceremonies, attended local Japanese festivals, threw fund raisers, learned how to make Mochi, and lot of social good times.

Hope my random rant and examples give your clubs some ideas. :P
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jerry.pang


Games, Friends & Fanime oh my! :D

PyronIkari

Quote from: kaizoku on December 11, 2009, 05:23:54 AM
why dont you find someone who can teach how to draw and perhaps hold some lessons. that covers the academics and im sure many students would love to learn how to draw.  you can also hold gaming tournaments open to other students and not just the club members. you might even be able to raise some funds if you charge a cover.  just some ideas that i wished my anime club had back in high school to keep me interested in staying.

As I brought up earlier, this is tricky though. Only some people would care about drawing as not everyone is talented, and a lot of people don't care to "try and learn to draw". I also advise against "learning to draw anime style" because it's so generic to do that, and actual limits artistic nature. Drawing instruction isn't about stylized drawing but learning things like angles, proportions, and perspective and the what not. How shadows form, and why angles should and would look the way they do. They "stylization" of the art is easy to pick up and interperet, but it's the quality that is important. That's why so many people criticize bad quality anime and art.

Gaming tournaments are nice and all, but most games are inappropriate for school, and really have no academic reasoning at the school.

You guys gotta keep in mind still... High School Club, not college. This limits their capabilities quite a bit as many things would be deemed inappropriate for school, there's virtually no money, and it's all dependent on the students pretty much to do.  I'm not saying some of ideas wouldn't work, but it's mroe on the students to do these things with their resources.

chris-barstow

First of all I would like to say congrats! Being a club leader epically for anime is very difficult; I was the president (and founder) of my schools anime club for some years.

I've learned one of the best things you can for this, a group of anime loving high school students are well they are just a lot of trouble to control. That's why majority of clubs and other such just watch anime or read manga all the time its not a bad thing, but if you want to get something done work with other clubs. Instead of making a manga(insanely hard, and time consuming) why not just make short comics or just pictures?

If you want you could try cosplay chess just get string and tape to make the game board and tell people in the school who like dressing up to come and play (there is more than you think) But remember to get permission at the school and have a few teachers to supervise, I myself didn't do so the first time and got a lot of sh!t for it.

Also just ask people what they want to do, your not the editor for a manga so you can't tell people to do things if they don't want to. So see what the group would like to try that way even if it fails they'll still have fun trying.

kohana ichibana

Hi!
I'm a Vice President at my college for Genshiken (anime club) but we incorporate a lot of manga, games, jmusic, anything that has to do with the culture. It's a pretty tough club to do. I can understand where your coming from in needing ideas. Cosplay is a huge part of this type of club and to get others to cosplay first you have to do it yourself, which is what I did. We recently had a "Name that Anime" Game where we played openings and gave prizes, it was a huge success. We are also having sessions in making cosplay outfits, some sessions with the japanese teacher, art jams. Things like that. They are very fun and not that hard to do.
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Ammorin

I like that "Name that Anime" idea! :D We could do a similar one with manga too. As for the manga we decided that each week one person can draw a short comic or write a story to contribute to the club. Then we switch off. By the end of the year we'll put it all in a book.

We should do some cosplay sessions even though we aren't really skilled in sewing but I'm sure there's something we can do :)

Thank you everyone for the ideas!
Fanime Attendee 2008 - Lin Yao (FMA)
Fanime Attendee 2009 - Aristocrat Gentlemen
*Fanime Attendee 2010 - Lolita, Nadeshiko Fujisaki (Shugo Chara), and maybe Yue from Rune Factory 2

NoForests

Same thing happened to me...people just don't really come anymore. And we never really had any ideas. I wanted to start a manga but it didn't happen. >_> let me know if anything works!!

heroblade20

I was president of my anime club and I think events aren't needed. The point of Anime club is for like minded people to socialize and such. discussions, debates, and gaming are great ways to bond. In the end the greatest way of bonding woul be Fanime xD.

All in all the best things for a club to do is share their interests! Discuss them and move on from there!:D

Somebody

Interesting thread here. Yes, high school clubs are limited, especially when you live in small populations of even smaller amounts of anime-loving folk.

However, in my tiny town in the middle of nowhere we have our own anime club (I have been Secretary these past few years :P) and although we don't do a whole lot we still have fun. We have monthly parties, cosplay contests and workshops, we run events at school such as a Masquerade dance with techno music (we're still experimenting with the idea, although next year we hope to bring in a photo or purikura booth). We also take trips to Japantown in SanFrancisco (this year we even hit the beach afterwards :P) and to conventions in our local area, finishing the year with Fanime. Although it's all VERY amature it at least gives the kids chances to go these places and do these things when their parents won't take them, and we all have fun when we're together. (Well, most of the time. :P)
Cosplay 2013
Friday night: RWBY (incomplete)
Saturday morning: Arrietty
Sunday afternoon: Ruby w/ Adam (RWBY, no scythe)
Monday: Arrietty

pSyChOgArDeN

my high school actually had a con in the school for a few years.
(ive been in college for a while so not sure if they still have it)
it was pretty small but they managed to get Dealers and had gaming tables, karaoke, and artist alleys and anime screenings.
i was very shocked and excited that my high school anime club pulled it off :P



Fanime '11 Cosplays:
Ramona Flowers -Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe
Sakura -Cardcaptor Sakura

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