Anime club introduces community to Japanese animation
By ELIZABETH HENNESSEY
In a dimly lit room with students sparsely placed throughout, the sounds of laughter and commentary of the show playing on the projector ahead add to the atmosphere of community that is Anime Club.
According to the Drake University student organization page, “the purpose of Anime Club is to introduce members of the Drake community to the art form that is Japanese Animation, as well as provide public showings of it for anime fans new and old.”
The club watches both subbed and dubbed anime, depending on the particular show. The club tends to lean toward watching dubbed versions of shows to be more accessible for students. Students come to the club to relax and watch anime, some even do homework and other tasks during the meeting.
“We’re pretty relaxed and by that I mean just be respectful and don’t worry if you can’t show up,” Treasurer Tyler Hopkins said.
Students who can’t attend meetings each week will sometimes stay up to date on the episodes they are missing. Funimation and Crunchyroll are websites that offer viewers broader access to anime than Netflix and Hulu.
“What I really like about how our club operates is the community,” former president Eren Latham said. “That community you don’t normally get while watching shows by yourself. We are able to have really awesome discussions about animation and storytelling.”
Anime Club prides itself on inclusivity and wants everyone to feel comfortable attending.
“We are a club of very diverse group of people. We have everyone from psychology majors to pharmacy majors to grad students to computer science majors, all here,” Latham said. “We are a people with a very vast group of interest and we are very focused on our club being an inviting place to everyone.”
Last year’s Anime Recharge was the first year Anime Club hosted the convention on their own. Executive council members said the convention was a success with roughly 500 people in attendance.
This years convention was hosted March 10 in Olmsted Center. The convention had a cosplay contest, panels, viewings and Brianna Knickerbocker as a special guest speaker.