Campus organization Japanese Manga, Anime and Gaming Encounters welcomes all to learn about Japanese media.
Loud, boisterous and rambunctious laughter burst out of the open door of the first meeting of the semester for Japanese Manga, Anime and Gaming Encounters.
As one could guess by the name, the club is all about Japanese media and the congregation that gathered last Tuesday was audibly ecstatic to begin the proceedings for the new semester.
The sheer size of the crowd was impressive. Roughly 60 enthusiastic students crammed into the classroom, despite the fact that there weren’t nearly enough chairs to go around. Some sprawled out onto the floor and even more filed in as the meeting went on.
The Tuesday meetings are informational about any upcoming events. The Friday meetings are dedicated to screenings of anime.
Anime refers to Japanese animated works and is short for the Japanese word animēshon.
But the group doesn’t just watch animated shows, Linsey Groeneveld, a fourth-year member, said.
“There’s, like, a whole branch of live-action Japanese (films),” the senior studying political science said. “Sometimes we do special Saturday events, and we give people a chance to nominate things that don't just fit the bracket of anime.”
President Maddie Stricklin said in an email that the group was created a few years ago to cover Japanese media as a whole, as Ohio University had previously lacked such a club.
Because the scope of the group is so large, Friday events generally occupy two rooms in Morton Hall — one as a movie theater for anime showings and the other for games and manga.
“With our second room … people can hook up their systems and play games that way, or we can lay out board games,” the senior studying strategic communications said. “Then there's the manga side of it… People a lot of times will sit and talk about (manga) and their relations to the animes.”
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Manga is a style of comic book that is popular both in and out of Japan. Often, an especially popular manga series will spawn an anime counterpart or vice versa.
The members’ love for manga and anime isn’t confined to Athens.
Every year, the group visits Sushiko, a Columbus sushi restaurant, and travels to Columbus for Ohayocon, a three-day convention focusing on the art and culture of Japanese animation. The group even annually travels six hours to National Harbor, Maryland for Katsucon, a similar convention on anime.
Treasurer Halee Smith said anyone can join for free and have access to all of the on-campus events. However, if students wish to travel to the conventions, there is a $20 yearly fee — or $15 per semester — to cover carpooling.
Stricklin said in an email that this year they have the most diversity out of all the years she has been involved.
“A few Japanese students signed on, a few Middle Eastern students — even a woman and her son … and a few other nationalities on top of the … American students that are our usual demographic,” Stricklin said in an email.
Along with racial diversity, the group sees diversity in the level of passion of its members, from “otaku” (the super-fans) to those who know little or nothing about Japanese media.
“We've been told before by members… that most anime clubs are just kind of, like, ‘Oh, we're hermit crabs, and we sit in dark rooms all day and do nothing but watch anime,’ ” Stricklin said. “(Then) they realize that we're actually a pretty good group — that we accept anyone and everyone.”
Anyone interested can attend the Tuesday meetings at 7 p.m. in Ellis 024 or the Friday meetings at 5 p.m. in Morton 235 and Morton 237.
@GS_Matt
ms153614@ohio.edu
