This is partially in reply to Jon Spencer’s post here.
I was part of an anime club for the past year. However, I decided to renew my membership today, so Jon’s post gave me another excuse to contemplate on my anime club and how I watch.
The Anime Club in Question
This particular club decided to embrace both the good and the bad of the anime experience – I am well and truly aware the club uses torrented episodes in a lot of cases (I do know there is a Crunchyroll account with the club’s name on it though), while I have a moral policy to not use torrents unless I have run out of legally streaming content…which probably won’t be any time soon. However, I understand using legal streaming for Amazon and Netflix shows would be unnecessarily costly and annoying for the people who fund the club. Plus they did show The King’s Avatar at one point, which I wouldn’t count as anime…
Discussion on piracy and what anime is aside, this club does have weekly meetups which are normally preceded by lively discussions (which is beneficial for my introverted self). Also, free food, store discounts and events like cosplay cafes are part of the club agenda, which balances out any problems with the moral guilt while making the price of admission worthwhile.
The anime club usually watches in a proper theatre and uses a laptop to project the content to the screen, although they’ve had to make do with large projection screens when another club kicks them out of the theatre.
Where do I feature in this, you ask? Well…you’ll often find me in the back of the theatre once the screenings start, mumbling like Izuku from Boku no Hero Academia…whether it be about voice actors or just how bad the show is, I’ll probably be mumbling about something…
Anyways, to Jon’s part.
Who I Watch With
- Normally, I watch alone – this is the most conducive for obvious and multiple reasons.
- Watching with the club – in very rare cases, the club switches locations of their weekly meetups without notice, but otherwise they stick to a certain time and place for roughly half the year. Due to paywalls I will not concede to (as a matter of personal pride, security and money), this is the only way I’m able to see a few first episodes at all. You’ll notice I’ve marked out which shows I’ve seen at my club on my list as a result, although Cowboy Bebop and Gundam Seed Destiny were from a separate club that failed to take off.
- Watching with family – my family’s significantly more accepting of anime than most. That said, it’s rare for us to watch together, due to differing tastes. My family will discuss with me occasionally about either shows or news, but everyone knows I’m the undisputed champ in the family when it comes to anime…
- Watching with my Japanese class – there are a few things I’ve been able to view, mostly movies, through my Japanese class since one of the big draws of Japanese is being able to understand anime and manga.
What I Watch With
Jon specifically asked for “the setup…you use for watching anime”. Aside from the anime club setup I mentioned earlier, the equation involves either my personal laptop or a TV or a DVD player/TV combo.
…and yes. There is anime on TV where I am, although it’s shown from about 9 pm onwards. It’s always a show that’s available streaming though, so I don’t use the option much.
Update: There is Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, Youkai Watch and some of the other kids’ stuff during more acceptable hours, but the more hardcore and “typically anime” stuff (Attack on Titan, AssClass etc.) is from 9 pm. I keep forgetting about the former group since my mind always seems to latch on to the latter…
Do any of you watch anime with clubs? If not, would you like to?
I would love to watch anime with a club however I unfortunately live in the tiniest city in a small country where anime isn’t a very big deal. So I am not sure that even in the three biggest cities there are that many anime clubs to begin with. But out here in the countryside no one only knows about Totoro basically (and perhaps Your Name).
Well, if you don’t have a club in the real world, you’ve always got the aniblogging community to fall back on…
The only time I have the opportunity to watch anime with other people is usually at a con. All the other times I just watch it at home, alone. Would love to have an anime club. That would seriously be awesome 😀😀
I’d love a club but only a handful of people even watch anime in my whole school.
WHOLE SCHOOL.
Well, you could always make your own. Or you could just rely on the aniblogging community to be your “club”…
I’m currently doing that (aniblogging anime club ^^)
T.T I can relate.
Wow! You made a whole response post, that is seriously awesome! 😀 Thanks for that. As to your post and question, it’s pretty cool that you are in an anime club. My University had one but I never got involved with it. I looked into them and the people were “those kind” of anime fans… this doesn’t even mention that they largely just watched Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece… so wasn’t at all what I was looking for. I’d be totally down to have an anime club though, would be awesome!