Animania (was this C/FO - Ann Arbor?)

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
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mbanu
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Anime Fan Since: 2001

Animania (was this C/FO - Ann Arbor?)

Post by mbanu »

Tim Eldred's home club, and one of the older still-active college clubs: https://www.facebook.com/animaniaumich/

It looks like Animania was originally the name of the club newsletter, with the actual name back in 1988 being the "Ann Arbor Anime Organization":
Image
(https://archive.org/stream/Animania1_78 ... 0/mode/2up)

By 1993, they'd hit their stride, apparently:
Wow ! This was the clubs largest meeting yet ! We had 450 people show up!! What does this make us ? Are we possibly the largest club in the U.S. ? Ne in the World !?!. I don!t believe that any other group has had this type of consistent attendance. Last year we had 300 attendees at our first meeting of the year. This type of increase simply reflects how much this club has grown in quality. We try to bring only the best to our showings, LD original, fully subbed, is the only thing we believe can show the medium as it truly is ! The understanding is paramount to the anime!
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!origi ... AiMzi-TroJ)

The crowd at a typical screening in 1995:
Image

...and the staff back then (^_^):
Image
(1994-1995)

Image
(1996-1997)

Supposedly there was a documentary about the club:
Animania Documentary to Air on Ann Arbor Local Television!

For the past several months, one of Animania's members has been hard at work on a documentary about Animania, and now his work is complete. We are proud to announce that the broadcast premiere of the documentary "ANIMANIA ~bringing anime to Ann Arbor~" will be Sunday, February 4th at 9:00PM on CTN 9. (This is channel 9 on the Ann Arbor Continental Cablevision network.) I have seen a preview of the half-hour show, and I have to say that it is fantanstic and very well done. Give it a look-see or set your VCRs, because it will give you a chance to show your friends what this Animania thing you keep going to once a month is all about.
(https://web.archive.org/web/19961220010 ... ounce.html)

Not sure how common anime fandom documentaries were by 1996; might be an interesting thing to hunt down. (^_^)

Animania also puts on Con Ja Nai: http://www.conjanai.org/about-us/
Here's a show listing for the first one:
October 1994--Con Ja Nai!

The Con Ja Nai! (It's Not a Con!) was the first of our special, once-a-year events, where we showed a veritable marathon of Japanese animation. For over fifteen straight hours, and in two adjacent auditoriums, Animania lit up the silver screens with some of your favorite anime titles and anime classics.
In Theater One:

Firetripper
Riding Bean
Gunbuster, episodes 1-6
Patlabor Movie 1 (now from Manga Entertainment)
Battle Angel
City Hunter Movie: A Magnum of Love and Destiny
Akira

In Theater Two:

Kiki's Delivery Service
Macross 1984: Do You Remember Love?
Black Magic M-66
Vampire Princess Miyu, OVAs 1-4 (AnimEigo)
Sol Bianca (A.D. Vision)
My Youth in Arcadia / Arcadia of My Youth
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
(https://web.archive.org/web/19961220203 ... ows95.html)

I'm not 100% sure about the C/FO - Ann Arbor part; a C/FO - Ann Arbor was listed as a C/FO provisional chapter in the 1987 C/FO newsletter with a Justin Kim as the contact, but I don't see Justin Kim in the staff list of the 1988 Animania newsletter... does anyone have any info on this?
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
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