Memories of your anime club in the old days...

[kndy]

I'll kick it off with a few images...















From my Mike T. who was involved with Cal Animage Berkeley and he and his friend would go on to create Anime Expo and now Pacific Media Expo

[greg]

As I believe I mentioned in my self-intro, I was a member of the Anime Archive BBS in Phoenix, AZ. I was fresh out of college (or maybe I was a senior in high school?) around 1994 when we started having GTs (get-togethers) every few months or so. It was a great time and I made some friends that way. Ganalef on this board (although he never really posted on here since his self-intro) was one of those friends, and he remains a good friend to this day (even though he's underwater most of his life and I rarely get to talk to him outside of occasional e-mails).

The guy who hosted the GTs was a guy named Bruce Carlson, known as Cactus Subtitling or something like that. He had a freaking HUGE laserdisc collection. He used these as masters as he made fan subtitles on his MacIntosh computer for distribution. I don't care what some people say about how they think that fansubs are responsible for the decline in the anime industry. If it weren't for fansubs, I wouldn't have purchased all the titles I own. It was how I was initially exposed to Miyazaki movies, Irresponsible Captain Taylor, Kimagure Orange Road, Patlabor, Macross the Movie, and so many other titles I now own in my collection. He was an incredibly great guy with plenty of patience for us younger idiots who would spill cola on his sofa and stay too late.

Back when there were only a handful of companies releasing anime domestically, his fansub catalog was great (I found it amusing how he refused to have anything to do with Dragonball Z fansubs) and it really was the gateway to the world of anime for me. I remember asking Bruce if there was any great space opera anime that was serious and did not involve giant robots. He said, "Oh, you mean Legend of the Galactic Heroes?" Wow, that instantly became my favorite show!

Some memories I had was meeting one guy with an insane collection of Gundam models, yet he'd never put one together. I remember watching many shows for the first time, such as Dragon Half, Combustible Campus Guardress, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Patlabor, Neighborhood Earth Defense Force, Five Star Stories, Evangelion, DNA2, and so many other shows I can't even remember the name of. I remember when we watched Macross 7, we were busting up laughing when we saw it for the first time. I was like, "They pilot Valkyries via guitar strings?" I was rolling on the floor laughing so hard. I haven't seen a new Macross show since then and just stick to the original TV series and the DYRL movie. However, I do like Macross II while everyone else doesn't like it---I just find it interesting as a sequel to the movie and not the TV show. We watched Macross Plus and I found it boring. Gosh, I have so many great memories of those GTs.

I think I took my elder sister to one or two of the GTs. We did have our token chick at the GTs though, who was a friend of mine and Ganalef's. She was a Vegan, so we always had to order one pizza without any cheese or meat on it. (Vegans... don't get me started...)

Then I guess Bruce just suddenly stopped having to do with anyone, and quit the fansubbing gig altogether. I've no idea what happened, really. Plus the BBS fell apart as everyone started using the Internet instead. However, I always appreciated the level of discussion more on Fidonet on BBSes than on the newsgroups. But, I guess that is another discussion.

So it wasn't really an anime club, per se. It was just people who used a local BBS and would get together in a guy's living room and watch anime while eating pizza and snacks until late at night. Before then, I had tried to put together some sort of anime club and to hold viewings at a Peter Piper Pizza joint (don't know how far spread they are, but they're headquartered in Phoenix). That never really came together. Then I discovered the Anime Archive BBS, and it changed me forever. I had talked about maybe going to '95 Anime Expo with the BBS's sysop, but that never happened. That's unfortunate, since that was an incredible year to have gone.

[kndy]

That's pretty cool Greg! I ran the Neo Tokyo 2099 BBS back then...here is an old flyer:



I had a few get-togethers in the 1990's...but it took me nearly a decade later to decide that I wanted to host a public party in 2003 called Ani-Jam. Me and a few friends started forming a staff of volunteers and rented out a few rooms at the Ramada Inn for six hours and we were expecting maybe a 150-250 people but we had over 500 people from all over California. It was crazy...I thought the fire marshal would come. But interesting enough, the event was a success that people were wanting a convention. As much as it would have been fun to do, my wife just gave birth to a baby boy and I was not in the position to invest $10,000-$20,000 of my money on a convention. So, I gave control of the event and name to a group of people who now have made it to an actual anime convention in Fresno, California.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqz33Lo2tE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKmosCQauz4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9nxJ5A_GgE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... KmosCQauz4

[kndy]

More photos... By the mid-90's, I started another club (the Asunaro Club) but as I was studying Japanese in college and my interest was growing more towards Japanese culture, I would have meetings at my home but I wanted a blend of showing anime but also Japanese dramas (English subtitled), variety shows and music shows and also having Japanese food served as well. Here is one of our club meetings for our "Fall Minna Atsumare Party" where friends came out to watch "X" the movie from CLAMP but also eat some okonomiyaki and yakisoba. Also, had karaoke...

[greg]

That's pretty cool Greg! I ran the Neo Tokyo 2099 BBS back then...here is an old flyer:

I'm pretty sure I remember the Neo Tokyo BBS back in the day. IIRC, when users would post on FidoNet or AnimeNet, it would display which BBS they were from.

That's good you formed a group that focused on Japanese culture. You just gave me an idea to start a topic on J-dramas.

[whitesnake]

When I learn how to use my new camera, maybe I can post a few covers for the old Anime Sacramento Newsletter. But this topic reminded me of what Patrick Macias posted on his blog a few years ago about my club.

Patrick wrote:
"When I was a teenager, I began attending Japanese language classes at a local Buddhist temple in Sacramento. A few of the students were there because they were Japanese-American, and their parents wanted them to learn the old language. But at least two teenagers, a black guy and a white guy, were fellow anime and manga geeks. They bought import copies of Animage and Newtype magazine and had pen pals in Japan who sent them tapes of the latest anime like Otomo’s AKIRA, and classics like Captain Harlock. Even better, they told me they had other friends like themselves who met in person once a month just to watch anime.
The group turned out to be the Sacramento branch of the C/FO, the Cartoon Fantasy Organization, which Fred Pattern (read about him on page 401) had helped to establish. I was thrilled about going to the first meeting. It felt like prom night or something. Maybe I’d even meet a cool otaki version of Valerie and fall in love.
I’ll never forget what I saw…it was like an opium den for geeks. Huge bottles of 7-UP and Dr. Pepper were everywhere. Bags of potato chips lined the floors. Women and men lay sprawled across sofas and reclining chairs looking like beached whales. Some seemed to speak only in lines of dialogue from SF TV shows and movies. Some lacked the social skills to talk much at all. I didn’t think I was any better than them, but at least knew who my peers where and the sort of company I’d have to keep from now on if I wanted to stay in touch with what was going on in Japan."

Of course that's not what I remember about my shows. The meetings were too crowded for anyone to sprawl, except on the beanbag chair in the middle of the room.

[gaijinpunch]

As I believe I mentioned in my self-intro, I was a member of the Anime Archive BBS in Phoenix, AZ.

The guy who hosted the GTs was a guy named Bruce Carlson, known as Cactus Subtitling or something like that.

Ah---memories! Why I come here. I forgot to ask about Bruce. I had a lot of his stuff... traded a few SVHS masters with him towards the end of my run. I will never forget something he said on our first trade. "You'll need to give me your address unless you've figured out a way to trade video through the internet." Haha... guess he didn't have his crystal ball.

Anyway, I recall the distinct style of his stuff as he used a Mac. His timing was great -- very high quality stuff. Wonder what happened to him.

</geek>

[greg]

Well, Bruce suddenly disappeared. He never was the type to answer the phone whenever I called him anyway, but I think he just suddenly quit fansubbing altogether. One guy who was closer to him said that he just abruptly stopped having to do with anyone. Who knows? I hate to repeat a rumor if it's not true, but it was from a fairly reliable source, I guess. Our Phoenix group just kind of fizzled out all of the sudden. I've found Brad Turner, the sysop of the Anime Archive BBS, online once. I tried e-mailing him, but he never replied. Still, I'm happy with the fond memories from all those guys and the fun we had in the '90s.

[gaijinpunch]

Indeed... and glad that you shared that. Every now and again when I watch something from time to time I remember his subs. It took dedication to do it on a Mac. Haha. But, I guess that's what happens to everyone. I'm sure quite a few people are wondering what happened to me.

[usamimi]

Wow, this takes me back! I was the "co-President" of my high school's anime club back in the day (the former President didn't feel comfortable giving me the title alone because "I was a girl." So I had to have a guy be my co-president, even though he never showed up, never brought stuff to watch, and was generally the most unreliable person ever. >___> Ugh.) I met a lot of people that I still talk to occasionally through that, too. I always wanted to join one of the bigger collage anime clubs after high school but the closest one was inconvenient for me to get to.