No-Name Anime Club Ending in 2013

[kndy]

Back in 1993, I discovered a local anime club in Fresno, California known as Otaku Generation. And through this club, they were assisted by friends from No-Name Anime Club and Cal Berkeley's anime club.

I have seen many of these friends go on to create clubs a few years earlier with Anime Con to Anime Expo and others with Fanime.

While some of these clubs are no longer, No-Name Anime Club was one of the oldest anime clubs in America that was trying to keep things going the best they can.

In the latest newsletter from No-Name Anime Club, the have decided that this 20th year, they will be ending the club.

According to their newsletter:

Well as we enter on are 20th Year as a
club, we have had some good times and
some bad times. We have alwaYs been
workirtg to promole anime to tlte masses
and for the most part we have become a
victim of our own success. As anime has
become more mainstrealrl, we have been
losing membership. We also have been
losing peopie at the top that are needed to
run a club like this each month' So I am
sorry to announce that this is the last year
IbalNo-Name Anime will be running as a
club. It has been a blast for all ofus
running this club, but it is time to wrap up
the monthly showings. So this years
programming will include some new
movies and episodes from some of are
favoriies show as the current programming
wraps up. I know a few of You want the
club to continue, but without the hard
work and dedication of the people at top
we wouid not be running at all and to be
honest, most of us are pretty tired. So
don't be sad, it has been a great run and we
have eleven more showing to make sorne
rnore wonderfu I memories.

[Heero]

That's too bad. I sort of disagree with their notion for being a "victim of their own success". I think anime still needs people to promote it, but the internet has really made clubs obsolete if that is the main purpose. Really, the only chance "anime" clubs have is to provide a social outlet to unite people across a common interest. But I can totally understand their perspective about needing new organizers. Conventions are the same way, I think many upper staff face burnout and attendees have little interest in helping out. Honestly, I think if people weren't pocketing registration fees and turning con running into "careers" a fair number of cons would have collapsed already.

[davemerrill]

I enjoy watching anime in a social setting, but these days the idea of running an anime club, or even attending an anime club meeting... there's just no way I'd do this nowadays.

Things are very different now than they were in the 80s and 90s, when the only way you could watch anime was to have some kind of connection providing tapes through the mail, or by attening screenings at the local anime club (who had connections to get tapes through the mail). Back then there was a very real sense that this was an art form that we needed to promote, that we had to reach out and find others who shared our interests. Nowadays, anime is an industry that does its own PR and getting in touch with others who share our interests is ridiculously easy.

I'll be frank; running an anime club meant putting up with a lot of poorly socialized people, and that's stressful. Having to deal with their behavior, having to play hall monitor, having to explain to the property managers exactly what's going to be happening and why these people act the way they act; it's all a pain in the ass. My free time is limited, and using it to show cartoons I don't like to people who can't behave in public is not a productive way to use it. It's been at least a decade since I've attended any sort of anime club meeting.

If the No-Name Anime Club was meant to keep running, then one of its members would have stepped up to the plate and given back to the community. But it's a story repeated over and over in the anime club world - club runners get tired of the work and quit, and the vast majority of club members fail to take up the slack. These things have natural life spans.

[Daniel]

Are any of the people that founded the club still running it?

[gaijinpunch]

Totally understand what Dave means.

OT: Dave, are you in touch w/ anyone in the Dallas area that used to throw cons?

[davemerrill]

Totally understand what Dave means.

OT: Dave, are you in touch w/ anyone in the Dallas area that used to throw cons?

I hear from Meri Davis every now and again; she came to AWA this past September and we got to catch up for a bit. I'm still in touch with a few of the old EDC fans from that area/era.

[kndy]

Are any of the people that founded the club still running it?

I believe a few are still part of it. It's interesting because my friend is still part of it, still sends me the newsletters and he's now in his 50's. Hard to believe especially when you started out in your teens and to know everyone is in their 40's or 50's now. Lol...

My memory of No-Name Anime Club was probably in '92 or so. The Ranma 1/2 Project was fan subbing the series and they had a dozen or so episodes. And I remember No-Name Anime Club would visit Otaku Generation to promote Anime America and then later a college convention, Fanime.

And then going to the first Fanime to help setup. And I'll remember the anime clubs from Cal Berkeley to other areas with their big banners. Reminded me of a big Greek Frat event...lol...

I know a few anime clubs in California are still going on..but they are more social club. I often am invited and bring prizes to these clubs but a lot of these clubs are much different than when we had clubs in the '90s. Back then, a lot of the people were in their '20s, rarely do we see kids. But the ones I have visited, they are all high schoolers except the organizers. And they don't show anime, they are talking about My Little Pony, Hetalia, playing card competitions and discussing cosplay techniques.

One time when I had a talk about anime, it's like anime went over the head of a lot of them. They know "Naruto", "Bleach", "Pokemon" but they lot of them are into "Hetalia", "Panty & Stocking" and what they can find on Crunchyroll. But man... the My Little Pony thing? I don't know about that...Lol...

[usamimi]

I'll be frank; running an anime club meant putting up with a lot of poorly socialized people, and that's stressful. Having to deal with their behavior, having to play hall monitor, having to explain to the property managers exactly what's going to be happening and why these people act the way they act; it's all a pain in the ass.

oh LORD, tell me about it. Running the anime club in high school was a pain for me. It was like babysitting a room full of 200 lb toddlers. (And it didn't help that my "co-president" was NEVER there, and when he was there, it was to use the corner of the room as a little make-out spot for his girlfriend of the week. ) I did meet a lot of people through it, and I did get to share SOME anime that I liked...but the only anime they ever really sat down and actually paid attention to was all the stupid stuff that they BEGGED me to watch. (The one time I remember actually having COMPLETE SILENCE in the room during a viewing was the week I showed the first Pokemon movie fansubbed the week before the American version was going to be released. They wouldn't be quiet for Miyazaki movies, but they'd shut up for Pokemon, apparently...sigh.)

That is sad that they're ending it, though, but as the saying goes "All good things must come to an end", eh? I'm amazed they lasted as long as they did, really, most of the big anime clubs in WA I remember seeing sort of fizzled out in the early '00s, if I recall.

[davemerrill]

The attention span of the audience at our anime club meeting had a definite curve: in 1986 people would watch pretty much whatever was shown, because it was anime, and the club was the only place to watch it. By the mid 1990s we had a third of the attendees watching what was shown, a third would be in the back of the room playing video games, and a third would be out in the hall socializing. The viewing percentage kept shrinking. At the club's last meeting place the video games were not allowed and that pretty much killed half the membership right there.

Here in 2013 I think the social aspect of an anime club is really the only reason for it to exist. The cartoons can be obtained at home, you can watch them at your leisure on your own couch, not on a hard chair in a community center surrounded by strangers, for some of whom bathing is not a regular activity. Thank goodness technology caught up with us and we no longer have to treat Japanese cartoons like precious objects - they're mass market cartoons meant for broadcast, not secret cult transmissions for 'club members only'.

It appalls me to recall that I once hosted open-to-the-public anime club meetings in my OWN HOME. I think I did that exactly twice. I like Japanese animation, and I like being with others who like it, but there's a limit.

[kndy]

The attention span of the audience at our anime club meeting had a definite curve: in 1986 people would watch pretty much whatever was shown, because it was anime, and the club was the only place to watch it. By the mid 1990s we had a third of the attendees watching what was shown, a third would be in the back of the room playing video games, and a third would be out in the hall socializing. The viewing percentage kept shrinking. At the club's last meeting place the video games were not allowed and that pretty much killed half the membership right there.

Here in 2013 I think the social aspect of an anime club is really the only reason for it to exist. The cartoons can be obtained at home, you can watch them at your leisure on your own couch, not on a hard chair in a community center surrounded by strangers, for some of whom bathing is not a regular activity. Thank goodness technology caught up with us and we no longer have to treat Japanese cartoons like precious objects - they're mass market cartoons meant for broadcast, not secret cult transmissions for 'club members only'.

It appalls me to recall that I once hosted open-to-the-public anime club meetings in my OWN HOME. I think I did that exactly twice. I like Japanese animation, and I like being with others who like it, but there's a limit.

Lol...I ran open to the public anime meetings through my home before, I think the one in SF still does that but they are like otaku BBQ's social gatherings. Back then, I tried to integrate some Japanese culture, so before the meeting I spent money to make sushi.

But I was fortunate because mostly friends who were in their late teens, but mostly in their 20's as opposed to now where many I go are 16 and under.