Friday nights are quiet on the third floor of San José State’s Boccardo Business Center with one exception: the Anime Club meets from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in room 320 where anime aficionados meet to discuss, play games, and connect.
Aaron Koc, electrical engineering sophomore and Anime Club treasurer, said during club meetings members discuss anime and coordinators of the club rely on trivia, creativity, and teamwork to foster a connection with each other.
“Often games are team-based, like Jeopardy or (the game of) guessing certain anime openings or (testing) knowledge about them,” said Noah Fourby, materials engineering senior and Anime Club vice-president. “Then we've had other fun ones sort of based on the idea of trying to come up with some prompt. . .”
Graphic design senior Ronald Caos said he enjoys the club because club members are knowledgeable about anime which has made it easier for him to form close friendships with them.
The Anime Club meeting last Friday involved a watch party followed by a team competition. Together club members attempted to copy iconic anime poses and memes while the rest of their team guessed which ones they were.
The Anime Club has also hosted other games on Friday including Anime Improv, Family Feud, Pictionary, Plot Creation, and the Waifu Hunger Games according to its Discord.
Fourby said there are not enough clubs at San José State for clubs that purely focus on being social for these niche communities.
He said he enjoyed being able to bring people together and create a community. He also said people outside of SJSU are able to show up and meet individuals with similar interests.
Koc said club members decide what anime they are going to watch together with a poll at the beginning of the semester. He said they recommend animes to each other and watch them together.
Club officers regularly show trailers to different anime at meetings to give its club members an idea of which story they will embark on next. He said this helps new members get introduced to what the rest of the club community is interested in.
Fourby said the club was founded in 2019 amidst having no community for people interested in anime. He said the club initially faced difficulty garnering membership and interest when he first joined during COVID-19 pandemic.
He said meetings were held online for health reasons with attendance of four or five members at each meeting.
Koc said he helped revive the club after the COVID lockdown when its former president, treasurer, and other senior club officers graduated. He mentioned that in the fall of 2022 they decided to switch the modality to in-person meetings after several online meetings.
Koc said the was surprised when over 20 people showed up to the first in-person meeting.
He said since then the club has been more alive and consistent. He also said its club officers make efforts to put out new content and activities for their members.
Koc said “Anime inherently has an audience” which is why the club was successful in having people on board.
Fourby said a misconception many people have about anime is that it is a genre with a specific audience.
“There is something for everyone to watch even if you're not particularly an anime fan in general. . . there's such a diverse range of plotlines and genres that (the plots in anime) take place in,” Fourby said.
Fourby said a good place for many to get started is by watching superhero anime first, like the shows ‘Dr. Stone’ or ‘My Hero Academia’. He said these superhero animes help bridge the gap between Western television and anime by being based on a familiar subject with a unique plot and twist.
“I think people view anime as (a) nerdy thing to be interested in, but I don't think it is,” Koc said. “There are so many genres that I feel like if you like television, you probably also like anime.”
