You come up with a solid plan, only to be faced with staring down hardcore, intimidating vets while pitching an anime club. Its purpose is made known. You’ve spent weeks working to get the club going.

And then, you survive and it’s official. You have your club.

…This is the story of Anime-Gataris, just, um…ok, not quite like it.

Way back in 2008, I was a dumb freshman starting college. At some point, after realizing I could create a club, I set out to do it. I wanted to create an anime club. There were a number of reasons why, but the main reason was some of my high school friends. They created a video game club. After school was over we’d gather in a room and play whatever game we wanted. Smash Bros, Halo, DS, etc. Just getting people to gather around and watch people play was cool and honestly was something I never thought about doing.

That’s why I was motivated to create a club in school. It had to be anime. Of course, my thoughts were I’d create it, have someone else be President, and kick back and enjoy. Note: I was a dumb freshman. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t really have a gameplan on how to gather members. The only thing I thought I could do was reach out to people in my class and see if they were interested. So before class started I would ask my professor if I could pitch joining the club. I needed enough people to show interest in it, and organize staff. Despite essentially feeling like jelly after making pitches, the club had enough members. It had a staff. Then it got approved by The Student Council. So, I had an anime club.

Watching Minoa in Anime-Gataris reminds me of those days.

I wasn’t quite the rookie like Minoa is when it comes to anime, but I had no idea about downloading anime until I created the club. I even learned about Touhou while I was there. The big thing is Minoa wanted to have a club involving people who liked the same things, while also wanting to figure out the anime she watched as a kid. I wanted the same thing. Especially as a freshman, you don’t know everybody. This was one way to do so.

Anime-GatarisThe more I’ve been watching Anime-Gataris, from how the club was created to its struggles, I couldn’t help but think back to my anime club days. Like spending not all night working on a project like what happens later in the anime, but spending nights either planning events or working a event. Learning about anime I would have never thought about watching before. The club was the first I’ve heard of Kino’s Journey. It was also the first time I’ve heard of Garzey’s Wing and wished I did not watch it (should note someone from the anime club showed it to me). The anime club showed me a lot of things that I might not have seen had it not gotten started.

It’s been crazy watching Anime-Gataris. It’s doing what it can to show what it’s like to be an anime fan, fandom in general, and it gets me nostalgic at points. In some areas it’s pretty simplistic, and I don’t even think it’s a great anime.

But I’m enjoying the hell of it with all of its obvious references. Also, it makes me think back to the time where I had to give a speech about starting an anime club. In some ways, I wouldn’t really change how I started it. Now running it on the other hand…

12 Days of Anime is a series of posts from bloggers regarding the best, worst, or in between anime moments of 2017. Here’s the initial article from Appropriant inviting bloggers to take part.