Not My Box of Pocky

Category: School, College, Greek
Originally posted on April 9, 2008

I was excited about going to my anime club meeting. I was a little nervous, but it was a good nervous. For an anime club meeting I only took one thing with me, Japanese snack food. A box of Koala’s March cookies the chocolate filled ones. I wanted to eat them during the viewing like I would’ve done at my old anime club if I would have been able to find some. Plus they are a quiet food.

When I went to where the club was suppose to meet up I just wanted to be really low key about it. So I just walked slowly to the back corner of the room and sat down. Then the leaders of the club had to yell in the room that everybody who was there for the club meeting to round them up. They said that we were not meeting in the place that we were at.

As we were walking as a club to the room we were going to meet up at they were talking about things from the last meeting since I was not at the last one I had no idea what was going on. We were walking down this hallway and some of the members started yelling and screaming. The leader had to tell them to stop because people were having class near by. Some of the members wanted to do what they wanted with out consent from the club. I don’t know how many clubs they have been in before, but you just can’t do that in any club.

I sat in the back of the room I wanted to be low key again. I like to sit towards the back at club meetings. The guy who is the staff leader was telling us about what we can and can’t do. Like you can’t show a movie to more than 10 people or it’s an exhibition. Does that mean if you have a party and you run a movie in the background you can charge people? The good thing was that he dissed the "purists" and said that if you really wanted a pure anime you would watch it unedited in Japanese and understand it. He said that even subs are mistranslated and well everybody knows about the dubs. He was saying that you should watch an anime that makes you think. But I’m not really into overanalyzing stuff sometimes I just want to watch mindless entertainment. He said he really doesn’t like American cartoons because they are not drawn very well. I don’t care about how well something is drawn just as long as the story has me. He was saying about all those "cookie cutter" anime like Dragon Ball and Naruto. But I really like those. Well not those series specifically, but I do like my cookie cutter magical girl anime. That is my favorite sub-genre. But he said some kid’s anime are good. But he likes stuff like Ghost in the Shell.

After the club leaders introduced themselves people were trying to get the anime they brought shown. This one guy brought a whole bunch of stuff. He had shopping bags filled with DVDs and video games. He had one of these small novelty lockers filled with PS1 games. Every time somebody would mention a series or genre he would pull out a DVD. It was like he was trying to prove something. You know I use to be that way back then when I was in my first anime club. But now I feel you don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Not even to other fans even though some fans can get really judgmental.

Some other people were watching DVDs on somebody’s computer. It was really loud, but I didn’t recognize it. They were talking about going to Anime Expo and Comic Con. They were going to get rooms for the local convention. They said to save money they would scam the hotel and put 6 people in a 4 person room. I know how hard it is to do that with people you know. I think it would be harder with strangers. I was really bored and tired during the meeting. I wasn’t interested in going to the conventions.

I couldn’t believe I had to pay club dues. It was $10. I thought it was free. Why should I have to pay $10? I already pay so much in student activities fees. That was it. I was officially out of the club.

They passed around a paper where the members could suggest anime to be shown. When I got the paper I saw there were a lot of joke anime listed by other members. I was going to write a cliché metaseries like Sailor Moon or Pokemon, but I didn’t I wrote a different one. An old one that I use to watch in my old club. They went back into talking about the convention and saying about how you need to go to one and how great it is. I mean it would be nice to go to one. But going to one is not one of my main priorities right now. They said that if you have never been to a convention you don’t know what you are missing. I don’t know another thing I like to do is go to a Wrestlemania, but that is not anime related. They were saying about getting club discounts at different anime stores in the area. I can get discounts for stores I don’t really shop at. I haven’t been to an anime store in years. I’ll say in 7-8 years. When the meeting was finally over I couldn’t wait to go home.

When I got home I decided to go to the yard sale my neighbors were holding down the street. I was looking for some good retro deals. I didn’t find any. I did get this dog candle they were selling for $1. When I first saw it I thought it was a figure or statue. She lady selling it to me said it was new, but it looked old and yellowed. There is a little black on the nose missing. But I plan to fix that. I like it. I think it’s kitschy.