If you don’t spend morning announcements buried in your phone, then you’ve most likely heard the anime club’s infamous tagline. “Are you tired of watching anime alone? Come down to Room B201 for the anime club.”
The club has been dormant for most of the semester, but they returned just in time to offer its members a reprieve from finals. To check out exactly how the club runs, I sat in on one of their weekly meetings.
The Meeting
On that Friday, the show of the day was Golden Kamuy. This story recounts the tale of an Imperial Japanese soldier gone AWOL (absent without leave) in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The historical setting of the show is very interesting, but the show was selected as a gag.
There is a scene in the selected episode in which the protagonist has to battle it out with a bear in the Siberian wilderness. However, the bear’s rendering in CGI is laughably poor, and it shatters the serious tone of the show.
Noah Johnson ’18 talked to us about what kind of shows the club has watched.
“We watch current shows and vintage classics.”
As I am not a connoisseur, I asked Johnson what qualifies as a classic. He replied, “anything with a cult following really, ranging from old comedies to Studio Ghibli films.”
The Club
When we asked Will Hubbel ’18 to describe the group, he responded, “in the club registry, we’re put down as a club that studies Japanese culture, but it’s a little more than that.”
Anime is just one of many things this group of guys have bonded over. The anime club has been around since the class of 2018’s sophomore year, and the club has been running since then. They communicate through a group chat that has been running for years.
The camraderie these guys have developed is honestly admirable. The membership consists of students with their own extracurriculars and commitments, but they all meet at the end of the week and bond over a Crunchy Roll subscription.
It isn’t just a club that watches anime. It’s a space where seniors can vent frustration about having to make poster boards for SJPP, it’s a space where four students can have a lengthy debate about matching their socks to their belt color.
The brotherhood aspect of Jesuit isn’t always singing the Alma Mater at prayer services or doing The Yell in the stands at football games. Sometimes it’s the little things that have the most to say about our school.
Stay tuned to The Roundup for the latest Jesuit Anime Club news.
