Elder’s newest club on campus, the Anime club, is a collection of students that do not have their own room or the number of members that other clubs and organizations boast, but that doesn’t stop the group from meeting every week. The club meets weekly in room S132 in the Schaefer Center every Thursday after school to watch and discus new anime.

When I dropped in on the group one Thursday afternoon, squeezing past members of the engineering club and their projects, I found three members of the club who were willing to give their thoughts before commencing with their usual meeting.

Senior Doyle Higgins and Juniors Kyle Gilday and Alex Carcutt all had the time and patience to answer some questions a non-member like me would have about their peculiar club.

“Anime is more than a cartoon,” Higgins states bluntly to start off the interview. “They’re more meaningful and symbolic.” Higgins, who wants to be a voice actor after he graduates, is a very outspoken fan of the anime and manga as a source of entertainment, telling anyone who asks about his passion.

Kyle Gilday said that anime are unique when compared to other mediums, saying that where other media focuses on one or two genres, Anime can be all the genres in one. “The backgrounds, voice acting, and character design are unique and detailed.” Gilday elaborated as he backed up his claims.

“There’s more there to grab your attention.” Higgins commented on Gilday’s previous quote.

Though the group all agrees that anime is a unique and interesting creative medium that they all enjoy, they can’t decide on which ones are the best of the bunch or even what genre is the best. Junior Alex Carcutt likes comedy focused shows, while Higgins and Gilday prefer different shows that focus more on the action aspect of anime.

The club is open to anyone joining or dropping by for a single day to get to know the club, offering a different show every week in either English or the original Japanese voice over with English subtitles depending on your preference.

A final question I had for the group was what shows that they would recommend for newcomers to anime, a few shared opinions were the popular Attack on Titan and Cowboy Bebop television shows which can be found on Netflix streaming and Adult Swim online respectively. A few unique suggestions were Devil is a Part Timer from Carcutt, Death Note from Gilday, and Sword Art Online from Higgins, all of which can easily be found on Netflix’s online streaming service.

The group also heavily recommended any film made by studio Ghibli, which include movies such as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, and Oscar nominated The Wind Rises and Oscar winner Spirited Away.

Some of you reading may have seen Princess Mononoke in Mr. Bell’s or Mr. Dickman’s comparative religions classes, and from what the former members of that class have told me it was one of the best movies they watched in that class.

The club and its members are all very welcoming and have assured me that they are willing to answer any questions or concerns that any of you who are considering the club are welcome to ask.

For such a new and relatively small club, they are a much discussed and talked about club, with most people discussing curiousity of the club and of its members, and I can confidently say that they are just passionate fans of anime who happen to bleed purple as much as any other student attending Elder.