Hello, there! You have entered Anime Ascendant, a website dedicated to anime, manga, and Japan-related clubs. How do we help you? We offer support for these clubs in the form of advice, links, forms, contests, and programs.
If you have any questions, please Contact Us, and we’ll be sure to get back to you with some great answers!
COVID-19: Can Anime Clubs Survive? + Alternatives to Meeting in Person
With the coronavirus epidemic, also known as COVID-19, canceling building openings and gatherings to prevent the spread of the virus, do anime clubs have a chance to survive?
Yes, they can. To take a step in the direction of the times when anime and manga fans made friends online–“OMG, so retro,” may be your thought process–then, yes, anime clubs can survive by going back to the internet.
That means reaching out to the club leadership and members to check in. If a friend is nearby, call them, text them, connect with them and make sure the COVID zombie apocalypse hasn’t taken them.
Have some ideas? Write it below!
I’m trying to make my club better. We’re halfway through the year and our club is basically tearing apart. It was going well at the beginning of the year but now it’s getting boring (and people are leaving).
Besides, “What do I do?”, the real question here is, “How do I keep my club from falling apart halfway through the year?”
Imagine looking at room of 10 or 20 excited club members who are painfully shy to get up and do Interview Bingo for a game. What do you do? How do you move to a different activity without losing face?
Here are a few activities to get shy yet adamant club members into activities.
On the board, create a 4×4 or 5×5 grid. Number each box.
Club members will be teams. Make sure to group each team by number (ex. Team 1, Team 2, etc.).
Each team will number off their teammates. #1 teammates will stand up. Ask a question anime related. Whichever team raises their hand fastest and gets the correct answer will have a chance to pick a number on the grid.
Make teams of 4 or more and give them a team number. Write 1-6 on the board, or if you plan on using this game more times, make flashcards. Next to the odd numbers (1,3,5), draw pictures of monkeys. Next to the even numbers (2,4,6), draw bananas. On the side, number off by how many teams there are (ex. 5 teams means numbering 1 to 5). Give each team 5 points.
Each team will number off their teammates. #1 teammates will stand up. Ask a question anime related. Whichever team raises their hand fastest and gets the correct answer will have a chance to give points to a team or take points for themselves. Once that’s decided, the team rolls a die. If the die lands on an odd number (1,3,5), it means minus points. If the die lands on an even number (2,4,6), it means plus points.
If a team rolls a one (1), it means minus all that picked team’s points.
If a team rolls a six (6), it means either plus 6 points, a prize, or roll again for plus points–it’s up to you.
The team with the most points wins.
Make many cards with Japan-related pictures (kimono, chopsticks, rice, sushi, sashimi). Put the members in small groups. Each group will get a set of the cards and they will spread them out evenly on the tables. The caller (whomever is calling out the Japanese words) will say the words in Japanese. The members must hit the correct picture card to get a point. The member with the most picture cards is the winner.
Wrap a small present with 6 to 10 layers of wrapping paper or newspaper. Play a Japanese song as the members pass the present around. When the music stops, the member holding the present must answer a question before unwrapping a layer. The game ends when someone finally unwraps the last layer and claims the present.
One person says or writes a title or word from an anime, manga, Japanese video game, song, or movie. The next person will say or write a word starting with the last letter from the first person. For example, if Person A says “Dragon Ball”, Person B will say a word starting with L (Love Hina, Legal Drug, Loveless).
Do you have any activities or games for shy club members? Leave a comment!
Figuring out how you’re going to start your anime club is part of the fun as an officer–but not when you’re scrabbling for ideas. The first 3 meetings are the most important meetings of the each semester. It’ll let your members know whether or not they want to join or disappear.
Here is an outline for your first 3 meetings to guide you:
Meeting One: The Introductions
-Ice Breaker: Get to know the members and let them get to know you.
Try Anime Bingo as an ice breaker: Anime Bingo 4×4 (docx) (for smaller clubs) and Anime Bingo 5×5 (docx) (for bigger clubs)
-Officer Introduction: Each officer introduces themselves.
-Club Introductions: Talk about what the club does, member dues, and how they can help make the club better
-Activity: Play a game that will have information about the officers and what the club does.
-Member Survey or Feedback Cards: Have each member finish a survey or feedback card.
Meeting Two: The Re-Introductions
-Ice Breaker: Get to know the members and let them get to know you.
Use this ice breaker to review or reintroduce the club information from the first meeting.
-Introduce what the club will do
-Activity
-Feedback or Suggestion Cards: Have each member finish a feedback or suggestion card on what the club should do next meeting.
Meeting Three: The Sell
-Ice Breaker: Get to know the members and let them get to know you.
Use this ice breaker to review or reintroduce the club information from the first meeting.
-Introduce what the club will do
-Activity or Special Guest
-Announcements or Open calls for committee members: Use this time to announce upcoming meetings, fundraisers, conventions, or events. Also be sure to include members in sub-committees and groups for special projects.
-Feedback or Suggestion Cards: Have each member finish a feedback or suggestion card on what the club should do next meeting.
If you need more ideas, please go to The Ultimate Anime Club Meeting Ideas and Activities List. If there is something specific you’re looking for and can’t find it, comment below or contact us.
How to Get Businesses to Donate to Your Club or Event
Looking for a business to donate to your club or event? Here’s a letter for you to take or send to businesses you want to donate to your club or event.
Please keep in mind that being organized and having all of your event details sorted out. If you don’t have the date, time, venue, and expected number of attendees, you most likely won’t get donations. It’s a give-and-take world, and you have to know how to play it.
Do not send this letter 2 weeks before your event. It’s better to send it 4 weeks before your event so that if the business has to mail back the form, it’ll reach you in time.
If you want to step up your game, you can also put a self-addressed envelope in the letter as well. On top of that, if you’ve sent out the letters to businesses and you haven’t heard back after 2 weeks, give the manager a call or send a thank-you card to them as a reminder. Maybe the letter got stuck underneath a pile of snail mail (which is why it’s better to hand the manager a letter).
Letter_to_Vendors – Excel (.docx) format
List of Vendors Template – Excel (.xlsx) format
Need a hand? You can contact me through email or find me on Skype at jeridel[dot]banks. Please make sure to indicate that you found me through Anime Ascendant, or I’ll decline any requests and emails.
2016 Printable Calendar for Anime Club Officers
Need a yearly calendar about what to do and when to do it as an officer? Don’t know some great Japanese (unofficial) holidays? This 2016 calendar has tasks for what officers should be doing (events, planning, meetings) and when they should be doing them. There are Japanese holidays by date, too.
Why is this calendar important? You and your team can plan fun meetings and events around this calendar. Also, if you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to be doing, this is a mini-guide for you. And if you didn’t know these holidays, you know them now!
To download the Excel of 2016 Anime Club and Japanese Holidays calendar, please click on the image above. Can’s see the picture? Click here.
The original calendar was downloaded from Vertex42.com and revised by Jd Banks for anime clubs.
New Year’s is a big holiday in Japan. People sometimes wear traditional robes and go to the shrines to pray for a year of good luck. At the shrines, people usually get a paper fortune, or omikuji (おみくじ). These fortunes tell the person if they will have good or bad luck during the year along with some warnings or predictions.
For your club meeting, you can have members pull their own paper fortune. You can download the PDF or Word document. Each fortune is different.
What happens if you pull a fortune that has bad luck? You fold it and tie it to a tree branch. This will ensure that the bad luck won’t come near you.
Anime Club Game Idea: Sugoroku (Japanese Backgammon)
A fun way to get to know your members is to play a Japanese game called Sugoroku. We also included the Japanese version of rock-scissors-paper, janken, so your anime club members don’t scramble around looking for their dice.
What is Sugoroku?
Sugoroku, which translates to “child’s dice game” or “Japanese backgammon”, is a game similar to American board games. Players usually throw dice and move around a board. Because we’re short on dice, we are using janken or rock-scissors-paper to decide who gets to move to the next boxes.
How to Play Sugoroku
❶ Play janken, or rock-paper-scissors. Winner will be A. Loser will be B.
❷ A (Winner) will ask B (Loser) the question.
❸ B (Loser) will answer the question and sign their name on A’s paper.
❹ A (Winner) can move to the next box/question. Sorry, B, try again!
Worksheet
There are 2 formats available for this game.
Sugoroku – PDF
Sugoroku – DOCX
This brings up a good issue for anime clubs: looking at your members and seeing what they want to do and what kind of anime fans they are.
We managed to bring 21 people to Little Tokyo this quarter. Meaning, we had more than two people who were able to drive people down to Los Angeles. Obviously this meant that we were going to have a bigger retention rate than previous years, since you can’t really live down the fact that you went with a bunch of strangers through the hell that is L.A. traffic and ate all of the ramen. No, seriously, all of the ramen. There were three notable ramen places in the district and we went to two of them on the same day. For me, however, it meant a larger sample size to figure out power levels.
In anime-related forums, most notably /a/, it refers to the fact that one watches anime or reads manga. It is usually used in the context of keeping it a secret from others.
Secrecy is…
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