By Kai-Lou Yue
Business Manager
Every club at Westford Academy is different. Some clubs are geared towards going to competitions or providing students with community service opportunities, while others are just for fun. The Anime Club, which has been around since 2009, is a club for students with similar interests pertaining to anime or other similar forms of media. Anime can be described as a type of Japanese cartoon, usually in the form of short episodes or in a longer film format.
During club meetings, students can do a variety of activities, depending on the individual student’s interests.
“[We] do all sorts of different things. Every single week, we show anime on the projector, like movies, or sometimes we’ll watch a couple episodes from a television series. Most of the students watch the anime,” said student support service member, Joel Gray, who has been the adviser of the club for the last three years.
Along with watching anime, some students like to read manga, the printed version of the cartoons, or draw anime during the meetings, and a few students play animated video games.
“The club is usually based off the culture, and everything relating to anime, not just sitting and watching it,” said Gray.
Since 2011, the club has always had a fairly large group of students attending each week at about 25 students. However, despite the large turnout, the Anime Club was only put on the activities list as an official club as of this year.
According to Gray, one of the reasons for them not being considered as an official club may have been because the club had been fairly unstructured.
“There was really no club constitution or government system,” said Gray. “There was a club president but there were no elections … Now, we have elections, and three officers, and we’re just a lot more structured now.”
In addition, the club has also garnered more interest with the student body.
Gray said, “I think [the club] has gotten more students interested through just word of mouth … and it’s a fun club.”
Another reason the student interest has increased is because of the pace and the feeling of the club environment.
“This year, we have tons of people. It’s also a lot more dynamic. In freshman year, it was a lot more hectic,” said Felicia Leblanc, a senior who has been part of the club since her freshman year.
Senior Benjamin Montemurro, the club president, also mentioned that the club has opened its doors to more people.
“When I was a freshman, the club was a lot smaller, and it was really cliquey. It was just me and some of my friends, and another guy with a some of his friends. After they graduated, it was mostly just me, and I wanted to open it up so more people would be willing to join,” said Montemurro.
This year, the group has also started working together to plan what anime conventions they want to attend, including Anime Boston.
“We organize outings to many anime conventions … like Anime Boston. We weren’t able to go [last year] officially … but we’re going to try again this year,” said Gray.
Anime Boston is a three-day convention held in Boston during the spring where many different anime-related events occur. The convention is run by the New England Anime Association.
As well as attending outings, the group has also been planning what they are going to do at the Holiday Bazaar in December in order to raise some money for the club.
“We’ll be selling cupcakes, chain mail, plushies, and there’s a possibility of mochi [a Japanese food] , and anime drawings, and of course anime DVDs,” said Leblanc.
Anime Club meets every Wednesday in room 259.
