The Florida A&M Anime Club had a general interest meeting to bring new members into the group.
About 10 to 15 people showed up at the meeting, most of who were unaware of the club’s existence. Most people found out about the club’s existence after seeing the “FAMU Anime Club” flier with the small, eye-catching anime character posted around the campus.
“I was very surprised that FAMU has an anime club,” said Kaneisha Barr, 19, a freshman general studies student from Ft. Lauderdale.
Many of the new members shared Barr’s thoughts and were told more about the club during the meeting.
Kurt Kedroe, 22, a fifth-year professional MBA student from Miramar, and one of the co-founders of the Anime Club, welcomed the new members by explaining what the Anime Club is all about.
“The anime club is a group devoted to showing Japanese animation and anything devoted to Asian culture,” Kedroe said.
Kedroe explained various activities that the group would participate in, such as game nights, weekly anime screenings, trips to anime conventions, and the different officers and their responsibilities to the club. He also spoke of the different animal names associated with members of the group.
“I am the Yellow Lion,” Kedroe said.
Kedroe went on to describe how the officers are divided into ‘lions.’ He said this unique government system is based off an old anime cartoon from the 1970’s called Voltron, in which there are five lions, which are red, green, yellow, black and blue, that come together to form one giant robot-Voltron.
Each ‘lion’ is responsible for a different part of the club: the Yellow Lion is responsible for the club’s finances; the Red is lion is responsible for researching background information on different types of anime; the Green Lion is responsible for marketing, which is informing members on upcoming events, meetings and screens via email or poster; the Black lion is responsible for screening different types of anime; and the Blue Lion is responsible for miscellaneous activities.
A member of the club can choose to join any color niche they wish.
Thomas Champ, 22, a senior computer information system student from Tampa, is the second co-founder, and one of the officers of the Anime Club.
“I’m the Black Lion,” Champ said.
Along with screening different anime, the Black Lion makes sure that the showings for each screening are on time.
The Anime Club has weekly screenings every Friday at the Architecture building in Room 112 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The current anime that are being shown in the screening are Basilisk, set in 1614 where two ninja clans, Koga and Iga, have been fighting to decide which brother should become the next successor or shogun; and Air Gear, about a boy named Itsuki and his goal to become the ‘King of Air.’
Each screening has at least ten people in attendance, a greater number than what the club originally started with when it was first formed.
The club, at present, has nearly 30 plus members and can be found on Facebook by searching “Anime Group.” The club posts regular updates on club meetings and events on the Web site.
The Anime Club invites anyone and everyone who enjoys watching anime to come to and join the group.