The Maverick Anime Club invite students to join the fun
Who doesn’t love anime?
Anime is a type of media that many favor and has been notably popular for years now. It explores many different art styles and genres in a very remarkable way that has caught the attention of many people across the world, including MSU’s very own students.
The Maverick Anime Club is one of the many student organizations that were formed on campus. Having changed during COVID-19, the club continues to be active under the guise of the new president, super senior Robert Tongola.
“I’m a bit of a more recent edition. I know it’s been a while for a few years now. I know based on what the other officers have said that they have been in the club longer have mentioned that things changed a lot during COVID. It’s been around but I was only aware of it since just last year.” Tongola said. “I showed up to every single meeting last year. And then we had some people leave and they asked me ‘You show up to a bunch of them. Would you be interested?’ I was like ‘yeah’. Especially to keep the club alive.”
Tongola, who was recently assigned the president position, said he is passionate about keeping the anime club active and alive for all students. The club itself hosts many different activities for their members every single week. It allows them to interact as a whole community.
“So we have everything. A bit of a rotation week to week. We try to mix it up. So we’ll have, for instance, last week, we decided on a movie we wanted to watch together in the club. Now this Wednesday, we’re going to be doing some trivia.” Tongola said. “I think in a few weeks, we’re going to be doing some game show stuff like Family Feud, or a day where we all bring in any copies of manga or other stuff we have so that people can take a look. So we try to do something different each week to keep it fresh.”
Having many options for its members, it also allows them to learn the other contrasting genres as the media itself has a great selection of action, romance, supernatural, coming of age and many more. The artwork of anime also heavily contributes to the creation of it as the club also explores the media of manga.
“What I really enjoy is the diversity. I think it’s really easy to lump so much of it together. But I find that a lot of times, I’ll go to a club meeting and we’ll start talking about our interests and I’ll find out that just because I like something and it’s under me, it’s not necessarily someone else’s cup of tea.” Tongola said.
Having a community such as the anime club on campus contributes to the diversity and inclusion of it. Tongola claims that it allows students to discover diverse media and can help them partake in community related activities in person.
“I think it’s helpful because it helps kind of boost that sense of community and especially with Discord and the website formerly known as Twitter. It’s really easy when you’re into those kinds of hobbies to exist so much online.” Tongola said. “I think bringing that to the forefront in person, even if it’s just one day a week, can really help get some extra community on campus. For an interest that is usually so much easier to kind of engage with online.”
The Maverick Anime Club meets every Wednesday from 4-6 p.m. in the Clinical Science Building 212.
Write to Anahi Zuniga anahi.zuniga@msu.edu
Header Photo: The MSU Anime Club strives to bring students together for creative and fun activities surrounding Anime and Manga. (Alexis Darkow/The Reporter)