One of the more poignant news items I’ve read recently is that the London Anime Club (LAC) intends to “close doors” by the end of 2008. The cited reason is plain and simple: low attendances, with the popularity of “the London Expo”, “fansubs” and the accessibility of popular anime and manga in “mainstream shops” all said to be contributing factors in this lack of interest.
According to its official website, the LAC has been hosting regular gatherings for anime fans since Tuesday, 12th of April, 1994; apparently, only 12 people turned up to that first meeting, while 10 years later, in April of 2004, the club achieved its highest ever turn-out of 206 people, and yet, little more than 4 years on from that record, attendances have plummeted. The LAC is one of the longest running anime clubs in the UK, but, for whatever reason, it seems like today’s anime fans are no longer attracted to what an anime club might have to offer.
Fundamentally, people go to anime clubs because they are interested in anime. At the first LAC meeting, they screened Gunbuster and Kimagure Orange Road. Back in 1994, if it wasn’t the extreme BAN THIS SICK FILTH-era anime like Devilman or UrotsukidÅji, stuff was obscure and hard to find, the internet young and underdeveloped. Most of what anime fans actually wanted to watch back then would probably never be released locally, hence the importance of organised screenings at clubs like the LAC. After all, if you wanted to watch Kimagure Orange Road, there was no other option. Or at least, no other option that didn’t involve a lot of bother and/or money.
Compare the above sentiment to today.
If I want to start watching Kimagure Orange Road, the first 4 episodes can be downloaded within 3 hours, with the rest lined up as and when I need it. Over the past 2 weeks alone, I’ve watched the first episodes of 17 different anime series, all of which have premiered in Japan during October 2008. My point is obvious. I don’t need to go to London to watch anime when I can do it from the comfort of my home. Of course, an anime club offers so much more than just showings of anime, like the opportunity to make to new friends, to have heated discussions concerning the artistic validity of the Gainax bounce, but all of this begins with a fundamental desire to watch anime, a desire that is now easy to satisfy.
Some would say it is too easy (the DVD publishers especially), while the social aspects are suddenly dominated by the larger, industry-orientated events like the London Expo, where the cosplay, merchandise trading and anime screenings are conducted in the seemingly more glamorous, sanitized surroundings of places like Excel centre.
Though it may have been inevitable, the death of the London anime club will mark the end of an era for a great many people, not least of all those hardy souls who have spent nearly 15 years of their lives working behind the scenes, organising and planning their club, all for the love for anime. What does this portent? Is it a good thing, from a personal and social point of view, that people now have such an unprecedented amount of access to anime? Has the internet fragmented the anime community by destroying the purpose of anime clubs, or brought us closer together, with increasing convention attendances and busy online forums? Perhaps only the future holds the answer. That the anime industry is in an almost constant state of flux means that nothing is for certain anymore; that something that may seem pointless today might suddenly become useful again tomorrow. Nothing is forever in the anime community.
I used to go to an anime club, until I’ve seen every episode of everything that they were showing besides dragonballz. They were showing nothing besides those popular but exteremely long shounen series which I wanted to avoid at all costs. They also had a policy to show only shows that were dubbed. Those reasons plus the fact that I wasn’t supposed to talk with me friends during screenings made me stop going.
I think that an important reason for disliking such an environment is the fact that not everyone will like every show, and people like series on different levels. I’ve never really understood people who would watch something 10 times or wear cat ears because they think it’s cool. When you’re all excited about that new episode of magical index but no one in the room watches it and only want to talk about bleach, it just doesn’t feel right.
While anime might the lure for people to attend an anime club, it usually isn’t the main impetus to keep them coming back. From my few experiences, this mostly came from the community that the club fostered. Since it was a college anime club, that community was easier to maintain than others, to be sure, but if you want to survive, that has to at least take more of a role than the series that you decide to show.
I think it is indeed a real shame for the people who put so much time and energy into the frequent sessions of organising and maintaining that a club requires but I really believe that the internet put an end to it.
It’s like comparing pubs and bars with house parties: cheaper drink in supermarkets, compared with how much more expensive it is to go out, have led to people staying in. It’s convenient, it saves money; just like the way in which online shopping and supermarkets have allegedly killed off town centre commerce.
You do however miss the atmosphere and social side of things; if people miss this enough, your average pub – or anime club – will continue to offer what the convenient alternatives cannot. I find it interesting that people I know from anime-orientated internet forums do actually meet up IRL; we discuss things online for the most part but every now and then we save up some cash and meet up for a meal, cinema screening or shopping trip. It’s different from the anime clubs that existed a decade ago but we’re still a group of friends who met through a common interest.
Maybe the internet did kill the anime club, but unless we’re a nation of hikikomori I’d like to think that the clubs, or at the very least the community spirit they represent, are merely evolving to keep with the changing times.
uuuummm does anyone know if Moon Phase is a good anime to watch???