Anime Club: A Bright and Beautiful Future
Reflection on a Year of Progress
Scott Builta
Issue date: 3/1/10 Section: Opinion
When I first arrived at Kettering, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I chose Kettering because a co-op education for engineering made the most sense to me; that taking charge of my situation and deciding what to do was the right way to go. As such, I knew that I didn't want to spend my time here like I spent it at high school: loafing around, playing video games, and generally being unproductive. But beyond that, I didn't know where to go or what to do. Between the exciting new people I met and the almost endless possibilities of clubs, fraternities, and other activities that I could participate in, I was overwhelmed and almost sunk back into my usual routine of just 'going with the flow' and letting the ordinary life satisfy me.
But that was changed my first work term. At the end of my Freshman I term, some of my friends introduced me to something called 'anime'. At the time, I wasn't really sure what it was. I mean, sure, I had seen some Dragonball Z, Gundam Wing, and Pokemon on toonami when I was a kid, but at the time they just seemed like interesting cartons that I didn't really pay much attention too. So, when my friends recommended these 'anime series' 10 years later, I started watching them with similar expectations: shallow stores, lots of flashy antics, clichéd plots, and characters as flat as a board. But then I watched one specific series, the one that would light me on fire and change my entire understanding of film forever. The series itself wasn't the most interesting or important thing ever made, but it was the trigger for showing me a new world, a new concept, a new way to look at stores and films that is often and unjustly dismissed in American culture. Instead of monotonous plot lines with single-dimension characters that had been thrown at me for 17 years, I was immersed in a universe of rich detail, spectacular story lines, and characters deeper than oceans. These weren't just some cheesy scenes thrown together to make some money, this was a beautiful, enriching, and captivating art form.
But that was changed my first work term. At the end of my Freshman I term, some of my friends introduced me to something called 'anime'. At the time, I wasn't really sure what it was. I mean, sure, I had seen some Dragonball Z, Gundam Wing, and Pokemon on toonami when I was a kid, but at the time they just seemed like interesting cartons that I didn't really pay much attention too. So, when my friends recommended these 'anime series' 10 years later, I started watching them with similar expectations: shallow stores, lots of flashy antics, clichéd plots, and characters as flat as a board. But then I watched one specific series, the one that would light me on fire and change my entire understanding of film forever. The series itself wasn't the most interesting or important thing ever made, but it was the trigger for showing me a new world, a new concept, a new way to look at stores and films that is often and unjustly dismissed in American culture. Instead of monotonous plot lines with single-dimension characters that had been thrown at me for 17 years, I was immersed in a universe of rich detail, spectacular story lines, and characters deeper than oceans. These weren't just some cheesy scenes thrown together to make some money, this was a beautiful, enriching, and captivating art form.
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