Nani? There’s No Anime on Campus?

When you hear the word anime, what shows come to your head? Even if you don’t watch them, I’m sure you’ve heard of shows like Pokemon, Yugioh, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto Shippuden, and many more. But where did they come from?

In 2017, Crunchyroll said the first animated episode was four minutes, called “The Dull Sword,” made by Junichi Kouchi. Junichi is also a founding father of anime but he wasn’t the first. Crunchyroll needs to do a history search. Well, I did mine since I am a fan, and found out that it’s been around since around 1907. In 2005 a film called Katsudō Shashin was found dating back to 1907. Kisaburo Kobayashi created a studio in 1914 and named it Kobayashi Shokai. Kisaburo was the man to hire Junichi three years later, which gave him the opportunity to produce The Dull Sword.

Let’s fast forward about forty years to 1948, when Toei Animation is founded and there they create the first color filled anime feature film ten years later. That movie was called Hakujaden which is translated to The Tale of the White Serpent. Going to the sixties to when my father was born and a child. He and my uncle told me that Astro Boy was the first anime. While they was correct to an extent. Astro Boy was one of the first anime brought to America produced and televised in the comfort of your home. Astro Boy was so popular it inspired many new robot anime that in the present day still has references in anime about robots and or space. One of the longest running anime to this day is called Sazae-san. From October 5, 1969 to the present day there is a company called Eiken that is still making the animated series stay alive. The manga’s run was from April 22, 1946 – February 21, 1974 having 45 volumes.

Why am I telling you about the history of anime? Well, did you know about this? Is there a place around you where you could talk in person about something you care about? As I declare myself a part of the culture of Otakus, I have to speak on my friends that are major fans of anime, but just have nowhere to go on besides their phone to communicate about what they love. Wouldn’t it be great if Greenville University and other colleges and universities had an anime club?

It’s 2019 and we have to accept that anime is now a part of our culture. We have cos-players of all races spanning over hundreds of shows you may have seen before or heard of. In high school, I was a member of a group of students that started an anime club. We got a teacher approval to be our sponsor and later on it led to the librarian. With the librarian as the sponsor, we added an anime section in the center of the library. We had plenty of new students coming in saying things like, “I didn’t think we would have Japanese manga here,” or “when did all this get here?” and so much more. We already have a video game club, and I spoke to a few students myself about an anime club and they seemed pretty up for it. This is my way of asking what is your opinion on something new. And if your problem is “oh this is a Christian university, what does anime have to do with religion,” check out Hellsing and respond back to me.