Manga Club

The first time I went to Nanzan's manga club was sometime in mid-September. My friend Joel and I found it in the somewhat run-down club house, fitting a near-perfect picture of otaku clubs portrayed in various anime, like Genshiken or Haruhi. Nice and cramped, just like we otaku like it! The room was lined with large bookshelves packed with manga (which I was told was largely donated by former members), a TV, and stacks of video games and consoles. The small space that was available was used by a group of four or five students sitting down reading and drawing, or playing games. Sugokatta (awesome)!


I introduced myself and wasted no time in telling them that I was the vice president of my own anime club back in the states. I doubt they were impressed, but it provided some background to the fact that I had an interest in the subject. It should be noted again that this was the manga club, not anime, though it seems as though "manga" is intended to represent the comic subculture overall, including anime and video games as well. In fact, apparently most schools in Japan only have manga clubs; if they have an anime club as well, it would be a specific interest. However, they said that most of their time was devoted to drawing and reading manga. After about a half hour, we switched to a classroom in another building.


There, I learned, was the true location of the club. While only a small handful hung out in the clubroom, so many people occupied the classroom that I thought there was some mistake. It seemed as if most people go there after morning class lets out to eat lunch while discussing manga and the like, and those who got out early might go to the clubroom. What a perfect opportunity to practice Japanese! Though having 25+ people packed into one room was kind of intimidating, I struck up a conversation with a girl close to me, and asked her about the club and what sort of manga she was interested in. It seemed kind of awkward at times, since I think she thought she needed to speak in English even though I would respond in Japanese. After a little while, the president came up and spoke to the club, asking for help in promotion for the upcoming event that's sort of like Involvement fest at UMBC, where all the clubs come out and recruit new members. Another goal of the club, I learned, was to create a club manga, compiling various drawings and stories from the members. A very interesting idea, but I decided to stick just with going to the small clubroom Mondays during lunchtime.

Through talking to the members, I got a lot of useful information over the course of the semester. For example, I learned which DS games were good for learning kanji characters and Japanese in general, and which animes and mangas were popular from a Japanese perspective. I began to notice from talking to my other Japanese friends that no one seemed to have heard of one of my favorite animes, Cowboy Bebop, so I asked the manga club if they knew what it was. The guy who seemed to be the leader responded that of course they knew the anime and thought it was awesome, but since it didn't have a corresponding popular manga unfortunately it wasn't well-known outside of anime fan circles. He was surprised and pleased to hear how popular Cowboy Bebop is in America.

A rare strike of genius came when I thought to ask the leader guy how people in Japan viewed the word otaku. Would it be taken as something negative, or more of an inside joke like I've seen in the states? The guy looked at me like I just insulted his mother. "Why are you asking ME what an otaku is?" Then he laughed and looked to his friends before answering my question. From what I remember, he said that it can be interpreted in different ways depending on the context and person. Obviously. But in general, it's not taken as lightheartedly and they don't like to use the term very often. Of course, I should also say that "otaku" isn't limited to just anime or manga, but can be used for any extreme interest in a hobby, like basket weaving.


So that's the manga club at my school in Japan. Outside of the club, I found it very interesting how acceptable it was to read comics there, which should be expected because of how popular manga is, but would you believe that there were random manga books in classrooms at the school? Or that manga is sold in virtually every convenience store? Or perhaps that you can see people of every age reading manga or playing video games on the train, even little old ladies? Japan, you're awesome.