As a freshman, William Martinez had only a minor interest in anime. He would occasionally watch shows like Dragon Ball Z or Cowboy Bebop, but was never obsessively into it. Martinez, who is a history major, wasn’t that interested in the CSUN anime club either.
‘The last day of my first year, I went to the anime club and hated it. The club was cliquey.’
Once he started talking to the former president of the club, Luke Kruse, Martinez was hooked. The two are still friends and now Martinez heads the club.
‘I thought that the club had really good potential to make friends,’ he said. ‘It’s had its ups and downs, but it’s a fun place to hang around. It’s fun but tiring.’
Aside from weekly meetings and smaller events throughout the semester, the anime club has held a convention called MikomiCon for the past three years. This year it was held in the Grand Salon from Sept. 19 through the 21.
Although former anime club member and CSUN student, Nick Kurachi, is the chair of the event, Martinez helps Kurachi set it up.
‘This is his creation, he found the corporate backer for con, Write For Hope,’ Martinez said. ‘The only thing I’m responsible for (at) con is helping out and being intermediary between CSUN and the con.’
Eric Koller, new vice president, said he enjoys going to conventions like MikomiCon.
‘It’s different being on staff,’ said Koller, a language and culture major of his participation in this year’s event. ‘We have to make sure everything goes smoothly. Luckily we have a lot of dedicated staff members and volunteers.’
While there are many parts of the con that a lot of people like, Koller said he really enjoys costume players.
‘They dress as their favorite characters, act like them, memorize poses and memorable sayings. It makes me happy.’
Like her fellow club mates, Sarah Irwin joined anime club a year ago because it helped her make friends. She also is a fan of the annual convention.
‘(I liked MikomiCon) because there was so much to do and it was local and I knew a lot of people,’ said the sophomore art and animation major. ‘I become a big social butterfly.’
Irwin said she loves to draw and wants to ultimately draw for Disney. She hopes that being in the anime club will help her make the connections she needs to get into the business.
‘I win both ways, if it helps me, great, and if not that’s okay too. It’s a great place to meet people and it’s a lot of fun.’
CORRECTIONS
In this Monday’s newspaper, the article titled ‘Oviatt Library Offers Many Services to Students’ had the name of chair of Reference and Instructional Services misspelled. It was spelled Lynn Lampart instead of Lynn Lampert.
