Over the years LHS has been very prominent in extra curricular activities. No matter anyone’s interests or personality, LHS has a club for everyone. Last year, after a short break, Anime Club made a triumphant return, bringing together many students in an environment that is supportive of Japanese Culture and animation.
Anime is a type of animation style prominent in Japan that features colorful visuals, vibrantly drawn characters and different genres from fantasy to horror.
“Anime is a type of television program that is an animation with several different genres using that style of animation,” club sponsor Stuart Jorgensen said. “There are a lot of different types of anime, there are a lot of different subsets of it and they all fall within the animation style.”
Every Friday after school, members of Anime Club get together simply to just watch anime and hang out in room 202. Anyone is welcome and whoever joins will be greeted with a nice positive environment.
“We hope to bring more people in to show the love of anime. We watch anime and sometimes movies, we vote on it. [This year] there are more freshmen and we are more productive in watching anime. Jorgensen picks a anime we haven’t seen instead of watching just one over and over,” junior Deborah White said. “We don’t watch a whole series of anime we just watch one episode and if you like it, you can watch it yourself. We actually watch movies now, most of it’s in English so that people who aren’t use to subtitles can actually enjoy themselves.”
Anime Club used to be a club at LHS, but unfortunately faded into obscurity until last year when a few students requested to bring back to the high school. Each year the club hopes to improve and has done so.
“This is the second year of Anime Club coming back. Last year, we spent most of the time watching just one anime. Now I actually take suggestions and we rotate anime so it is different each week,” Jorgensen said. “That way if somebody doesn’t like an anime for that week there will be a new and fresh one next week. It also gives us a broader taste on the different types of anime instead of watching just one.”
Another very important part of Anime Club is Naka-Kon. Naka-Kon is a convention held at Overland Park Convention Center for anybody interested in anime. Naka-Kon has plenty of activities for anime fans to do like a craft station, panels featuring voice actors and animators who share stories and sometimes even answer questions. There are scene reenactments, concerts, a ball and even a video game room. Naka-Kon takes place on March 13-15 all weekend, for more information visit naka-kon.com
To raise money for the convention Anime Club members will start a group fund in order to make things easier and cheaper. They also plan to hold a fundraiser like they did last year in the form of a video game tournament in February.
“We plan to do a gaming tournament to raise money,” junior Courtney Dodd said. “Right now we are planning on fighting games like Smash Brothers.”
Overall, Anime Club is the perfect club to wind down after a school day, hang out with friends and be entertained. The club hopes to bring people together no matter their background. Anyone interested in anime or who just wants a nice environment after school can join because Anime Club is open to all students. Anime Club meets every Friday, 3:15-4:00 p.m. in room 202.
“It’s a fun place to hangout after school. It’s pretty fun and I would take [Anime Club] again. It brings people closer together,” sophomore Paige Eddy said.