BY HELEN HWANG / Kalamalama Staff
Hawai’i Pacific University used to have an anime club, but due to Covid-19, the club (like many other clubs) was disbanded.
In the hope of reviving it, new club president, Kiyah Dixon, is attempting to build it once again from scratch. Dixon wants to make an official anime club because she has an interest in meeting new people who share the same interests as her. She does not know a lot of people who are interested in anime or manga, so she is hoping to expand her horizons and meet new people through the establishment of the club.
Dixon has been watching anime since she was a toddler and grew to love different kinds of anime genres once she reached fourth grade. Her favorite anime is Fruits Basket and her favorite manga is Voice-Over! Seiyu Academy. Her favorite genres are romance, horror, suspense, and slice of life. She has been watching anime for all her life and still continues to at the age of 20.
Dixon is also an anime figure collector, and she also loves to buy plushies and dakimakura of her favorite characters.
The anime club is not an official club yet, but there are five people who have shown interest in joining the club. To officiate the club, 10 general members are required, as well as a vice president and treasurer. There are vacancies for both vice president and treasurer. The vice president position entails assisting the president with handling club activities and filling in for the president in case of an unexpected absence. The treasurer position entails handling the financial aspects of the club, such as fundraising, and receiving funds from HPU.
Dixon is excited to have more people join the club and is hoping to have the club officiated as soon as possible. Club activities will include anime-watching sessions, manga reading sessions, and anime/manga discussions. Dixon’s hopes for this club are that people will bond with one another over similar interests regarding anime and manga.
According to Dixon, meetings will most likely take place on Fridays and the anime club will do both in-person and online meetings. For people who cannot make it to in-person meetings or who are uncomfortable doing so may attend through Zoom.
Once all the roles are filled, Dixon will work toward making the club an official HPU club. This can only happen with the help of the students. Currently, Dixon is posting flyers around the school to promote the anime club.
Dixon is working closely with her club advisor, Talia Romeo, international student advisor. The two were introduced to each other by Stephanie Cleland, another international student advisor. Dixon reached out to Romeo to tell her about her idea for reviving the anime club and Romeo was interested in the idea.
After exchanging multiple emails with one another, they eventually decided to work with one another. Dixon is working hard to recruit more members in order to officiate the club by HPU’s standards.
While Dixon has basic activities planned out, such as watching anime, and reading manga, she also hopes that members of the club will be able to attend Kawaii Kon, “an annual 3-day celebration of Japanese culture, anime, and pop-culture held in Honolulu, Hawai’i” on Mar 31, 2023 – Sun, Apr 2, 2023 (Kawaii Kon website).
Dixon has never attended Kawaii Kon herself, but she is hoping to attend it this year, not by herself, but with a group of people with similar interests as her. The event is full of cosplayers and different anime-themed and Japanese-themed venues and events. The job of the treasurer would be important in this case because they would handle all of the fundraising money being used for the event.
President Dixon is constantly updating those who are interested in the club and is working very hard to coordinate everyone’s schedules for club meetings and so on.
If you are interested in joining, contact President Dixon at kdixon3@my.hpu.edu.
