Pokemon Episode 1

Springfield girl starts anime club

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Rachel Duiker has participated in track and school musicals at Springfield High School. But the 17-year-old senior also noticed some fellow students were lonely or not involved in activities.

Something these students had in common was a love of anime, the Japanese animation style that’s probably best known in the United States from the TV series “Pokemon.” So, Rachel and Lance Caughey, an SHS junior, formed an anime club at the school.

It started two years ago, Rachel said, as “a place where people can be themselves.”

Similar clubs have formed at schools throughout the Springfield area. Members watch anime, draw the unusually wide-eyed cartoon figures, write haikus, attend dances, learn Japanese phrases and make origami.

“It gets a lot of kids together that wouldn’t normally do school activities,” Rachel said. “ ... A couple of people have come up to me and told me they felt alone or sad before anime club.” Now, these students have made new friends through the hourly meetings every other Friday.

At Southeast High School, the anime club members take up a lot of space.

The group meets each Thursday right after school — usually in large classrooms to accommodate a couple TVs for watching DVDs and playing video games.

Kewanee Womack, the 18-year-old president of Southeast’s anime club, has liked anime “ever since the original games, like DragonBall Z,” he said. Kewanee describes himself as an all-around fan of television, but “whenever anime comes on, I watch it.

“A lot of people don’t know what it is — I encourage them to try it out, take 30 minutes to watch an episode, and you might be surprised,” he said.

Kewanee said someone always brings an anime DVD to the meetings. Members often discuss anime, play card and video anime games and even have tournaments.

All students at Southeast are invited to the tournaments, which include playing “Pokemon” video games or anime card games. Other events include an art contest, which was won by freshman Kabrea Thomas, and a Saturday meal outing, which Kewanee said “didn’t work too well because most people don’t have access to much money or transportation.”

News of the club’s events is spread primarily through word of mouth.

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