Request Procedure

Anyone can suggest anime for the club to show, and in fact, we encourage it. As a club, we want to show what the greatest number of people will enjoy the most. However, there are a few basic guidelines regarding the decision to take suggestions:

The first and the most important of all: No XXX. There are some basic standards we like to maintain at club, and so even if almost everyone suggested La Blue Girl, there is just no way that we are putting tentacle rape on the screen. This also goes for any pornograhic hentai, yaoi, or yuri. Basically, if it would fit in the porno section, we expect members to watch it at home...or not, as their preference may be.

Language: In general, we don't care about cursing. However, we want to make sure we can understand the cursing. Since only a handful of people at best understand Japanese, we need English audio or, better yet, English subtitles. Everything we show, save a few special exceptions, is in Japanese with English subtitles. To show something, it must, MUST have been officially translated and released on DVD. Due to the agreements we have with the various licensing companies, we must buy the DVD before showing them. Just consider yourself lucky we can show these things publicly without paying any sort of fees beyond buying the discs.

Availability is a must. We can't show what we can't get. Obviously, the most available series are the ones that the club or a member of the club already owns. The second most available series are ones that have been licensed, subtitled, and released in America. If you actually own the series that you suggest or know where to buy it with high quality audio/video/subtitles, this will definitely tilt the decision to show it strongly in your favor.

We like to avoid repeat showings. If we just showed something last year, we're not going to show it for a few years, and then only if it is strongly requested. Even though a good portion of the new members may not have seen it and may very much want to, a large portion of the old members have already seen it and very much don't want to. Since it is the club's goal to draw as many people to showings as possible, and the biggest reason why people in the club don't show up is that they have already seen what is being shown, the officers are very strongly biased against repeating series. Even though some club members might not mind seeing it again, if people already know what happens, they don't feel as compelled to attend and don't enjoy it as much as they would if it was a series that they had not seen previously. Therefore, the club will not repeat a previously shown series when there are plenty that almost no one has seen and that almost everyone would like. If you want to check what the club has shown recently, you can check Old News. If you're not sure whether a series has been shown previously or not, you can always ask at club.

Variety: When considering what to show next, we also take into account what we showed immediately before. If the past series featured an extremely zany red-haired heroine with very destructive tendencies, we are unlikely to show yet another one with exactly the same description immediately after. We also like to try to mix up the horror/action/comedy/medieval/sci-fi genres. Though we don't always get an equal mix, we don't want to show three serious medieval swordsman dramas in a row or three crazy heroine comedies.

We plan around holiday showings. While we do not have a holiday showing for every holiday of the year, generally if it is something big that involves decoration at least a month beforehand and parties and dressing up, we are going to try to have a thematic showing for it (i.e. Boogiepop Phantom for Halloween). Of course, there are some holidays where we have trouble finding an anime that fits the bill, but if someone makes a suggestion that fits the holiday theme, we are going to accept it over other suggestions and pick and choose series by their length in weekly showings so that we can arrange to show an anime at a particular holiday. Similarly, we will try to avoid series that violently clash with the holiday theme (i.e. we won't start watching a 26 episode comedy like Excel Saga two weeks before Halloween). Also, we have an all-night showing during Boken week in the spring, which is when we show a whole bunch of short movies and OVA series. As far as requests go, Boken is like a holiday where the special theme is short. We plan around Boken to make sure the series we are showing ends on the Friday before.

We plan around vacations/breaks. We don't want to start a 4 week series one week before Spring Break. Also, there is not enough time in the entire semester to show all of Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, One Piece, or Inuyasha. Ever. It just couldn't happen.

Please also be aware that we cannot always show a series right away. We may already have other series lined up to show and other requests waiting to be filled. Also, before we show a series, we have to okay it with all the officers, go out and buy the requested series (if necessary), make posters and put them up, send out an email reminder to the anime club list, put an ad in the Student Life Newsletter and update the website accordingly. Therefore, we need a very minimum of 1 week's notice if it is immediately available somewhere in Hoboken or more if it is not. Luckily for you, though, the club will take care of all the logistics. All you have to do is stand up and say, "I want to see this."