Societies are a huge part of University life, so Radar had a chat with Caroline Ngondo, President of the League of Anime, to see what makes her society tick.
Societies are a huge part of University life, so Radar had a chat with Caroline Ngondo, President of the League of Anime, to see what makes her society tick.
How are the anime series chosen for each semester?
On our first week we welcome people, watch random things and we make suggestions to see what everyone would be interested in watching. A lot of people are happy to leave it to the committee because I feel like we get a mixed bag of people; some who have watched a lot of anime and some who have watched barely anything, so people are usually open to different things. We have a system which the old president left to me. It’s a drumroll system where we watch three anime series in three blocks, and each week we watch three episodes of each anime. So we pick a seinen anime, a shojo or josei anime and a shonen anime and then we vote on it. So whichever section we are looking at, we pick three anime, show the first episode of each anime and we vote on it.
What do the anime events entail?
Our Halloween event is a marathon of a horror related series. We stay up all night, people dress up, we have food, we have drinks, people are sleep deprived etc. it is just a huge horror slumber party. It is still us watching anime but more fun in the sense that it is an overnight event and there is more to it. And I do give prizes for best dressed, so there is some motivation.
How did you end up becoming president?
I was the main girl of the group who turned up every week. There were a couple of others but I was the main one who was very consistent every week and the guys got along with me really well. The problem was that the president at the time was graduating and the other two I think were entering their final years so they did not want to take on the responsibility of being president. I was in my first year so they were like: “You do it.” There was not much choice, to be frank, it was like: “Therefore you are president.”
So there was not much of a society to speak of?
Yeah, at that point a lot of the previous members had left and it was a dying society. So I was just like “Fine, I’ll do my best.” And that is the story of how I became president!
The League of Anime meets every Sunday from 3 PM to 9 PM at Kaim Cottage, so check it out!
https://www.facebook.com/rguanime/
anime@rguunion.co.uk