Members of MIT club share an anime attraction
CAMBRIDGE -- The night begins with the crowd-silencing whack of a fan on a table and the piercing yell of Stephanie Cross, an MIT junior.
"Suwatte!" she yells, holding the fan tight and squinting at the crowd with a slight smirk.
"Suwatte" means sit down in Japanese, and everyone does.
Cross, vice president of the MIT Anime Club, settles the group for about four hours of movie-watching. She also takes orders for the pizza that will be consumed over informal discussions about the night's screenings during intermission. If the crowd gets restless as she talks, she gives a nearby table a second whack.
It's all part of the weekly ritual. Every Friday night during the semester, about 50 to 100 people gather at MIT for a showing of several highly stylized Japanese animated films that run consecutively from about 7 to midnight. There is a mix each week of regulars and newcomers in the audience, but mostly it's anime fans who have found one another in and outside of Boston.
Club officers estimate that at least 40 percent of the audience at each Friday viewing is unaffiliated with the university, although the group is technically a school club.
On a Friday earlier this semester, the group was a mix. Club president Andre Sugai, an MIT senior, squeezed in most of the showing before starting a long night of computer coding. Robin Bzura, 15, traveled to the showing with friends from Arlington High School. She came dressed in a kimono her father bought on a business trip. Tom Miller, a longtime anime fan, traveled from Winthrop. They were surrounded by a range of anime fans, from high school students to fans in their 50s.
The 14-year-old MIT Anime Club is one of the most active anime societies in New England. Anime lovers can watch films at home, but the club offers the chance to meet new people, engage in lively discussions about their passion, and see hard-to-find releases.
"We come here for the community," says Leah Coffin, a graduate student at Emerson College, who is also the acquisitions officer of the club. That means she uses membership fees and pizza donations to buy DVDs for the group to watch. "We all just sort of congregate. We watch. We socialize during intermission."
Local fans of anime, which is also known as Japanamation, say they gravitate toward these films because, surprisingly, amid all the visual dazzle, they allow for more realism than live-action Hollywood movies.
The stories, often adult in nature, feature complicated characters, and no matter how fantastic the plots get, they touch on emotions in a sophisticated way.
"Anime lends a certain dignity to things that in another part of the universe would be ridiculous," Coffin says.
The MIT anime fans will also tell you that Japanamation is not a genre, and that it is simply a medium for film. Within the realm of anime, they say, there are all types of movies -- comedies, love stories, children's films, and action.
There are two misconceptions anime fans in the club want to clear up quickly. One is that anime is mostly pornographic.
"People assume it's either Pokemon or porn," Coffin says. "There's an in-between in the spectrum."
Ryan Pettigrew, 24, of Wellesley, a Friday night regular, says that love in anime films is actually more complex than in standard Hollywood fare. Characters are never one- or two-dimensional. Bad guys have many layers and often are conflicted. Good guys lie and steal.
"The main thing is that [anime] helps you break out of the things you've seen over and over again," he says.
The other misconception about anime fans is that "they're dorks," says Coffin. "We are a group of intelligent, well-educated people, mostly in our 20s. We do have lives outside of this."
On this Friday night, the group watched "Jin Roh," a film about romance, betrayal, and war. (The director of the film, Hiroyuki Okiura, also created "Ghost in the Shell," a 1995 film with a plot similar to "The Matrix.") Characters were terrorists, patriots, liars. The film takes place in a fictional Tokyo of the past, showing what the country might have become had it been taken over by Germany in World War II. The audience was riveted, taking time after the film to discuss who shot whom and which characters were betrayed.
Although the club's audience has swelled over the years, officers say they are always interested in attracting more people from Boston and Cambridge to the Friday night screenings.
"We do try to do some outreach," Coffin says. "It's always good to see new faces."
The viewings are informal, with most of the socializing occurring at intermission. Friends -- many of whom do not see one another outside of the club -- eat pizza between showings, comparing directors and animation styles and debating films' music and dubbing. But they will also approach a newcomer.
Anime fans say that for those who want to get involved in public displays of anime appreciation, a club like MIT's is a good place to start.
Matt Hemenway, 23, who travels from Winchester to MIT on Fridays, also visits Harvard University on Saturdays because it has a similar club. But he says the MIT crowd is more established and more welcoming to outsiders.
The Boston Japanamation Society is open to the public but meets only once a month. Northeastern University and Brandeis University have clubs, but they don't offer nighttime weekend viewings.
At MIT, paying the $7-per-semester membership fee is not necessary to attend the shows, and, besides overcharging for pizza to help pay for the group's DVD collection, the group does not ask for donations. Those who do pay the membership fee have access to the collection and receive discounts at local anime stores.
Peter Phan, 16, of Quincy says those who are tired of American cinema should try at least one Friday showing. Phan became interested in anime after tiring of repetitive plots and love stories. For him, it's well worth taking the T in to watch the films with friends.
"They're good films. It's not like cartoons," he says, after watching "Jin Roh." These films, he adds, "don't treat you like an idiot."
Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com.
The MIT Anime Club will meet for the next two Fridays in room 6-120, on the first floor of 77 Massachusetts Ave. The films begin at 7:10 p.m . Intermission and pizza is at 8:30 p.m. Admission is free, though the group does charge for pizza. The second semester showings officially begin Feb. 4; check the group’s website, www.mit.edu:8001/activities/anime/www/, for preseason showings in January.
