How to Start an Anime Club

Plan out the agenda of your club. What is it about?

• A particular anime or all anime in general?
• Do you want to focus on a specific genre like shonen, shoujo etc?
• Do you want to delve in the grey land of hentai or want to stick to the "universal" shows?
• Old anime or the newly released ones?

Decide your demographics. Do you want to keep it local or global?

• Do you want a physical location of your club or would you prefer it to be an online thing?
• Will there be an age-group limitation or is it open-for-all?
• Membership fees or free-to-enter?
• Will it be a guys/girls-only club or all genders invited?

Choose a name and tagline. This is the most crucial of the steps as it can make or break your club. The name should be short yet catchy or if you plan it to be long, then decide an acronym that can be easy to pronounce. For example, the "Indian Manga And Anime Fans" has a catchy short-form IMAAF that is easy to pronounce. Don't overload your name with too foreign sounding words--it can scare away potential members.

• Also, don't forget to decide an agenda of your club. It could be simple, or if you are good with words you can make it into a slogan.

Recruit members. Create a Facebook Page of your club and start posting interesting information to attract attention. Once you get a sufficient amount of followers, then decide on a start date and inform your fans. Also, create a website that has a "Members-access-only" section which can be accessed by only those people with whom you choose to share your password.

• Alternatively, if your school allows you to, then you can create colourful posters and pin them up your bulletin board to advertise your club. Relevant information like membership fees (if any), perks of joining your club, physical club room location (if any), website and Facebook page apart from your name and contact details should be clearly visible. Also, if you know people who like anime, talk to them about your venture and get them interested. Maybe they can help you get members!

Carry out a small survey about the series or genres of anime most popular in your peer group and organise a promotional activity. It could be an anime-themed party or if you lack people to organise events, you can always put up an online competition like poster-making, fanfiction writing or a cosplay contest.^[1]

Organize your members. After your recruitment drive is over and you have got enough members, create a small (or big, depends on the number of members) organisational crew who will help you with the events and other work. Proper work division always create wonders.