“It was also nice seeing all the friends of the franchise come and get together for one day. It was a blast,” said Andrew Crowley, Events Coordinator for the Anime Club who directed the creation of this event.
One particularly pleasant treat the Anime Club had in store for us was the streaming of several of the movies under the Pokemon name that have been released over the years. The Anime Club streamed these in chronological order in room 242, beginning with Pokemon: The Movie. Many of these titles, like Pokemon 2000 and Pokemon: Spell of the Unkown brought a lot of nastalgic memories to a room of people whom watched the movies as a kid.
“More people than I anticipated stayed for the movies, which was very flattering because I feel like the anime doesn’t get too much attention, but it’s still very fun,” said Crowley.
The Anime Club also made use of the rooms behind 242, namely 247, 248, and 249. Attendees were allowed to battle each other on their 3DS’ in one room. Another room was set aside for Super Smash Bros for Wii U, a fighting game which features Pokemon like Pikachu and Lucario. The third room featured an emulator with the game Pokemon Stadium 2 on it. The short lived Pokemon Stadium franchise brought Pokemon battling to the big screen, being playable on the N64. Pokemon Stadium 2 however, incorporating Pokemon from both Kanto and Johto regions, is a fan favorite, almost as much revered as the first installment.
Not only did Crowley take the main role in planning the event, but this is also his brainchild. “I’ve been the events coordinator for the Anime Club for a year now,” said Crowley. “This is my second semester doing it, and this is the first event I actually created. I have worked on other events that we’ve participated in and had traditionally over the years, but this is the first event that I created not through only my means but through the means of my fellow members. So, it was great being a part of its origional idea, and I was flattered, really, that so many people showed up and had the same passion for this event as I did.”
Outside from providing games and movies, the Anime Club took extra measures to be accomodating to the attendees of their program. At close to midday, the group purchased several pizza pies and drinks from Dominoes. Most of their programming was also done in democratic fashion. They did not plan to show every Pokemon movie in chronological order; the people their voted for that.
While this was done in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of Pokemon, this event was so succesful that there might be more installments. “This went really well. So, even though this was for the 20th anniversary, I feel as though this could be sort of the new Magikon for the Anime Club. We do several events over the year, including Cosplay Karaoke. We have signature events like that. Maybe in time this will become another signature event for us. So, I’d say we’d definitely shoot for it again probably next year.”
Overall, the Anime Club was very pleased with the turnout.“If anything, it was better than I anticipated,” said Crowley.
