A scene from last year's chili cook-off with members of Anime Club. / Photo courtesy of Anime Club
BY BENJAMIN BLAZEVIC/VN STAFF WRITER
Like other clubs at Detroit Mercy, the Anime Club has had to grapple with how to hold events and meetings while social distancing during a pandemic.
Luckily, the club was already using an app called Discord to connect to one another outside of face-to-face meetings and events.
Discord is a free app that combines voice-chat and text into one application.
Senior Michael Tabaka has been a member of the club for six years.
He said the club has been considering a variety of plans for this semester.
“We are trying to schedule additional events during the semester, such as gaming nights or anime movie nights,” said Tabaka. “Hopefully, this will allow new members to get acquainted with the various members in the club and make new friends, but also help with everyone’s morale while we’re stuck inside.”
Before the pandemic, members met in the basement of the Student Center on Fridays for gaming nights and events.
Tabaka and other members are hoping to keep the experience similar for future and current members alike.
Last semester the club was hoping to have an Extra Life charity event.
Extra Life is a fundraiser for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
Due to the pandemic, the event was not able to run.
Club members are still figuring out if the event will be able to go online this semester.
According to Tabaka, whether the event will happen this semester or not is still up in the air and if the event does happen it will be online for safety reasons.
Sophomore Mikaela Mansour, who has been a member for a year, is working with other members of the club like Tabaka to move some of the club’s previous activities to an online format.
According to Mansour, several events are being considered but all are in the planning phase and have not been finalized.
The club is considering a “Naruto run.”
“We are working on planning Extra Life and a virtual Naruto run,” she said. “We will be planning more but they are still in the idea phase, so they haven’t been completely formalized yet.”
Despite the circumstances, both Tabaka and Mansour are hoping to make the Anime Club experience as great as it can be and to encourage students to join.
“We hope to bring people together with common interests and have fun at the end of the day,” said Mansour. “Long day of classes? Come hang out in the Anime Club’s Discord full of memes, gamers and jokers.”
