Recap of the Final Meeting of 2010! Farewell to a Grand Year!

Man, last night was quite the way to end the Propeller Anime Club's meetings for 2010! In true fashion, we had to find a new room yet again, and we also had a casualty in lacking Sword of the Stranger to show!

However, we were lucky to have seen instead Trava Fist Planet, four animated shorts directed by Takeshi Koike, set in the same universe as the recently released Redline! In addition to Trava Fist Planet and Redline, Koike has notable credits as Key Animator in Dead Leaves and Animatrix's World Record. Trava Fist Planet was light on plot but heavy on style and action. Needless to say, it's a nice warm-up for Redline.

We also finished Bastard!!, which pretty much ended like any big battle in Dragonball Z. There was plenty of monologuing and bigass energy attacks and explosions. Luckily the characters have a little more personality, but you've got to wonder about Dark Schneider and his insatiable lust for the ladies. Granted, he's not humping toilets like Kentaro from Golden Boy, but we're all pretty sure that after the fact he will try to get some action with his own daughter. Yup.

And then there was Tokyo Godfathers! What a fun way to end the final club meeting! Leave it to Satoshi Kon to turn the homeless that society looks down upon or ignores into heroes of Christmas. With that, we have seen all four of his movies. Unfortunately, he passed away in August with Dream Machine unfinished. I'm glad that we were able to enjoy his films this year.

I do want to shed some news before I give my final words of the year. We had a raffle with two tickets to the live-action film showing of Gantz on January 20th. I want to give congratulations to Althea and Izzy for winning those!

We also had a flyer and t-shirt design contest. Erik B., Jean Louis, and Izzy entered those! Jean-Louis did win both contest but Erik and Izzy gave an impressive showing as well! We will use part of Izzy's t-shirt design for the back of the flyers we'll make because it's pretty cool. Good job, guys!

Next year will be pretty awesome! At the end of the meeting, we picked our series and features for the first quarter of 2011. After finally doing club democracy correctly, we ended choosing Cromartie High, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, and Mobile Suit Gundam: The 8th M.S. Team! So we have a manly comedy, a crazy chick with guns, and epic war drama with mecha; that sounds like a winning team to me!

This past year has been crazy. We've seen a lot of cool anime and have leveled up considerably as fans! We've had some great hangouts, we've made friends and lost some along the way. We've even shown some duds at meetings. Nothing is perfect and this past year has been a very good learning experience for me. Hopefully, lessons learned and some time to rest will make for an even better club experience next year!

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for attending the meetings and gatherings we've had and supporting the club with great excitement. While there were some rough bumps this year, I think how we finished last night has really shown how well we have done as an anime club. I truly think we set the bar of what other anime clubs should try to achieve and I want us to keep doing that.

Here's to a grand 2011!

Kent Ward

Founder of the Propeller Anime Club

Recap of tonight's meeting! 4/24/10 edition!

Tonight was a good end! We had to move from our usual room to a different classroom. While it did have a nice sound system and comfy seats, the projectors were less than adequate. It was so close to becoming the new room to meet at. Oh well...

It was an excellent meeting! We finished The Guin Saga once and for all! It was certainly a satisfying end. I shall not spoil it but it clearly left things open for a sequel series. I did like the dedication at the end to the late author of the original light novel, Kaoru Kurimoto. She just happened to die right after the anime debuted in Japan last Spring.

Vertical has been publishing her light novels and even a spinoff manga series if you'd like more Guin in your diet.

We also finished Rurouni Kenshin: Romantic Tales of the Meiji Era. Also known as Samurai X, this OVA told the tales of Kenshin's days as a Battousai. It was both violent and tragic and certainly a lot more depressing than I remember. We got to see Shishio Makoto, Enishi, and Saito Hajime as well. All three would be enemies of Kenshin in the main series. Also, seeing this totally counts as the club finishing something!

In Gungrave, Brandon Heat was killed by Harry but came back to life as a zombie or something. Big Daddy also knocked up Maria and Harry is running Millenion. The series looks like it will take another interesting turn!

Lastly, we showed Baccano! It's a great series and not very long. First couple episodes are to introduce the characters. The plot will show up soon but for now, we learn about the characters and the stage is now set on The Flying Pussyfoot. Also, the first episode of the series takes place chronologically after episode 13, leaving many people confused! There were a lot of laughs to be had, especially at the antics of Isaac and Miria!

Last but not least, in the wake of Guin Saga's end we had to decide what to start next. For amusement's sake, democracy was used. Members nominated anime they wanted to see, spoke briefly about why their nomination should be shown, and then elimination voting occured! In the finals, it was down to Samurai 7 and Cyborg 009.

The vote was shockingly spilt even until a hobo with ZERO FASHION SENSE stormed in wearing what appeared to be a silk bathrobe and a bad knockoff of M.C. Hammer pants and casted the winning vote to Cyborg 009.

Take that any way you want.

There was a lot of fun anime watching to be had! If you have any thoughts you'd like to share about the meeting - especially Guin Saga - please comment on this post! See you all soon!

Next Propeller Anime Club meeting on Saturday, April 24th at 5:00 pm!

UPDATE: The next Propeller Anime Club meeting will now be Saturday, April 24th at 5:00pm in FS3B-113 at Full Sail University! This meeting will be one of the most exciting ever as we will be finishing series and starting a new one!

We will be finishing The Guin Saga! Oh man, do I love it when we complete a series! It's been a pretty epic journey and it's finally coming to a close! For those who missed the last meeting, a lot has happened, with many pieces falling into place. Will the Mongauli be defeated? Will Amnelis get to kill Naris? Which pedophile will hook up with Rinda - Istovan Spellsword or Aldo Naris? Will Guin discover his forgotten past? Will Suni show her true savage nature and go on a mass killing spree!? We shall find out next time!

We didn't get to show Gungrave last meeting but we hopefully will this time. Here's some copy pasta:

In Gungrave, it looks like Harry has been discovered as the real traitor to Millenion, after having many of its valueable members framed and killed. Now it's up to Brandon Heat to take him out! What will happen between these two longtime friends?

We'll be finishing up Rurouni Kenshin: Romantic Tales from the Meiji Era. Lots of killing will happen and introduced will be characters that will grow to be Kenshin's greatest villians later on in the main series! He still has one cut left to get to finish that trademark cross shaped scar on his cheek!

Last but not least, it's time to debut a new series!

One of the best series that helped end the last decade will be shown starting next meeting! It's Baccano! What's Baccano? It's about some gangstas who wanna be immortal by drinkin the finest 40's New York has ever seen. It takes place during the Great Depression in New York City, Chicago, and a train known as the Flying Pussyfoot and features an outrageous cast of criminals, thieves, murderers, gangsters, and even immortals! It's seriously great stuff!

Next meeting will be exciting and after we finish The Guin Saga, it will be time to use democracy to decide what we shall show in its place starting in May. It will be kinda like that one time we did it!

Recap of tonight's meeting! 1/10/10 edition!

Okay, I'll make this short and sweet!

• We discussed MegaCon 2010! Members of the Propeller Anime Club - including myself - are responsible for running and hosting eleven action-packed events! Huzzah!
• We will be meeting next Sunday, January 17th, at noon in front of Full Sail building 3B to go to Hard Knocks for free Full Sail student gaming! Make sure that you have your student pass or else you do not get free gaming!
• We may have time for a trip to Florida Oriental Trading.
• We watched episodes 8 & 9 of There will be Brawl! That Poke'mon theme cover was pretty sweet! Only one more episode to go!
• The entire Read or Die OVA was watched and it was frikkin sweet! Such great action, art direction, mechanical designs, and soundtrack! We need more good anime like this in the world!
• We watched episodes 7 & 8 of Gungrave. Brandon and Harry are moving on up in the world and it looks like some sinister plot will begin to unfold next time!
• During episode 8, we all got distracted by the creation of our first club logo! oh YEAH!! Great job, Waldo!
• We never got around to watching Guin Saga. The meeting was that action packed! We will next time for sure!
• Jean "Rehab" Louis has returned after a mysterious 2 month disappearance! It was a joyous moment!
• We experimented with democracy to determine what we will show at the next regular meeting and Shinesman won the popular vote!