Mumbai Anime Club - Media Mentions

It's been more than two years now since the inception of Mumbai Anime Club (MAC). During this time, we've held over 15 MAC meets, attended the Washoku Food Festival, were a part of the Japan-Indo Creative Contents Forum (JICC) and more recently, participated in the highly successful Cool Japan! Festival.

Our efforts, it seems, have not gone unnoticed by the media. As it turns out, Mumbai Anime Club and/or its members have been covered by the press on many occasions. This article aims to list them all down, for your pleasurable read.

The Anime invasion has begun! Muahahaa!!

March 2012

Media Company: TimeOut Magazine

Link: http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/around-town/features/hai-point

Mithila Phadke is an editor for TimeOut Magazine. The article features the Cool Japan! Festival and speaks quite a bit Mumbai Anime Clubs participation in it, which includes the cosplays, anime sketching competition, the band Wasabi Vibes, etc. Credits to Mohita Namjoshi for making this article possible.

July 2012

Media Company: Indian Express (Pune)

Link: http://epaper.indianexpress.com/45739/Indian-Express-Pune/06-July-2012#page/26/2

The Indian Express is a national newspaper and being covered in it certainly brings forth promises of not only aspiring Anime/Manga fan clubs in India, but the growth and awareness of Anime in general. The article speaks about how different fan clubs have formed in several major cities and conduct various activities and meets to keep the enthusiasm intact. Credits to Reetam Majumder and Daniel Victor for making this article possible.

If you find any article that speaks about MAC (that hasn't already been posted), do let us know. We'll add it to the list ^_^

The Making of the 2nd Anniversary Meet!

      

Mumbai Anime Club is two years old now!! Being a new member I can neither comment on its progress so far nor can I give an accurate description of the Meet itself as there are people much better suited to the job than I. But what I CAN write about is the amazing experience all of us volunteers had in our attempt to make the Meet successful. This is just my rendition of it.

My involvement started with a simple idea for the play. Nothing more than that. I never thought anyone would have taken it seriously, but the big-hearted MAC members did, and voila! soon enough a rough draft of the play was formed! And that, folks, is how it ALL began...

Being a certified jobless person, I decided to volunteer for pretty much everything. It at times felt like a bad idea (read 'several times'), but in the end I was kind of glad, considering the number of awesome people i have met and the number of incredible memories I have had - from simultaneously jamming and cooking Maggi, to eating chocolate sandwiches under the torrents of the first Mumbai rains; from devouring extra pavs for pav bhaji after an exhausting shopping day at Crawford's, to playing antaakshari with loud, hoarse voices. These past couple of months have gone by in such a blur!

maestro at work

our aspiring Maggi cooks - Cassius and Mizu

But life has a strange tendency to complicate itself. We have had a more than enough share of drama on our hands as well. These were the moments when I felt so hopeless, so lost and so defeated. Chances were slim, hopes were bleak and our excitement was overshadowed by the growing tension. But then suddenly we got news of an alternate location being available for the Meet! And that was what fueled all of our enthusiasm all over again...this time, double-fold!

It was at around this time that Ritu, Kamya and Eisha and I decided to make the art stall for the Meet. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we decided this only when there were 5 days left for the Meet. We all tried our best, along with Rajasi being considerate enough to contribute, and we finally managed to to put something up! And well, I must admit, all 5 of us did put up a good show, especially the mind-bogglingly beautiful bookmarks made by the twins Eisha and Kamya!

pretty, ne?

soooo many!! *_*

The other segment of the Meet that urged several impromptu changes was the cake. The Cake! I am sure all of the members at the Meet must have had a slice of it. Its ingredients included, but were not restricted to, 2 kilos of chocolate, 500g of flour, 6 eggs, a bucketful of hard work, two tons of panic and stress, with one final sprinking of satisfaction and delicious relief in the end. In spite of all the last moment changes, Adrian and his colleague (whose name I still do not know...oops.) were patient enough to see it through. Special mention goes to Gauri, Brinda and Yogesh for helping out.

the final product!!

I hope you all enjoyed the performance that we, that is, Ritu, Kamya, Eisha, Padmanabhan and I put together. What you all might not have known is the fact that we almost shelved the singing because we didn't have more than 2 serious practice sessions. But then Ritu and Reetam saved us all with their awesome guitar skills and the performance was salvaged. They are the absolute heroes of the performance!

singing for the love of anime

The play, Wasabi Vibes and the Okonomiyaki were the three main contexts under which quite a number of unofficial meets happened, with our generous host being Yogi Bear. The time we spent making it all happen greatly overpowers the mistakes we did at the Meet itself. Making the play with Ghag, Bhan, Kanse, Melon, Reetam, Zohra, Mizu, Cassius, Elsie, Ankur, Nikhil, Leon, Pushkar and Rajasi has been the primary reason for all the 'majja' i have had these vacations. In spite of all that you guys have been put through, you never lost faith and I can never ever thank you guys enough - for every single moment, and for every single memory!

and kanse is too short!

our tobi darling!

definitely not a maestro -_-

And that leaves the only other event which i volunteered for, and that was palmistry. There is nothing much to say here, except that I hope I did not offend anyone, or hurt anybody's feelings. I am so sorry if I rushed any of you customers... I tried my best to give each and everyone of you as much of a detailed reading as i could in the limited amount of time.

palmist taking a photo break

The other events of the Meet, like the screening, origami, tarot and face-painting and tattoo-making, were the ones which i did not meddle myself in unfortunately (or maybe fortunately! ). Their credit goes to Yasser, Elsie, Reetam and Ritu and Kamya respectively. If it hadn't been for them, the Meet wouldn't have been as amazing as it was!!

And didn't we all just ADORE daily lives of high school boys??

Fairytail FTW!! \m/

tarot

origami glasses!

Saying that the Meet was successful is an understatement. It. Was. BEYOND EPIC! Beyond epic Okonomiyaki, courtesy of Gauri, Brinda, Yogesh and Nikhil. Beyond epic cosplays by Leon, Ankur, Reetam, Cassius, Elsie and Kanse. Beyond epic Wasabi Vibes performance by Reetam, Ankur and Cassius....EVERYTHING can be rightfully and scientifically classified under the genome of Beyondisetae epicus!! (okay i am kinda running out of adjectives now...)

and THAT, my friends, is how an okonomiyaki looks like!

watashi wa L desu

The Joker vs. Byakuya

lets put a smile on that face!

After all the hard work, it made us volunteers so very happy to see such great views on Facebook. The only regret which I hold is that that I didn't get the chance to interact with all the other members present there, new and old due to my crazy schedule. I wish I get the chance to talk to you all in the next meet when hopefully, i wouldn't be so preoccupied in running here and there!

best 30 bucks spent on a prop!

best 30 bucks spent on a prop! [2]

best 30 bucks spent on a prop! [3]

best 30 bucks spent on a prop! [4]

best 30 bucks spent on a prop! [5]

best 30 bucks spent on a prop! [6]

MAC has been so gracious to me. So warm, so friendly and so welcoming. If I start thanking each and everyone, then this blog would run for several more pages (and wouldn't everyone just lurvvee that?! ). i genuinely hope MAC progresses much much further, at a much faster rate, with more and more members joining in. With the colossal roller coaster ride that MAC has to offer, I'd like to quote Bilbo Baggins by saying, 'I don't know half of you as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!'

and this is just the half of the total turnout!

On this note, I'd like to mention:
1. Photo courtesy, Gopish.
2. Sorry if i have forgotten anyone's name...my memory isn't very reliable.
3. For the Love of Anime FTW!!
4. and last but not the least, one...two....three....YASUUUUUUUU!!!!!

so what if I can't be seen in the group pic? yassu baba gets his own! XD

Feel Japan - level: over 9000

The Feel Japan Festival was held at Phoenix Mills, Mumbai, from 16-18 March 2012. The Mumbai Anime Club was involved with the event at a grassroots level, as participants, volunteers as well as part-organisers. However, members from other anime clubs were involved too. People came down from Kolkata, Chennai and Pune to participate in the event. This compilation post is by 3 people who participated in the event in slightly different ways:

Prateek, who is a Kolkatan currently studying in Pune. Lover of Japan and anime for over a decade now. He participated in the sketching competition (and was one of the winners), served as make up man and prop maker for the cosplayers, and went around taking pictures all through.

Recent Ongoings and Releases - October 2011

After a long break, we're back with the monthly updates for the "Recent Ongoings and Releases" article. In this post, we provide you with fresh information about the current and upcoming Anime on the block. 

This month's entry sees a lot of interesting releases. Here is a list of personally handpicked Anime that will be worth a watch this October:

Fate/Zero

Genre: Fantasy 

Plot Summary: Fate/zero takes place 10 years prior to the events of Fate/stay night, detailing the events of the 4th Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City. The War of the Holy Grail is a contest in which seven magi summon seven Heroic Spirits to compete to obtain the power of the “Holy Grail,” which grants a miracle. After three inconclusive wars for the elusive Holy Grail, the Fourth War commences. 

No. of episodes: 12

Release Date: 1st October, 2011

Related Links: AnimeNewsNetwork | Wikipedia

MAC Meetup XII - 1st Year Anniversary

Its been more than a year since Mumbai Anime Club (MAC) began functioning, and what a journey we've had! All of us got to know that there are so many Anime fans that DO exist in our city. We met up periodically, had great fun and got the privilege to attend some great events like Washoku Street Festival and Japan-India Creative Contents Forum. MAC has put a mark as "the" destination for Anime fans in India. We as the managing staff can only look back to the moments that started it all, and are filled with so much joy and pride to see how the Club has grown. ^_^

So when we decided to have our Anniversary meetup, we tried our best to make it filled with a lot of stuff to get everyone excited. Plans had been made and were under motion since last month, and we are happy to see that most of what we planned was executed nicely. And so the day of the Meet (29th May, 2010) finally arrived. We even had a projector in place (courtesy Mohita-san) for the special occasion ;)

This meetup saw the attendance of more than 45 members which included 6 first timers which was great to see. :) They made their introductions as the rest of the crowd listened and welcomed them to the group. As all of us finally settled down, we played the video that I (Abhishek) spent the entire night making X_X It was a slideshow of all MAC meets from Meet I till XI:




Members loved the video and I'm sure it gave a nostalgic experience to everyone who was part of the few initial meets. The video encompassed MAC's history, the moments we spent during our glorious year. After the video we aired a bunch of AMV's from Naruto. Later Rachi started with the Fishpond, where a random member was chosen and asked a fairly simple question. The first person we picked up was Karanveer and the question was "Name any two of Miyazaki's Movies". He couldn't answer. Still, we were lenient and asked him another very easy question (basically we wanted to give away the prize). And the 2nd question was: "Who's the Mangaka of Naruto?" I think all of us present in that room knew the answer. But when we saw that he didn't even know that everyone just threw him out xD Then we chose another member Roy, who answered the Miyazaki question correctly and got a free A4 poster :D

Rachita then announced what kind of events we had at the meetup. Inside the we had a Fortune Telling session by our very own Mohita-san, who totally dressed up for the occasional in a gypsy outfit. We also had Harini-san reading Tarot Cards and telling us about ourselves and the future (more accurate than *ahem* our fortune telling xD).

Mohita reading Akshay's fortune (which has nothing but bad luck xD)

We also had a beyblade session courtesy Jayesh Ko who got the beyblades and the Bey-Stadium too. It was fun to "Let it Rip" after so many years. Members seem pretty engrossed in playing that. We even had a Duel Masters Card game session. Me and Shashwat started off with proceedings and others joined up to watch.

Beyblade xD

There was a message board on the wall where members could write any message, sign their names or just give a hand-stamp using the paint. Along with the message board we also had some awesome sketches made by Daanish, Ajitesh and Mrinal Roy that were put up on the same wall.

The Handprints done by Members on the Message Board :)

We got food orders from McDonalds as well as from Sushi And More - a new Japanese store that has opened up recently. The Bento Boxes that were ordered looked pretty good and tasted just as well. ^__^

Niha-san came too, dressed up as the awesome Ai Enma (Jigoku Shoujo), was greatly cosplayed. The eyes in particular were kinda scary if you looked at them for too long. *_* Members were just having a chilled out session the entire time as the screening kept on happening. We aired Culture Japan - A documentary video by Danny Choo which showed the Japanese lifestyle and its Pop Culture.

Niha with her cosplay of Ai Enma and Eva Schimmer :)

Sean had brought along a CPU of the Predator series. It was a gorgeous looking CPU which he showed us inside out. If anyone is interested in buying the CPU (or the entire Predator series) at a pretty affordable price, do contact him. :)

Mrinal Roy was there drawing temporary tattoos to any member who wanted them. He made some fantastic creations, including one of the Kyuubi from Naruto :)

Nine-Tailed fox from Naruto. Drawn by Mrinal Roy

The MAC Meet this time was truly random. We didn't stick to schedules and let things flow the way they were. And it did seem to work pretty well, as everyone was somewhere or the other doing something or the other. At around 5ish we started playing Japanese Music and literally had a ballroom session. At first everyone seemed reluctant to start off but Mave-chan and Akshay started off, followed by Bhan and Leon. And soon enough a lot of people joined in and we started dancing. Girls with girls, guys with girls, guys with guys, xD. And later "Satsugai" from Detroit Metal City was also played which saw most of the guys shouting their socks off, headbanging like crazy and faking to play the guitar as they reveled in the insanity of "Satsugai". The meet thus concluded with the rest of us going off for the after party to have another epic time. :D

MAC ^__^

All in all, the MAC Anniversary meet was pretty awesome. For all of us, it marks a proud moment for us. MAC has completed one year, and it certainly has no intent of stopping anytime soon. Although things will change, and we know that they will, it will continue to exist as long as the Otakus in Mumbai wish it to be.

Long Live MAC - For the Love of Anime \m/