Acorn

Children are amazing.

For example, when was the last time you watched a two year-old do anything? It's inspirational-you'll never find someone so happy for so long and over the strange or the simple.  Think back to your diapered days, and you know it to be true.

When I was in day care, I built spaceships out of paper towel rolls. I conducted symphony orchestras with dry spaghetti strands. I built and defended forts from an extraterrestrial coalition led by my little brother. And if you put me in front of the television to watch the cartoon "Bucky O' Hare and the Toad Wars" (google it), nothing, not even a juice box, could tear me away.

Those days are long gone. Today if you're "living in your own world" you're considered conceited, crazy or Michael Jackson.

But refuges for the imagination still exist for those who haven't left their inner child at day care forever.

Walk down a barren, sanitized hallway of the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts building on a Saturday evening and you'll stumble upon a group of Drewids who unleash their childhood wonderment every week. They gather to watch Japanese cartoons-publicly and proudly.

The Drew University Anime Club is comprised of roughly 20 loyal fans of Japanese animation. If you don't know what anime-style animation is, think "Pokemon:" "super-deformed" body shapes, eccentric characters and lots of flashing lights. Story lines traverse the realm of the mundane, to the historic, to the fantastic-and sometimes all at once. And the names of the cartoons appear to have been lost in translation, like "Dragon Ball Z," "Gundam Wing" and "Cowboy Bebop." To those who float down the mainstream and refuse to understand anime, they think it's the entertainment of greasy, quiet loners who are afraid to grow up.

After attending an Anime Club meeting, I realized this couldn't be further from the truth.

When I came upon the club last Saturday night loitering outside room 106 (the doors had to be unlocked by Public Safety), I couldn't help but succumb to pre-existing stereotypes. It looked like a"potpourri of nerd," a casting call for the television show"Freaks and Geeks." 

I asked a few members what brought them to Anime Club. Being the jerk I was, I anticipated a nerdy response.  

"We like to get together, [and] watch Anime together for a few hours," senior Jason Lee said. "It gets the week going."

Strange! Why did he like such bizarre entertainment?

"Sometimes, I see myself like an unseen character in a series that I like," Lee continued. "It's a nice escape from reality for a short time."

I started to understand what Lee meant during the meeting. The night's agenda involved choosing a new series to watch: a new world to visit for the night. Some of the candidates included "SOS Brigade"- "it involves espers, aliens and demons," junior John O'Meara said-"Scrapped Princess"-about a girl "cursed to destroy the world and there are people out to kill her," O'Meara said-and "Last Exile," which "takes place in an alternate 19th century world with flying machines. It's really, really good," sophomore Scott David said.

The group decided on "Zeta Gundam." Lee said, "It's not 'Gundam Wing.' It's not stupid," which drew giggles.

 Though anime is an underground passion, it is one that embraces community building. Throughout the club's  deliberations, members took friendly pot shots, kidded each other's choices and shared lots of laughter.

There was a tangible sense of camaraderie and comfort that I've never felt before in a group setting. It was like guys watching a football game, but without the violent machismo. It was like a girl's slumber party, but lacking the vitriolic gossip.

Conversation dissipated once the first episode of "Zeta Gundam" was inserted into the DVD player. With the hit of a 'Play' button, the club and I saw two different things on the projector screen. I saw a children's cartoon, a light show consisting of weird noises and spastic characters. They saw something different-something better. They believed in what they saw. They were transported away from the hard-knock realities of work and expectations, removed from heartbreak and loss, and transplanted into a vibrant and imaginary future, a place of flying machines, oppressive rulers, daring heroes and big dreams.

When we were young, we believed in our imaginations. Today we're held hostage by the fear of acting "childish" or "weird." When we were young we believed in what we wanted to, and no peer could tell us otherwise.

Today we fear what isn't mainstream or what we don't understand. And when we were young, we created our own worlds, or joyfully lived in others-even if it was only in half-hour segments on TV.

These anime people aren't afraid of growing up. They're just afraid of losing something that is so easy to bury as we get older

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