If you haven’t done so already, take a look at the Anime Web Turnpike. In particular, their geographic guide to anime cosplay clubs in the United States and anime clubs outside the US may help you find a club near you. Local clubs may have good local advice, and may agree to swap DVDs with you, giving you access to yet more anime.
If you’re high school students looking to start a club, you may find this Parents’ guide to anime helpful when arguing that there are anime which can be shown on campus without inundating the school administration with calls from irate parents ranting about the school showing violent animated Japanese pornography. Some of the links in the section Anime as a key to culture on our general resources page and the books listed at our “>anime-related books link may help convince your school’s faculty that an interest in anime might serve an educational purpose. In particular, see Gilles Poitras’ Teacher’s companion to The anime companion cosplay sale.
If your club grows larger than a handful of friends, your showings become public exhibitions, and you should get permission to show the anime you are screening; this way, you don’t have to pretend you’re distracted when the “FBI Warning” comes onto the screen. Most companies recognize the promotional opportunity that club showings represent, and are happy to give permission for you to show the material they have licensed.
These days, getting permission has gotten pretty easy since most companies have email addresses for fan relations, and these people can usually at least put you in contact with the person who can authorize a showing. Some companies even have web-forms you can fill out to get showing permissions!
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Is the club just a gathering place for people who like anime to come to meetings and talk? If this is the case, you might not have a big membership depending on your classmates. For an anime club to be successful, it generally needs actual anime cosplay, owned either by the club or officers/members, that can be accessed by other members in some way. Either that, or you’re going to need a bunch of hard-core fans who like just talking about anime.
High school clubs are a little tricky, since they generally have more rules to work. Some clubs have short showings once a week or a few times a month during lunch or after school, in somewhere like a club supervisor’s room. The anime can come from the officers’ collections, though one has to be careful what is shown since many high schools are conservative and may refuse certain shows for violence or sexual themes. One way around that is to have a few parties during some holidays at various officers/members’ houses.
If you can hold meetings outside of school time, that’s great, since showings can be longer. If your club is allowed to own anime and keep a library, even better.
It’s usually good to have a low (or even no) membership fee, since that brings in more people. Club dues are only needed if you’re going to do stuff that takes more than pocket money to accomplish as a club.
