The promised manga club report

[Spikey]

I have been asked numerous times by staff and students, ‘so what’s a
manga club’? Students generally ask as they want to know what we do,
staff ask because most of them have never heard of it.

A brief background – I grew up in the 60’s in a newsagent’s in the
East End of London and read, collected and treasured both the weekly
comics and the American imports, DC and Marvel. My enjoyment of
reading and getting lost in a story began then and has never left me,
so when I became the Learning Resources Manager at my school, once of
the first things I did was to begin to build a manga library,
including some ‘key’ graphic novels, to encourage those readers who
might never consider a ‘proper book’ but would be attracted by
manga. Leaving aside the argument that manga and graphic novels are
valid literary forms, it takes a different set of skills to read a
visual story which some students find easier.

So, what have we been doing each week on a Wednesday after school? My
aim, if I had one at all, was to get the students eventually writing
and drawing their own stories. Most of the members do draw anyway,
usually copying their favourite characters from manga and anime. But
first I wanted to lay down a kind of foundation in all things
Japanese.

As I’ve read and got into manga and anime myself, I’ve found that
discovering small details of Japanese culture, mythology and history
has enhanced my enjoyment, so I planned each week to include a few
minutes on a different theme. So far we’ve covered food (yes we had
sushi, pocky sticks and Japanese bean curd sweets!); Shinto and
mythology; martial arts; Samurai and ninja; honorifics, customs and
etiquette; earthquakes (we did earthquake drills); VERY basic kanji
and Japanese; history of manga; anime (we watched the whole of
‘Laputa’ over three weeks) and lastly fashion, pop culture, ‘Hello
Kitty’ and Jrock!
In our last session we mapped out ideas for our manga - so far we
intend to include dragons, a vampire pizza delivery boy and a robotic/
cyborg monkey sidekick among others.

The benefits so far have been more than just a shared enthusiasm for
manga. The group, like any extra-curricula activity has encouraged
friendships across the years and support and encouragement for
students who don’t fit into the standard sports/music clubs. It’s
also a ready-made core group for the gaming club I intend to start
early next year!

I would be fascinated to know if any others have set up similar
groups, in schools in particular, and also more than happy to share
details of what we have done already if anyone is thinking of starting
something similar themselves.

Bren