This Friday marks a big milestone for me. On May
17, 2009, exactly ten years ago, I graduated from a small college in Indiana
called Wabash College. Smack dab in the middle of nowhere, this little
piece of Midwestern heaven became my home for four years and to this day
remains the greatest irony of my life: in the beginning, I didn’t want to go
there; in the end, I didn’t want to leave. So you better believe that
there were some formative Anime experiences for me out here, some even I
brought about myself. So to celebrate my 10th anniversary from
college, todays Top 5 Wednesday is dedicated to my ala mater and my Top 5
Wabash College Anime Memories
#5-Special
Screening of Appleseed
Wanna say this was…Junior Year. The Asian Students
Society was putting on a series of special screenings for the campus in the
spring of 2008. While I could put their screening of Battle Royale in the
spot, im choosing to focus on the Appleseed screening for one reason.
Appleseed isn’t a great film by anymeans: the animation my have been innovative
but it wasn’t perfect and the story isn’t any better (I should really review it
and its sequels one day). Most importantly, however, it was one of the
few (if only times I can recall) that some group at Wabash did a public
screening of an Anime for the campus. Could they have shown a better
flick, oh yeah. Am I happy I got to see what the rest of my classmen and
professors thought of the genre because of it, most definitely.
#4-Code Geass
Thanks to the long extinct Anime Insider Magazine, I
first discovered Code Geass and even presented it to one of my Professors
seeing as how it might’ve had something to do with a Post Colonial Literature
and Theory course I was taking in 2007/2008 (more on that later
actually). The article did some hyping like it did with most shows coming
of Japan. But in the early winter and spring of 2018, I sat down to watch
Code Geass’s first season and I was blown away. I was in a bit of an
Anime slump at the time, fearing it was even burnout. But Code Geass
reignited my Anime passions at the right time. I couldn’t even
remember the last time I binge watched an Anime as quickly as I did the first
season (maybe Gundam Seed Destiny my Freshman Year). Anyway, I got up to
speed rather quickly and got to follow Season 2 week to week thanks to old
school Youtube. So yeah I got to experience the finale in real time and
gush over the brilliant ending. 8 years later, id end up reviewing the
entire Code Geass saga right here on my blog. But nothing will ever top
watching that series for the first time in my dorm room over the course of a
week or so.
#3-An Impromptu
screening of Ghost in the Shell for a Class
One of the first classes I took at Wabash was one
focusing on Man and Machine, interactions both in real life and in
fiction. Because Scifi features this kind of subject matter prevalently,
it also meant we could check out some movies from time to time. One day,
a classmate was supposed to bring in I, Robot to show us…and he didn’t.
But I had an idea and I chanced it, running back to my dorm and grabbing Ghost
in the Shell so we could watch it in our very tight one hour and fifteen minute
class time. That’s right, I saw an excuse to watch Anime during classtime
and I took it…no regrets.
#2-Anime Saturdays
No one survives college alone and I have an overwhelming
amount of love for my fellow Wabash classmen who helped me adjust to being the
farthest distance ive ever been from home for an extended period of time.
Some in particular were key to helping me pass certain classes and I always sought
to return the favor. For one such Freshman who was a bit of a loner anime
fan, I introduced the idea of us doing a sort of Anime Saturday, where we’d
chill in our dorm and watch a volume of an Anime week after week.
Evangelion, Hellsing, DBZ, we didn’t get through a lot because I was close to
the end of my Wabash tenure, but these were fun times. When I look back
on these hangouts now, they kind of were the precursor for this blog
(especially my one volume a week rule with reviews). Guess that’s another
one I owe Wabash in general.
#1-Using Fullmetal
Alchemist for a Class Presentation
So, remember I when I mentioned that Post Colonial
Literature and Theory course? Well turns out that ended up being one of
my favorite courses of my entire Wabash career. I began to see many of
the lessons and themes used outside of the classroom…specifically during a
screening of the Fullmetal Alchemist movie, The Conqueror of Shamballa, one
night with a group of friends. This little revelation stuck with me during
the following semester. For our “Critical Theory” final, we all had to choose a
medium (Movie, TV series, novel etc) and a special kind of theory to use for a
ten minute analysis. I decided to do a Post Colonial Theory analysis of
Conqueror of Shamballa and I cant believe how well it worked. I knew what
scenes to sight, I knew where Post Colonial elements mattered to them. I
think I overshot the ten minute mark by almost a minute but im still so proud I
was able to look at my favorite entertainment genre and explain it to my class
in a unique way. It’s one of my all time greatest Wabash victories.
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