Manga-ificent fun and games

by Martin Hines

With the majority of societies at UAL being fashion and sport related, it was a relief to explore one that maintains the same competitiveness, but swaps textiles for comics, and Pele for Playstations – the Manga Anime and Games Society.

Before entering the hallowed halls of the Lecture Theatre at LCC where the society is held each Monday and Thursday, I was expecting people dressed up as warlocks to be running around casting fake spells upon each other, and the sticky pages of comic books to be turned furiously.

The truth was far different, with the sounds of Hadouken! and the cheeky lob of a tennis racket reverberating around the room as a game of Wii tennis unfolded on the screen.

There was an interesting mix of people.

Sports fans and hardcore gamers filled the place, where everybody seemed to be having fun, giving the place a sense of real atmosphere.

“I'd like to see a lot of people coming here, everybody is welcome and it's a lot of fun,” said Debbie Hoang, the vicepresident of the society, and the only girl in the room.

“Some people do think it's weird being a girl and being interested in this stuff, but I like it,” she said animatedly.

The ‘stuff’ she was referring to includes video gaming, plus the duo of Anime and Manga.

Anime is Japanese animation.

It differs from westernanimation popularised by the likes of Disney, by often having a more adult subject matter.

Titles such as Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro have found fame in the western world.

Manga are Japanese comics, again different from the likes of Spiderman and Scott Pilgrim, by employing a more graphic tone in their books.

Hoang, who studies gaming at LCC, told me that “on Mondays we show Anime and read Manga, and on Thursdays we play games.

Not a lot of girls come to the games night, and not a lot of boys come to the Anime sessions.”

One such boy at the gaming night was Adi, who studies 3D Modelling and Animation.

He said the society was useful for him: “It's very social and anybody can come here and play games.

Because I’m only in select days on my course it's hard to socialise with people from different courses, and this helps a lot.

“We play games like Fifa, Tekken, Tennis, DJ and Guitar Hero,” he said, all commercial games, which surprised me, as I naively expected everybody to be playing board games, probably involving dragons.

The society are also creative and are currently in the midst of creating their own costumes, inspired by Manga comics.

It's easy to scoff and laugh at people doing something different, but what struck me most about the people involved was their realness, and utter lack of pretension.

Gaming and comics might be a traditionally ‘geeky’ pastime, but the rise of films such as Twilightand Kick-Ass, have done a lot to push unorthodox interests and stories into the mainstream.

After all, apart from Robert Pattinson's face and Nicholas Cage shooting his daughter in the chest, what’s the difference between watching films about vampires and pre-teens with potty mouths, and kicking the crap out of somebody via a control pad? Not that much when you think about it.

A lot of people in the room were upset when I mentioned that they could be seen as nerds, but in the grand scheme of things – especially at

The University of The Arts, who isn't a nerd?

It doesn't matter whether you obsessively collect sketchbooks, style guides, or graphic novels, at the end of the day, we all have our own interesting quirks and interests.

If every group of people were as friendly as the members of this society, then perhaps the snobby and elitist reputation of certain aspects of our university would cease to exist.

Manga Anime and Games Society (MAGS) meet every Monday and Thursday at LCC. Their website can be found at www.magsociety.