Anime Clubs Used to Have it So Good!

Since I stepped into the role of Teen Librarian at the Sellers Library, I've had to continue many clubs and activities that were already regular occurrence here. Of course, since it's stuff like book clubs, anime clubs and gaming clubs, I've no complaints. These are things I would try to do anyway after all! But of course "running an anime club" was not part of my library school training, so I've tried to search around to see what advice is out there. From everything I can gather the best advice seems to be 'go back to 2005'.

Seriously, it seems the anime industry used to bend over backwards to get their DVDs in clubs' hands! Stuff like ADV Films' "ADvocates" would send you upcoming anime to screen and you'd do a survey or review as feedback to them. These all seem to have disappeared, of course related to the fact that the anime boom has since subsided. And while I'm sure there are other teen librarians out there that are running anime clubs, they seem to be pretty silent, as searches on YALSA's listserve turn up almost nothing, and VOYA's article on running an anime club is from 2005 and now pretty outdated. 

Don't get me wrong, access to anime is easier than ever now with streaming sites like Crunchyroll around, so I feel obtaining anime is probably easier and cheaper than it's ever been before. But if people have new and exciting ideas about what to do in their school or library anime club, they seem to be keeping to themselves, or putting it in a section of the Deep Web that is not readily accessible to me. I feel like I'm starting to lose focus on what my whole point was here, but I think it's simply that when I search online or on forums for suggestions on what to add to my Asian Culture Club, all I find are articles and posts from the anime boom days. My first thought when going through the various articles of the past was "Anime clubs used to have it so good", but I wish there was a sure way to see if they still do!