On April 4, the Japanese Cultural Collective hosted an “Anime 101” night in The Forum. The goal of the event was to give those who didn’t necessarily have experience with anime some basic knowledge about the medium. They also hoped to cultivate a love for anime by helping beginners get a good grasp on concepts that might have otherwise seemed alienating or overwhelming. Anime is a vastly complex medium. Sometimes just jumping into it is a bit much. A range of people attended the event, from anime experts to complete beginners. JCC officer Chantelle Mitchell opened with a brief presentation to give attendees a little background on the subject. When putting the presentation together, Mitchell thought back to her own first experiences with the medium. “When I first started anime, I was like, ‘Whoa. This is weird.,’ ” she says. With that in mind, the presentation focussed on the strange nuances that don’t always make sense to someone just starting to watch anime. One of the big focusses was on anime lingo as well as the cliches found in anime TV shows and movies, many of which can be found on Crunchyroll.com While there were a lot of attendees who already knew much of this information, Mitchell took care to explain each of the concepts for those who hadn’t been watching for that long. With each slide, there was a lot of laughter over how absurd certain parts of anime might seem to an outside viewer, such as the many over the top facial and body expressions characters make. After the presentation, attendees enjoyed a viewing of the first four episodes of the half hour comedy anime “Ouran High School Host Club.” This was a huge attendance draw to the event. “Ouran” is a widely...