For the members of UB Anime, the club devoted entirely to Japanese animation, sitting through a 26-hour anime marathon is a small price to pay to help raise money for the American Cancer Society.
More than 30 UB students gathered in front of a big screen TV in Lehman Hall Friday to watch anime and raise money for the charity. The marathon is a UB Anime charity event that has occurred every semester for the last six years.
Participating students received donations from sponsors for every hour of anime they watched.
"Up until fall of 2002, the marathons were only 13 hours long," said club president Jason Wesolowski, a junior electrical engineering major. "We doubled it to accommodate our members with a wider variety of anime series."
As of press time Sunday, Wesolowski said it was too early to determine how much money the club raised, however, last semester's marathon garnered $500 for the charity.
Participants screened three anime series selected by the club's officers. Each series contained more than eight hours of interlocking episodes, all of which were spoken in Japanese with English subtitles.
Japanese anime has such a strong following among college students because it incorporates characters and situations that appeal to a college-age audience, said Wesolowski.
"The majority of American cartoons are slap-stick," Wesolowski said. "Japanese anime is dramatic, with complex themes and constantly evolving plot structure."
One of the series screened by the club was "Betterman," which is the story of a teenage boy fighting to save humanity from a deadly virus.
"'Betterman' reminds me of the United States fighting to save Iraq, if the United States was Keita, the teenage boy," said Matthew Bellinger, a senior media studies major.
There is a type anime for every genre of live-action entertainment in the United States," said Allison Hynes, a sophomore pharmacy major.
"There's everything from cooking anime, to pornographic anime, called 'hentai.'"
According to Jason Dluga, a junior business major, the club caters to its members' eclectic tastes by allowing them access to a large anime collection, which, he said, consists of over 200 tapes.
Denver Huffman, a senior psychology major, recommends "Ranma 1/2" to those unfamiliar with the Japanese anime. According to Huffman, "Ranma 1/2," a comedy about a boy who changes genders whenever drenched in hot or cold water, is one the most successful series in the history of Japanese animation.
"There are probably 1,000 episodes," Huffman said.
Stephen Vecellio, a senior mechanical engineering major, said he attended the anime marathon even though his father offered to pay him to stop watching anime.
"I've met a lot of cool people," Vecellio said. "We're just like-minded individuals who get together and share a common interest, and I'm glad that interest can benefit the community in events like this."
