Teen Anime Club - Janken Competition

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For tonight's activity I decided to host a Janken Competition. Janken (じゃん拳 janken) is the Japanese equivalent of Rock Paper Scissors, but taken to a whole new level in terms of usage and importance in daily life. (WikiJet) To hold your own competition you will need a way to show videos of other competitions to give your teens an idea of how exciting the sport can be. They did air Rock Paper Scissors competitions on ESPN  while back but I don't think this will compel my teens to play. You will also need some props. Each opponent needs an item to shield their head and an item to hit with. I used two buckets and two paper swords. You can also use two hats and two pool noodles. Or two dust bins and two inflatables hammers like those at the carnival. The best way to explain the rules if you watch the video. I work in a public library and this video does show two men kissing instead of hitting each other. Kissing is against the rules but the video is fine. Depending on your audience you may need to find another video or alternative method of explaining the rules. Another good video is a Jankenpon contest on a Japanese game show.

Tataite Kabutte Jankenpon 

Teen Anime Club - Silhouettes Game

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Drawing inspiration from an online Anime Silhouette Quiz; I created a paper version you can print.  This nine-page printable features 15 silhouettes of popular anime and manga characters, an answer key with character names and their corresponding series, and a page of quiz sheets.  To test your teens knowledge at your next Anime Club just print the first eight sheets.  Cut the sheets in half and post the 15 images around the space you use for club meetings.  Stash the answer key somewhere handy.  Next, determine how many copies of the quiz you need and print those pages.  Provide your teens with pencils and a time limit to make their guesses.  If you want to up the fun you can offer a prize to the teen or team of teens with the most correct answers. You can also be tricky and arrange images in random order.  You wouldn't think that would be an issue for some reason it bamboozled my participants.  This activity took my teens about ten minutes and most got about half correct.  No one got all the answers correct.  You can find a downloadable PDF file or a Publisher file.  If you think your teens will have enough of a challenge with the silhouettes provided you can just print the file and use it as is, or you can download the publisher file and add images that could be more popular with your group.

Laura

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Teen Anime Club - Otaku Bingo

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I originally wanted to include this activity with my Cherry Blossom Festival, but I overplanned it.  Using the bingo card generator at My Free Bingo Cards, I added 60 manga and anime titles along with some Japanese words and phrases.  You can use the printable below to make 30 cards.  The PDF file also includes 2 cards for the caller which you can cut up and put in a bucket or bag so your choices are more random.  I used a bag of craft buttons as the bingo chips.  I didn't include a free space but this is an option you can add if you make your own boards online. For prizes, I gave away Pocky and some Easter bubblegum from clearance.   When I told my teens we were playing Otaku Bingo, one of them replied "great, I like tacos." I dearly hope they were teasing but sometimes you just can't tell. 


Laura
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Teen Cherry Blossom Festival, Part 2

Soot Sprites

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To celebrate the Cherry Blossom Festival this year I planned for a craft, a snack and a quiz followed by some anime on Crunchyroll. In retrospect I didn't like the anime I chose, Food Wars was too mature. Here other activities I've done for The Cherry Blossom Festival. 

Our craft was soot sprites from the anime film Spirited Away. Most sprites have legs and very large eyes.  Sometimes the sprites also have arms. It is up to you if your sprites just have legs or if they need arms as well. The make a sprite you need scissors, yarn, glue and googly eyes.  There are a lot of methods for making the pom poms but I like the method in this video as it takes the least amount of supplies.  In the picture the smaller sprite was made by wrapping yarn around the tines of a fork.  The bigger sprite was made by wrapping the yarn around my hand. This is a good craft to encourage teamwork is your teens will most likely need someone to try the center string in place. 

Teen Anime Club - Minute Manga

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Minute Manga for the theme sushi.

This week in our Teen Animanga Club I created a game based on Drawing Ideas: One Minute Drawings. Found on TinkerLab, this article outlines a Minute To Win style activity that's a bit like Pictionary or Win, Lose or Draw. First provide your teens with postcard sized pieces of paper and a variety of markers.  You or one of your teens will need a timer; I used my phone.  Choose a topic and then quickly draw until time is up.  You can share your pictures or have a teen sit out the drawing portion and then judge the entries.  This game worked well for with Animanga Club as we could easily find topics all the teens liked. I was impressed by how well some of the teens could draw. I was also a little saddened by the number of teens who felt they couldn't draw and didn't want to participate at all.  I would do this activity again with a wider range of possible topics since the teens enjoyed drawing quickly and seeing each other's work.  I appreciated that this activity was very inexpensive. 


Laura

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Teen Anime Club - Miyzaki Twister

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I had a pin on my Young Adult / Teen Anime Manga Club Pinterest board for Anime Twister.  I made my own version for anime club tonight.  You can print the base for the spinner at the link below.  You will want to print the spinner on one page and then for each of the four characters, you will want to print 6-8 pages to mimic the original Twister game.  If you expect a larger group you could print lots more.  I made the spinner by taping the printed spinner onto a piece of cardstock.  I cut a long triangle or arrow from another piece of card stock.  I didn't measure, I just eyeballed something that was long enough to reach the characters' faces. Using scissors I poked a hole through the arrow, the paper, and the cardstock. I made the hole larger than the brad (brass fastener) that I was using to hold it all together.  I found the trick was to not bend the brad too tightly. If you fold the brad totally flat to the spinner, the arrow won't move.  It was a little flimsy but this way if I want to change the characters it would be easy enough to take the whole thing apart again.  

Teen Black Butler Picnic

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Last fall I read this great idea for a Black Butler High Tea. Sarah Stumpf Teen Librarian, posted in Teen Services Underground about her program. Her group had hot tea with biscuits.  For my Black Butler Picnic I served iced tea, cookies and orange sherbet.  In addition to Sarah's  inspiration for the program she also provided  templates  for Sebastian's  tattoo and a Black Butler Trivia Power Point. To find both files simply join Teen Services Underground and search for Black Butler. Or under the files listing at the top of the page you will find files downloadable for Black Butler Tattoo step by step.pub and Black Butler.pptx

I did a lot of decorating with doilies because I had them from previous crafts and they made everything look fancy.  I also copied a lot of Black Butler art from the internet and cropped them with clip art frames that looked old or gilded. I hung these in groups around the room and at the end of the night I let the teens take them home. Next time I would make more posters but since I didn't expect over 20 teens not everyone got a poster. I am kicking myself a little for not thinking to make some cool faux candelabras with all the paper towel rolls I have squirreled away. Hopefully I can do this for Halloween and go a little goth. 

First we made our tattoos using liquid eyeliner pens.  A few kids couldn't wait and used their own makers which I don't suggest since their parents aren't likely to be amused.  This activity gave people time to wander in, meet and greet a little before we chose teams for trivia.  My tattoo is the bottom left one that's about the size of a postage stamp. 

My teens divided into two teams; The Butlers and The Chainsaws.  Each team them chose someone to keep score.  Since I didn't want them to get too loud we made up a few rules.  Anyone who knew the answer had to confer with their team, then either raise their hand or stand up.  Last time we did trivia everyone got really excited and there was a lot of yelling.  The winning team got a selection of Pocky, Yan Yans and Panda snacks from the supermarket's international aisle to share. 

Tattoos and trivia took about 20-30 minutes.  After everyone got more snacks we settled in to watch the first three episodes of Black Butler on Netflix.  I think everyone went home happy.  I don't know how I will top this for next year.  I will definitely provide more food because they were like locusts tonight. 

Thank you Sarah Stumpf and Teen Services Underground!

Laura

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Teen Animanga Fortune Teller

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I liked the Book Fortune Teller so much I just knew I had to make a version for my Teen Animanga Club. Just click the link to print an editable Publisher file with my cute text and a blank copy for your teens to write on. For a quick printable PDF click here. 

Laura

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Teen Cherry Blossom Festival

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Flower Candy

As part of our Anime/Manga Club for teens I created a program to celebrate the Cherry Blossom Festival.  The Cherry Blossom Festival is celebrated nationally in Japan and also in Washington D.C. The festival usually runs for for a few weeks from late March to mid April.  We had our program a little late in the season. I saved lots of free manga magazines that were donated.  Along with those freebies here are the activities we did tonight.  


Candy Sushi

Finished sushi roll

There are a lot of different ways to make candy sushi with your teens. Instructables has handy directions.  At the very least you need marshmallow rice treats (homemade or store bought), fruit rolls and gummy fish.  For more fun you can buy other candies like gummy worms.   A technique that works well is to lay the fruit roll out stretched on a plate then flatten the marshmallow rice treat so that it covers the fruit roll. If you use paper plates like we did, be sure to lay the wax wrapper from the fruit roll on your plate first.  Otherwise the fruit roll will stick to the plate and peal off an nice layer of paper that you won't want to eat.  Add candy in a line down one edge of the fruit roll then tightly roll the whole thing up.  Then you can cut it into bite sized pieces.  Since there are many types of sushi besides the familiar rolled Maki Sushi,  experiment  with making Nigiri or a whole bento box.  

Cherry Blossom Cutting
I admit origami is a weakness of mine. I often cannot create the shape I want or I cannot teach the folding technique to others.  Cherry Blossoms are just barely in my skill set.  You will need square origami paper of any measurements and scissors. I used the directions from DIY Sakura Kirigami.  It has nice clear pictures and a link to more folding directions at Jessica Jones Design  for a Snowflake Based on a 5 point star.  Thankfully our ellison die cut press has a flower pattern that makes a 5 point flower.  I was able to decorate a lot of the room with these precut flowers to save time.

 

Dried seaweed snack

Snacks

I bought two flavors of dried seaweed, wassabi peas, and flower candy from the international aisle and also hot green tea. The trivia contest had candy prizes and with the candy sushi I figured that was plenty of food. 

Ninja
We play Ninja at nearly every teen event. We always make a circle to start so that it is really clear who doesn't want to play.  Once you know the basic rules its not too hard to join in. Sometimes watching an video can give you an idea of the flow.  

Game in progress

Anime
I couldn't think of an anime with a festival episode to show so I just picked a movie I thought had a really fun story. We went with Hetalia Paint It White.  The movie is rated TV-MA which gave me pause since I've seen it several times and didn't recall much objectionable content.  I feel the movie is should be rated PG-13 for language and blurred out but still suggestive themes. 

Ultimate Otaku Quiz

For summer reading last year we had a Jeopardy game as part of a games program.  The teens got a kick out of it so I did another trivia game for them just on Japanese culture. I found nearly all the information on Kids Web Japan. The quiz has 20 questions total.  I had the teens divide into teams and the winning  team had first choice of a snack prize.  I had enough Poky or Panda snacks for everyone but they still enjoyed the competition. Download the power point file below. 

For more ideas check out my blog post Teen Cherry Blossom Festival, part 2

Laura

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