Eight Questions with the Anime and Manga Club - Overload 2025

Last weekend, I attended Overload 2025 to see what it was all about. It was thanks to the Anime and Manga Club of the University of Auckland that I even found out about this event, which is considered to be the largest anime convention in New Zealand. My highlights and review of that two-day event should be coming out shortly.

But can you really call it an anime convention when the majority of content comes from games? Why don't we take it up with an expert?

Now, we don't have an expert, but what we do have is a stall belonging to the University of Auckland's Anime and Manga Club, as well as the Game Developers Guild. Their game was hilarious; you run over babies in a speeding car, with beer bottles being multipliers. I did horribly in that one.

But anyway, the Anime and Manga Club. I decided to bring them eight random questions and see how they responded.

What is the best anime ever made, and why isn't it One Piece?

Orla: What?

Joyce: I've seen all the episodes, and I like it, but my favorite anime is Bungo Stray Dogs.

Noah: I see you're trying to start fights here. It's too long.

Mike: Some parts have aged so much.

If you could be reincarnated into one anime, which one would it be?

Joyce: I just want to live in Japan without it being overrun by monsters and portals.

Orla: The Slime anime.

Mike: My Life as a Breadmaker or something. Just a simple life, making bread for the people in the village town. There's a demon king, but it doesn't concern me.

Noah: It has to be the best self-insert. Can I just do MILF-sekai?

Me: What?

What is the most drastic change you've seen in the anime community since you started AMC in 2013, if there is any?

Joyce: The top anime has changed; we've got way more isekai anime. And with the new generation comes new anime, like Solo Leveling and The Apothecary Diaries. It gets confusing for us old generations! (Chobits, etc.)

Orla: Less ecchi and panty shots.

Noah: I wasn't here in 2013.

Mike: It's become more accessible and mainstream. There was stigma against being an anime fan, but now more people are more open and more confident in sharing their interests. (Check out this article for more info.)

Where do you see this club in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

Joyce: Hopefully still running with new leaders and more sponsors. I want the club to survive so that I can retire in peace. And I can come back as a working woman and go, "Oh yo, what's this club doing now?"

Orla: That would be good.

Noah: We're a million-dollar stock selling MiCoins.

Mike: We're passing this club to the next generation.

Name one anime/manga fact others may not know.

Joyce: The Japanese voices for Luffy (One Piece), Naruto (Naruto), and Ash (Pokémon) are all voiced by a female.

Orla: (Manga fact) Uta (Tokyo Ghoul) literally eats a bowl of dicks and his eyeballs as well. Read the manga! The last chapter is bad, but the rest is good.

Mike: Touhou is set in Gensokyo.

Noah: There are no males in Love Live, so the girls reproduce by mitosis or something similar.

As a club, what would you say is the best anime ever made?

Joyce: That's impossible.

Me: What are the club's tastes like?

Joyce: It's very diverse, we have a lot of older members who watch older generation anime like us (it's really different), and you have the new generation with Solo Leveling, isekai.

Me: What does the older generation watch?

Orla: I like Chobits, Fairy Tail, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and InuYasha. I watched Planetes recently.

Joyce: Just a disclaimer that it's all different. So, for the older generation, the popular one is Fullmetal Alchemist, and the newer generation is Frieren. Apothecary Diaries is also good.

Noah, Mike: Your Name for the sheer impact it had on the anime community, as well as A Silent Voice.

What do you think about Shou Tucker blending the daughter and the dog? (DO NOT LOOK IT UP IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE REFERENCE)

Joyce: It's still a meme in the anime club. No one agrees with what he did. Every time someone memes about [the daughter] being a dog, everyone's like "Oh, hell nahhh."

Orla: It's still alive and well, that meme.

Joyce: Nina deserved better.

Orla: It's never gonna die, that meme.

Noah: EEDDDDDDWAAAARRDDD

What is the best anime ever made, and why is it One Piece?

Joyce: Wait a second. He's trying to brainwash us- should we make your friend happy and tell him One Piece-

Orla: I don't like One Piece. It's too much.

Joyce: You can tell your friend that even though it's not at the top, my favorite character is Perona. She's a goth chick with pink hair. He might appreciate that.

Noah: It's not.

Mike: It's not.

The AMC has spoken: One Piece is, in fact, not the best anime of all time.