Following Kimiko’s directions you soon found yourself in front of a door that had a paper reading “Manga and Anime Club” in a comically large and colorful font taped on it. You were a big fan of various manga and anime before coming here, so you thought it only natural to join this club. Politely you knocked on the door first. Almost immediately the door was thrown open by a raccoon, or maybe tanuki, girl. She wore thick glasses, her breasts seemed slightly larger than yours and her yellow hair was somehow even poofier than yours.
“Hello, my name is Tammy and I’m new here and was maybe interested in–”
A loud gasp of the girl interrupted you. “A new member! Come on in, I’ll show you everything.” She grabbed your arm and quickly pulled you in.
Inside you saw pretty much exactly what you expected, shelves and tables filled with manga volumes, DVD cases and even the occasional video game littered the whole room. The walls were decorated with posters of various anime girls, particularly those who can put up a good fight. For a moment your eyes fell on a picture of a familiar busty squirrel girl wearing only her tonfa weapons and a rather skimpy orange outfit.
“Time for introductions!” the girl that pulled you in energetically announced. “I’m Utano, founder and current president of this club. Since I was a small, little baby tanuki girl I was in love with manga, especially those with creative, high-stakes battles, so when I came to this school I created this club to share my love with everyone. Those girls over there are the other club members. You’ll learn their names and personalities once the plot deems them important enough.”
You found her last comments about her club members rather rude, though looking over at them they didn't seem to mind it.
“But enough about us, tell us about yourself, Tammy, what’s your favorite manga?”
You took a moment to think about it. “Hmm, I think some of the classic shonen. O** P**** or D***** B***, I guess… Huh?! What was that? I just wanted to say O** P****... N*****, B*****, S*** E****... What's going on with me?! Why can't I say any manga titles?” you panicked.
Meanwhile Utano was horribly failing at hiding her laughter. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it's just always so funny to see others reacting to the Censoring for the first time.” When she saw your confused (and quite adorable) head tilt, she continued explaining. “Brawler Park has very strict rules when it comes to referencing other media, as we’d be forced to pay heavy licensing fees otherwise or worse, get sued. To ensure that every mascot adheres to these rules we are made physically incapable of saying the names or other recognizable terms of any popular series, no matter TV, comic, manga or video game. So we use suspiciously similar substitutes instead, like Wyrm Orb, Single Part or Your Heroine Private School. Take a look for yourself.”
She handed you some of the aforementioned manga. Leafing through one you noticed they were pretty much the same with the exception of all names being slightly changed. “So we aren't able to say their names, but aren't the appearances of some of those characters licensed, too? How does this work?”
“Oh, don't worry too much about that. As long as you don't go into too much detail describing these characters everything should be fine.” Utano winked at the readers as she said this.
“Why is she winking at a wall?”
“That's her designated Fourth Wall,” one of the unnamed manga club members explained. “Our club leader is very genre-savvy, to the point that she believes we’re all also part of a story. Just play along, it's fun.”
Utano turned back to you. “Alright, newbie.” You decided not to voice the fact you hadn't actually agreed to joining yet. “Reading and watching is fine on its own, but there's a bit more to this club. We’re in Brawler Park and so of course fighting has to be involved somehow. We make it our goal to copy abilities and fighting styles from popular manga series and make them our own (at least as far as we can without copyright issues). So, Tammy, what will you choose? We have a wide selection available to personalize your fighting style. But choose well, as a new transfer student your chances of getting involved into some big plot developments are very high.”
You just resigned yourself to having been made a member of this club and instead focused on the wide array of anime and manga-based weapons, powers and upgrades before you. An important choice, which would affect how you’d fight while being enrolled in Sakura Academy. What do you choose?