"I hope you guys had fun out there. And remember, anime is the tie that binds us. No matter who our friends are, or who our family is, we'll always have a medium that we will enjoy and that will never judge us."
— Renee Vega, without a hint of sarcasm.
Mills College Anime Club is a Web Original novel written for National Novel Writing Month 2009 by Sir Psycho Sexy. It tells the story of several members of the anime club at Mills College, a fictional college in Millstown, USA. It's basically Cast Full of Gay meets Occidental Otaku, with some Rule of Funny thrown in for good measure.
Characters include:
- Rodrigo "Randy" Alvarez, a bisexual Latino Hentai fanboy who is fairly Book Dumb and is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Renee Vega, an Expy of Orihime Inoue who is sweeter than sugar, a pre-law student and a Catholic.
- Alistair Howard, a snarky transgender guy who has a huge ego, worships Char Aznable, and thinks that any anime made past 1995 is crap, though he changes his mind later.
- Mike Bronson, a 6-foot-4, muscular Straight Gay who is a pre-med major, studying to be a gynecologist in part to please his lesbian mothers. He is usually a Nice Guy / Gentle Giant and the voice of reason, especially to his Unlucky Childhood Friend Gracie. He loves Shounen and Bara.
- Gracie Wong, Mike's Fag Hag and rabid Yaoi Fangirl. A Gonk with Nerd Glasses who lives too much inside of her own head and is oblivious to reality. Her glasses come off later on.
- Lance La Rue, a Camp Straight Kavorka Man/The Casanova Hentai fanboy who has a way of charming his way into the pants of many a Yaoi Fangirl.
- Melissa 'Missy' Kowalski, a transgender lesbian who just came back from studying abroad in Japan. Is fluent in Japanese, has seen pretty much every anime without subtitles, and rides a motorcycle. Gracie dates her for a short time, refusing to believe that she's a transwoman and not a Bishounen. They break up when Gracie finally gets it.
- Nina Steinbrenner, one of the German students studying at Mills for her master's degree (in English). Nina is pretty much the epitome of Tsundere, has a fairly flat chest and hazel eyes, and hates it when Americans stereotype Germans. Secretly likes Magical Girl shows. Is also an outspoken fan of Rammstein and other Neue Deutsche Härte bands. She and Liese are Heterosexual Life-Partners ever since she saved Liese from bullies back in "high school" (more like Gymnasium, but still).
- Liese Meyer, the other student from Germany, doing graduate study at Mills (in comparative literature). A cute, short, blond Lipstick Lesbian with big breasts, her personality ranges between Shrinking Violet and The Ojou. She speaks five languages, even though her English is a bit off. Is extremely attractive to men (thus earning her nickname of "
Moeblob"), even though it pains her that the girls don't want her. Liese is a Yuri Fan and a Covert Pervert. She's been in love with Nina since the day they met, even though she realizes Nina is straight and thinks that she's dating Randy for a while.
It can be read here
. A review by Something Awful can be found here.
Tropes in this novel include:
- All Love Is Unrequited: a variant- mostly unrequited, but the love that is requited turns out to be dysfunctional and leads to the couple breaking up.
- Author Appeal: The reason this novel exists: Cast Full of Gay, anime and manga fandom, Germans and linguistics. It's safe to say that unless you're a troper, you will not enjoy this novel.
- Cast Full of Gay: It's like the BK Kids, but with different sexual orientations.
- Camp Gay: The Mills College LGBT Club is full of flamboyant gay stereotypes who refuse to let Straight Gay Mike join the society because he looks and acts so manly he has to be heterosexual.
- Character Filibuster: Every so often the story will stop dead in its tracks so that one character can lecture another - usually either the hopelessly clueless Straw Misogynist Gracie or a background character who exists solely to express an opinion the cast disagrees with - about sexuality, gender and the importance of tolerance.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: As well as some Cosplay Otaku Guys. The most notable instance of this (besides Genki Con) is when Nina and Liese dress up as Yoko and Nia in order to attract customers to buy fund-raising chocolate.
- Each character's Cosplay somehow lampshades their respective character traits.
- Expy: Frank N. Dick, an extreme Flanderization of voice actor Vic Mignogna.
- Fan Convention: GenkiCon. No, it's not a murderfest hosted by a psychotic man in a cat suit, despite how cool that premise would be.
- Germanic Depressives: Played with with Nina (she does laugh, but she's usually pretty stern; and subverted with Liese (she's as cute, sweet and happy as they come).
- The subversion is lampshaded (various characters note that Liese is German and a lesbian, though she acts like neither one).
- Obsessed with Food: Everybody. The cast spend as much time agonising over their take-out orders as they do at the titular Anime Club, and several chapters are devoted to the characters' attempts to sell candy bars.
- Otaku, Occidental Otaku: Everyone. Even nameless background characters turn out to know exactly who Yoko Ritona is.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Some of the situations in the novel are somewhat modified versions of things that have actually happened to the author at anime conventions and elsewhere in anime fandom.
- Show Within a Show: The Shounen Magical Girl Tournament Arc program, Gravy Fighter Haruhi, and the Boys' Love series, Stop It, My Butt Hurts!!.
- Shout-Out: TONS, including several to the creator's favorite anime, YuYu Hakusho; Monty Python; Little Britain ( Alistair's birth name), and a whole lot more.
- Straw Fan: Gracie is a not-so-loving parody of Yaoi fangirls. Gracie is portrayed as unattractive, socially inept, shrilly misogynistic and totally wrong about just about everything. She mostly seems to be kept around so that the rest of the cast will have someone to lecture.
- Straw Traitor: Many people have joined the anime club because they were kicked out of their race/religion/sexual orientation group for appearing to be one of these to the other race/religion/sexual orientation group members.
- Translation Convention: For the most part, except when the English-speaking characters are confused by foreign words.
- Viewers Are Geniuses You will find certain scenes funnier if you speak German or Japanese. Heck, most of the novel is an anime fandom in-joke.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Randy's dream is one to the first few episodes of YuYu Hakusho.
