The story of the East Coast Anime Society is a turbulent one that has taken many different turns over the years to bring it to where it is today. Founded in 1995 by a small group of Anime fans (Chad Matich, Scott Burnette, Taliga Davis, Mondo Nunez, & Tim Moore) in the Fayetteville N.C. area, it was designed to bring the local community together. But the question was, how to do it? During those early days there used to be a local comic shop called Phantasy Central that rented a large variety of Anime, and was kind of a hub for the local Anime community of Fayetteville and Ft. Bragg. The founders of E.C.A.S. decided the best way to reach out to the community was to release a quarterly, 25 page, free, Fanzine called "Otaku No Fayetteville", which specialized in interviews with Industry people, Con Reports, Anime & Manga reviews, Anime Soundtrack Reviews, and much more, and distribute it through Phantasy Central. For the first few months things went smoothly, but seeing as the local military base rotates soldiers in and out of the city, soon the fanzine had a mailing list and was being shipped all over the country. To add to the excitement, E.C.A.S. started getting independent requests from other Anime fans in other cities wishing to receive the fanzine. Soon the free fanzine had to move to a subscription basis to survive. This went on steadily until 1998, until for various reasons, the group disbanded and went their separate ways. 1998, the Fayetteville Anime Scene fell silent...

 

In 2001 one of the original founders (Chad Matich) decided to resurrect E.C.A.S. with the original purpose of supporting the Anime scene in Fayetteville and it's surrounding areas. Soon several other local Anime fans joined in and started organizing Anime Viewings and other get togethers. Things stayed pretty calm until 2006 when several of the higher ranking members of E.C.A.S. joined Animazement as Staff members. For the first two years they organized the group into volunteering for Security, and then in 2008 they took over running the video rooms. Soon a large hunk of the E.C.A.S. organization was working for Animazement in various forms and positions. It was a marriage made in heaven...

 

E.C.A.S.'s current goals are to support the local Anime Scenes in N.C. and it's surrounding areas. They donate their time to cons like Animazement and Librari-Con, help with prize support, help other Anime clubs in the area with viewings or online fan sites, as well as so much more. The group has a long colorful history that it's founding members, where ever they are, should be proud to have been a part of creating. Long Live E.C.A.S.!!!