Shawn Budwal

Introduction

Shawn Singh Budwal (Born November 18, 1999) is the current Secretary of Minna no Anime. He started his work as an officer as Webmaster in 2018 and served as such until 2021. He was preceded by Hannah Wilkins and succeeded by Tomas Ludin. After this, he was elected Secretary for the 2021-2022 school year. His notable accomplishments include extensive collaborative organizational work for club events (such as the annual Halloween Party and 30th Anniversary Party) and the complete aesthetic overhaul of the Minna no Anime website. He has received attention within the club for his idiosyncratic way of expressing himself, key phrases, and iconic quotes. He is also memorable as an openly-homosexual member of club, as well as being of Indian descent.

Shawn Budwal grew up in Folsom, California. He attended Folsom High School and entered Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as an Animal Science major in 2017, but switched to Biological Sciences in 2019 with a concentration in Wildlife Biology and Biodiversity Conservation. He joined Minna no Anime at the Halloween Party during his freshman year, and was appointed as the next Webmaster in winter quarter. While having no significant involvement with computing before his appointment, his officership has suffered no problems of consequence due to this prior inexperience. There was, however, an unrelated incident in which his moderation abilities on the Minna no Anime Discord server were removed. Despite this, he is one of the most active individuals on the platform and is a key part of social interactions, outside of an official hiatus due to mental health concerns after a falling out with other club members.

Officer Positions

2018-2019	Webmaster
2019-2020	Webmaster
2020-2021	Webmaster
2021-2022	Secretary

And don't you forget it <3

Early Life & Personality

Shawn Budwal was born in San Jose, California, on November 18th, 1999. However, his family moved to Folsom, California, a few years later and have remained there ever since. Growing up, he participated in recreational soccer, swim, and theater and was very involved in the Boy Scouts of America - where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout. If asked, he would describe his hometown of Folsom as a “bubble” and “the pinnacle of White suburbia.” He struggles with issues of self-esteem and fitting into social groups, which stem from his elementary and middle school experiences. He has described his middle school years as the worst time of his life. Budwal realized that he wasn’t heterosexual when he was a sophomore in high school, although he acknowledges that he may have started to become aware of his true sexuality at an earlier time. He currently identifies as gay, although his sexuality can be more fluid at times. At the end of the Winter 2021 quarter, he came out to his parents. Prior to this point, he had only been open about his sexuality with his friends and the MnA community. Along with this, he has been in a committed relationship with another club member since the Fall quarter of his freshman year (2017).

Budwal is 5’9” (although he claims that it depends on who measures him) with brown skin, naturally black hair, and glasses with black or clear frames. During the fall quarter of junior year, he started to experiment with dying his hair, leading to an iconic school year where he had red hair. He also wears a metal bracelet on his right wrist to signify his religious status as a Sikh. He has a self-diagnosed obsession with jackets, and lamented once about how he could not bring all of the ones he owns to his dormitory room. His favorite color is red - and it’s the color he tends to wear most.

Budwal is known for being a self-described “himbo, but not attractive… just dumb and loud.” His main strengths are his honesty, passion, and level of commitment, but he has been criticized for being overly emotional and spiteful at times. His comedy often relies on his weird and wacky charm, self-deprecation, and obscure references. Generally speaking, his bizarre speech patterns and sarcastic tone can either be entertaining or frustrating depending on the conversation. This has led to him getting into heated discussions with certain members of the club with some frequency. With that said, he is very open to personal conversations, and discloses his mental, physical, and emotional struggles in public settings with notable ease. In his words, he is “not here to lie to people, or hide anything.”

Anime

Introduction to Anime:

Budwal considers himself to have been deeply engaged with anime on three separate occasions before realizing his love for the medium. The first was his childhood, when he would watch whatever cartoons on TV. Some of these included anime, such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, but the first series he ever completed was Dinosaur King. However, he does not consider this to be when he became attached to anime, since these were the 4Kids localized broadcasts. His family was not subscribed to channels that aired mature series such as Adult Swim and he wasn’t even aware that these shows were categorized as anime.

The second occasion was in middle school. His school library contained several manga series, including Fruits Basket and Naruto. The former was the first manga series he ever completed, and he also watched all of the 2001 adaptation. Although he didn’t complete the latter due to a lack of volumes at the school, he did get far into the series and watched some of the anime as well. However, after engaging with these two series, he had no significant interaction with anime or manga until his high school years.

The third instance in which he became involved with anime was during his sophomore and junior years of high school. Having knowledge of the Corpse Party video game series, he watched the OVAs, but he does not attribute this to sparking his interest in anime since he does not have a positive opinion of the adaptation. After this, he completed Your Lie in April, but again, does not associate it with getting invested in anime. To him, it was Death Parade that convinced him to watch more anime. When he finished it, he thought to himself, “this seems like something that I need to get into,” in regards to anime in general. He watched more series throughout his later high school years, and started keeping up with seasonals after joining the club.

Favorite Series:

Budwal considers many different series to be among his “favorites.” However, if he were to narrow it down to his top 9 TV shows, they would be Nichijou, Mononoke, Baccano!, Haikyuu!!, the Monogatari Series, Land of the Lustrous (of which he also keeps up with the manga), 3-gatsu no Lion, Katanagatari, and Hibike! Euphonium.

However, he would include Mushishi, Death Parade, Tatami Galaxy (+ The Night is Short, Walk on Girl), Cowboy Bebop, Mob Psycho 100, Space Dandy, Mawaru Penguindrum, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Hyouka, Millennium Actress, In This Corner of the World, Paranoia Agent, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, Durarara!!, Konosuba!, Fate, Little Witch Academia, Kill la Kill, The Count of Monte Cristo, Wolf Children, My Hero Academia, Lupin III (but edgy), And Yet the Town Moves, Hellsing Ultimate, and Haibane Renmei in his overall favorites.

He considers his favorite studios to be Kyoto Animation, BONES, Orange, and Trigger.

Random Trivia

> Was the self-proclaimed "Weebmaster" of the website.

> Loves anime OPs and EDs.

> Loves to talk about his British heritage (his mother was born and grew up there).

> Loves cake (pretty much all kinds).

> He was the only officer absent for the 2019-2020 Halloween party (due to attending a funeral for his grandfather in England). However, he was by far the largest contribution to making the event as smooth as it was.

> He scored a 32 on his ACT. He considers this to be one of his only accomplishments, along with giving the website an aesthetic overhaul.

> His favorite video game series include Persona, Danganronpa, Nier: Automata, Fire Emblem, Super Smash Bros, Pokemon, and Legend of Zelda (exclusively Breath of the Wild, he just hasn’t played the others yet).

> His favorite characters include Lukas from Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Spider-Man from Marvel Comics, Ryuji Sakamoto from Persona 5, Akihiko Sanada from Persona 3, Daichi Sawamura from Haikyuu!!, Meisai Tsuruga from Katanagatari, Ougi Oshino and Tsubasa Hanekawa from Monogatari, Aqua from Konosuba!, False Assassin from Fate/Strange Fake, and Napoleon Bonaparte from Fate/Grand Order.

> His favorite color is red. He's even dyed his hair red before.

> His favorite meat is pork.

> His favorite music artists are Lady Gaga, Qveen Herby, iyla, Rina Sawayama, Myth & Roid, Yakushimaru Etsuko, MARINA, Doja Cat, Rico Nasty, and Nicki Minaj.

> He likes tarot cards and horoscopes, although he doesn't really believe in them. He's a Scorpio by western zodiac, Rabbit by the Chinese zodiac, and feels closest to the Tower arcana.

Quotations and Other Anecdotes

"Yes, it's her!" (Context: Second episode of Psycho Pass when Shion Karanomori (the technician) was introduced in an interesting manner. Note that this comment was whispered, yet the entire club still managed to hear it. XD)

"Crying in the club. Sobbing at the spa. Weeping by the window"

• Alternative: ”crying in the club, sobbing in the shower, weeping in Walmart, dying in Denny’s...”

”I think the fuck not you trick ass bitch!”

"I make up for lost time with my overwhelming presence!"

"Do you know what else of mine is longer than yours?" (context: he must be talking about his ego)

“Every time Spike (Cowboy Bebop) speaks, I orgasm multiple times.”

"I want to be able to throw a building, I want to be able to shoot lasers out of my mouth, I want to be able to hear my neighbors having sex" (Context: I'm just as confused as you are on this one.) (Update: the conversation was about superpowers, about him wanting one. Unsure about the examples though...)

"I need to ask you a question, but I need you to not interpret anything from it ... How long do you think you're going to be in school for?"

"Bitch I am literally the patron saint of this organization, y'all should be grateful that you are permitted to bask in my presence."

"OK MEMER"

"I don't want his genetics, I want his genetic material."

"Take your fucking spaghetti monsters and get the fuck out." (Note, the conversation was about religion.)

"I'm incompetent without being drunk."

"Wait? Are you just wearing a shirt with pants?"

"based pogchamp" (note: he hates the phrase "pog")

"I really really love Imaishi. Like wow, I’m alive at the same time as him. My skin is clear; my mind is at peace; my crops have been watered."

"If Jon (Jonathan Skelly) ever touches [Discord] channel permissions again I'm going to eat his game cartridges."

"What are you talking about? This is my club, my job is to oppress you."

"kinda quirky though"

"So anyways, the weather."

"With enough alcohol, you can fly anywhere, and you don't even need a plane."

"Well, let me ask the audience"

"What are you going to do? Block me?"

"I JUST WANT TO BE GAT AND THAT'S IT NO MORE OF THIS "LIFE" BULLSHIT"

What Others Say

"he 90% gay, 10% Bayonetta" -Kellen Dobson

"This guy is a meme but that's why we love him" -Katie Whelan

"He's obviously the MC of a slice of life. Have you not seen the red hair?" -Conrad Kinsey