10/23/99
"Anime in the US"
by Phoenix Ray

Once again, I'm going to talk about how cruel the US is as a whole towards anime. However, the subject has changed from cencorship to people who think anime is "just a bunch of cartoons from Japan". If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're very lucky. Most of you, though, should already be thinking of a person or two who has at one point or another made fun of you for displacing a higher IQ andmore sophisticated taste than them (a.k.a. watching anime). The most recent event for me was when a group of BAH2's(blond at heart, blond at head's) accused my friend of watching "Power Rangers" after looking at some Sailor Moon pens belonging to my other friend. They had also mistaken SM for the "Powerpuff Girls". Not that I have anything against "Powerpuff Girls", but it's a long way away from SM.

Now that I've, told you what people do, I'm going to tell you why they shouldn't. First, most people who criticize anime don't watch it. As an example, if I decided to say that all science-fiction shows are illogical and poorly developed and had never watched more a single episode of the genre, most people would just make fun of me. The same should be done to ignorant criticisors of anime. Second, some anime has more sophisticated plot lines and character developement than live action shows aimed at adults. Third, the animation tends to be really high quality. Why else would we put up with poor translating, pointless cencorship (which, by the way, never happens to American shows), and bad time slots? I'm not saying that everyone who has ever criticized anime should turn on their TV at four every day and start watching Sailor Moon or expecting people to actually stop criticising anime (wouldn't that be nice). All I'm trying to do is put my opinion out there and hope that maybe some young, unaware little kid will read this and learn from other's mistakes.
peace,love,whatever-
'nix