What I'm going to write here, most of you should probably skip 
entirely.  I'm not addressing really one series, and if I get thrown off an 
ML for ranting, for fuming, for attempting to communicate something serious 
that some small-minded people don't see as relevant to them (apparently, they 
managed what many of us cannot, the evolution unto being an island, their 
solitary self with no other around for as far as the eye can see).  So, 
anyone already turned off, go away, you'll thank me if you don't read it, for 
not having to sit through me going on and on, for calling some people idiots, 
for calling others genius, and for, in the end, making a request of all of 
you.

        I've been thinking, I mean really, really, down-and-dirty, gritty, 
funky, thinking.  Ever since Tenchi got scheduled for Cartoon Network, people 
have been asking, Why not <insert anime series here>, too?  This happened 
before, but with Tenchi Muyo, we have a major and somewhat (well, pretty 
much) adult work of animation, yes, from Japan, in the US on a normal cable 
channel.  Shown nationwide.
        This isn't Pokemon, which is kiddie fare, fun or not, and never 
expected to be more (okeh, some people expect it to be more, but they expect 
everything to be *more*, and aren't happy when it is).  This isn't Robotech, 
which really isn't even a series, it's three of them, dubbed awkwardly so 
they could be patched together, which, while fun, is fairly insulting to the 
original work. This is the show that will, for better or worse, result in the 
success or failure of mainstreamed anime in America.  We should be very 
concerned with that.  If this fails, not much will come about for some time 
after.
        This is the bomb.  Out before (I'm fairly certain) anything showing 
on Fox (I just can't recall the name, to be honest, I've been up, oh, 
somewhen over 24 hours now, working) soon.  Out before a "big" release of an 
anime film in America, I mean a real release, same as any other film, foreign 
or otherwise.  Mononoke got cheated, and mostly American's just could not 
handle it, to anyone who thinks I'm down on Americans, I'm down on stupidity, 
self-induced ignorance, and the like.  Like I said, this is the bomb.  Like 
it, loathe it, it's going to drop very soon now.  And, no matter what, we 
should not head for a shelter and hide our heads and pretend it's a dream.  
No, we have a duty, as fans, as otaku, as intelligent people who love a genre 
(at least, love some of the things within this genre; 'genre' is a terrible 
word, I apologize for having to use it), we have to stand out, center of the 
blast, ground zero, and let the radiation, the explosion, the chaotic corona, 
hit us right square in the eyes.  We have to bear witness.
        This is going to effect everything, hell this is going to revise, 
recreate, and change, just say, it's going to "affect" everything.  
Retroactively, everything the mainstream thought about anime, everything you 
thought the mainstream thought, has the potential to be wiped away and 
rewritten in the flash of a digital edit and an accidental remark from any 
character in the series.  Just wait, there'll be like Sailor Moon, a little 
moral at the end of that first episode.  Washu says, "I've got magic 
fingers,"  and from there, the great waves come a rollin', from there 
everything gets seriously, probably painfully, warped.
        And Tenchi, like it or hate it, isn't even the best or worst of all 
the anime out there.  There shouldn't even be a separation between anime and 
other animation, I don't see Europeanimation, Americanimation, etc.  Lets 
select one, small country (well, actually, people tend to lump Korean and 
Chinese animation in with it, I don't get that either [see, I'm thick]).  
They do that, so they can generalize all Japanese animation into a nice 
simple package, anime.  And what one person calls anime, is rarely what the 
next person means or hears.  An example, Street Fighter 2 and Barefoot Gen.  
Neon Genesis Evangelion and Laputa.  Mononoke Hime and Ninja Resurrection.  
Get my point?
        If it's a total success, we may get more, and equally great (perhaps 
greater, who am I to say?) series.  Eva, Maison, Bubblegum, Shin Chan, the 
possibilities swim around us, and gain a temerity which has never really been 
there before.  If it's successful, we may get altered, edited, censored, and 
otherwise different versions of our favorite series.  Are you, any of you, 
prepared to make that sacrifice for the sake of getting it on the air?  For 
the chance to stop those adverts chiming in about "Akira", you know the one, 
the future of animation?  Heh.
        I've actually heard it claimed Beautiful Dreamer ripped off Groundhog 
Day, or that Ghost in the Shell stole from the Matrix.  Those are the people 
who will be brought in by these renamed, repackaged, redesigned, 
re-totally-created products.  That is who will be the new generation of fans, 
and sure, we'll get a few decent, intelligent people, like those who fell in 
love with Robotech and then found Macross, or who got Galaxy Express on TV 
and then spent many a night debating the principles of honor and dignity in 
combat as represented by Captain Harlock.  Sure, there's always a few of 
them, but they're not the bulk.  They aren't even the bulk of fans right now, 
the mass of anime-lovers, or self-proclaimed anime lovers, enjoyed maybe one, 
two series, most likely Fist of the Northstar is the ultimate in anime they 
could ever wish for.  That's who we are judged by, that is what anime is 
judged by.
        You see, so far, you've got only five series people recognize openly, 
on TV in America, as anime, six with Robotech, those being: Pokemon, Sailor 
Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, and soon, Tenchi Muyo, oh, and Digi-mon, 
Monster Rancher, and possibly another Pokemon-type show I'm not aware of.  
Pokemon and similar themed gotta buy'em all series, are a point in the wrong 
direction, because it reinstates every episode that anime is childish, 
simple, without characterization, intense plot, or just good story and 
development.  DBZ, I love it, I love Dragon Ball much more, but both of them, 
are not fully mature works, I'm sorry.  Gundam Wing, not the best Gundam 
certainly, and not the best dub I've ever heard, but getting closer.  Tenchi 
Muyo, depending on how they play it, could be the first "adult" (read: 
mature) work put out there on the battlefield, could be another cheesy kiddie 
product to sell horribly made toys and coloring books.
        In Japan, I've noticed a tendency towards creating a market for 
self-regenerating fans.  You go from say Sailor Moon to Blue Seed, from 
original Gundam up through various Gundam and even into Macross through its 
spin-offs.  From the fantasy genre typical to Mononoke Hime.  From Uresei 
Yatsura, Harlock, and other space romance with politics and humor in 
abundance, to Tenchi Muyo.  From the average mecha show, to Neon Genesis.  
They keep developing, growing, pushing to new territory and new limits.  
Maybe, what we need, is the time it took for those series to grow, mature, 
and mutate into new series, as they did in Japan.  We need to start the base 
public out on the earliest works' mentality, style, and maturity, then build 
them up.  Maybe not.
        A day hardly goes by when I don't see an article in some "legit" 
slick, talking about comics, without the words, BAM!, WHAM!  BIFF! or the 
like spewing forth.  Doesn't matter that we've seen Maus, Stuck Rubber Baby, 
Transmetropolitan, Adolf, X, Sin City, or many others come and go the way of 
books come too soon as it was, we get Batman, from the sixties, from the TV.  
So, it doesn't matter what comes out on the video or DVD racks at the store, 
next to the (Crom's Devils!) porn section, it matters what they see when they 
flip on the glass teat (to borrow a fine phrase), and for lack of a better 
metaphor, begin to suckle.  It matters to them that one person, in an 
article, said anime was sick, twisted, violent porn.  No one ever goes out 
and does a thorough check of these things.
        In other words, come D-day, come bomb dropping, we are all either 
going to be geniuses ahead of our time, or the biggest pariahs this country 
has seen since segregated everything.  You think we had problems being otaku 
before this, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Wait for Falwell, or Thurmond, or 
Tipper Gore, and all the others.  Cartoon Network, the International Channel, 
the WB even, only a couple channels; these guys have channels by the score, 
and they do the hell-bent vengeful preachy moralist thing like nobody since 
that Spanish thing nobody expected.  In just a few months we are going to be 
scrutinized, first by the cartoon-viewing public, then by parents, teachers, 
and lone psychos who've gathered cults around them to toss money in their 
direction to keep God from taking them away and ending the world.  They're 
going to look at us, and wonder why we aren't drinking the same Kool-Aid they 
are.