>Opinions | An Anime Channel: Is It Possible?

Question #4: Is there enough demand for an anime network in North America?
Answer: No.

An anime network might fly in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and many other major metropolitan areas, but it won't exactly be well-accepted in the heartland nor the bible belt regions.

Nor in many parts of New England.

Nor in the deep South.

Remember how religious extremists called CBS asking them to not show the gyrating hips of Elvis Presley when he was on the Ed Sullivan Show? They didn't want any part of rock 'n roll, which they called a tool of the devil, coming into their homes. Too early for you? Well, let me go forward in time a bit.

Remember how the same extremists created bonfires and started boycotts about MTV coming into their neighborhoods? They were afraid that MTV, with their dangerous videos, just dripping with sex and violence, was going to corrupt the nation's youth. Still not current for you? Well, let me go forward one more time.

Remember how the SAME extremists created bonfires out of merchandising and videos featuring the characters from Pokemon and later Harry Potter? They felt that the cutesy characters of Pokemon and the stories in the Potter books were promoting cockfighting, witchcraft, and demonology from a godless nation like Japan.

Yeah, it's stupid, ill-mannered, and ill-informed nonsense, but it's because of these narrowminded idiots that keep network execs from creating an anime network. As quick as you could say boycott, these extremists will basically do anything in their power to stop anything that they feel is a dangerous influence to the youth of America. They tried to censor music, and they won. They tried to rate television just like the movies, and they won. They tried to stop Pokemon, and lost. They've never touched Toonami, but that doesn't mean that they haven't tried. They basically feel that anime is a propaganda tool from Japan used to promote violence, godlessness, acceptance of unnatural behavior, witchcraft, and other strange devices thought up in their heads.

We anime fans can do so much, but the sad fact is, in this country, there are more of them than there are of us. Quite frankly, executives that don't want to lose ad revenues are fearful of them, and that's so sad.

All of this leads to the big picture. The big mother of a question. Go here to find the final question, the most important question of all.