February 07, 2001

     Just as recently as two days ago channel 5 WEWS, an ABC affiliated had a report on anime porn (hentai). Keep in mind that this is coming from people whose only knowledge of anime (before the investigation) came from what their kids watched on television. It starts out with a 14 year old spurting out names of some anime films/series including Dragon Ball. Right after that it starts to talk about the theme of the report, "your kids can go from Pokemon to adult anime."

      Then iIt shows the producers 16 year son go to a video store and freely buy a video clearly labled, "Graphic Adult content, not intended for minors." Now my only problem with this is the fact that the whole thing is one-sided. The clerk probably let the kid go because he probably looked slightly older. As I have experienced with most "young" clerks is that they simply let things slide by. This includes movies in general and not just anime films.

      Some parents that were interviewed after a showing of some adult anime (most likely hentai) were totally amazed. These are the same people that grew up with Disney's childish offerings, which in my opinion had a great infuence on how animation is perceived by the general public in the US. Japan of course doesn't view anime the same way. They've got childish cartoons, sci-fi, horror, hentai, and lots of other genres.

You can see the entire report encoded real media by the news channel here. You can also read the article by visiting NewsNet 5.

-Kaio-sama