The Ottawa Citizen 

January 27, 1998, Tuesday, FINAL EDITION 

SECTION: NEWS; LETTERS; Pg. A16 

LENGTH: 393 words 

HEADLINE: Cartoons for all 

BYLINE: MIKE FOURNIER; THE OTTAWA CITIZEN 

BODY: 


I would like to comment on Tim Park's Jan. 22 article titled "Don't paint all 
Japanese anime with same sex-violence brush." 

For starters I agree with what he is saying, but one thing he mentioned has 
upset me. He seems to imply that anime is for kids, and that is why Citizen TV 
writer Tony Atherton slandered it in a Jan. 17 review of Teletoon. 

Who has ever said that anime was only for kids? For the most part, I'd say anime 
is definitely not for kids. 

What is wrong with that? 

Is there any reason why adults cannot have a form of cartoon for themselves? 

I am a huge fan of anime and rent anime movies as often as I can. 

To say that anime is only for kids would be like saying that all movies in all 
genres should be watched by kids. How can Mr. Atherton even begin to make any 
arguments against anime, especially when Teletoon plays their anime movies at 
midnight. What more do you need? 

Teletoon has even classified this time zone as their adult time zone. Mr. Park 
mentioned DuckMan which is also part of the adult time zone on Teletoon. Kids 
should not be up at that hour in any case. 

Unless they are taping these movies or sneaking out of bed to watch them, it is 
not Teletoon's fault, nor should any media have the right to slander anime for 
that reason. 

It is up to those kids' parents to watch their children, and be sure they are 
not taping these types of movies or sneaking a peek at them. 

However, there is still a lot of anime that is made for children or at least it 
is OK for children to watch. To say that anime is just sex and violence is like 
saying that all movies or all television shows are rated R. 

Teletoon has broken up the day into four time slots: Pre-school, kids, family 
and adult. 

If they wanted to, Teletoon could place anime into every time slot to fit the 
block. 

There is enough anime out there for anyone to start a new television station 
showing only anime, and have the adult stuff at night, while showing the kids' 
stuff in the morning and after school hours. 

I feel that Mr. Atherton should redeem himself by apologizing to Teletoon and to 
all anime fans. 

Like most stereotypes, it's simply ignorance and it's obvious Mr. Atherton 
didn't do his homework on the subject. 

It's a shame really, since he and others like him are hurting a great genre. 

Mike Fournier, Ottawa