Props to Impz and his band of merry men for sparking off the discussion. Demian in his response, however, overlooked what I believe is a key angle of how anime wouldn’t make it to mainstream, and that’s what I’m going to address in this post. Will also be commenting closely on drmchsr0’s, uh, “character-driven” response that, while being theoretically valid, has critical flaws in terms of practical implementation.

I agree with Demian that anime will never make it to mainstream, but for different reasons altogether — the medium itself is what makes it an inherent impossiblity. I don’t know how many of you might have experienced this, but I personally have difficulty getting my friends to watch anime, even after I tell them that the DVD of Honey and Clover does not contain porn.