Jim produces a photo of himself dressed in Asuka's red plugsuit, with a poorly made orange wig. He is standing in the lobby of the Anime Expo con hotel but he is obviously invisible to the attendees.
		That is absolutely appalling.
		Jim, that is the second stupidest thing I've ever seen.
		What's the first? Oh.
		... Hey, why are you staring at me?

Nothing.

		Jerks. All of that stuff is way too easy to predict! What's something really new that takes off in the U.S. anime cons?
		Japanese women's pro wrestling.
		You must be joking.
		Nope. When fans find out that it's just as wild as anime, they get tapes and import the magazines and everything. There's even a room devoted to running non-stop Japanese wrestling tapes at one con.
		OK... I didn't understand the whole seiyuu thing either. Whatever....
		Sometime in the summer, POKÉMON popularity will peak and then it will be as if it never existed. This will be mostly because of the Seattle Incident.
		The Seattle Incident? What's that? There is a riot of Pokémon goods collectors at a con or something?
		Here, look at this map from 2002. What do you see in the State of Washington?
		Well, I see they're renamed Olympia to Pikachu... Hmm... I don't remember much from geography (not that I learned it in the first place—I was educated in American schools) but the coastline looks a bit different... [cocks head to right] Oh, wait! Geez!
		Yes. The combination of new weapon technology, the Internet and the ardent desire to be one of only 4 owners of the Hyper-Diamond Pikachu card were not good.
		The chain of miserable theatrical failures of anime in Japan continues through to the summer but there are a couple bright spots along the way. Both BLOOD and the ESCAFLOWNE movie are well received.
		I didn't expect that much to happen in the theater next year but as long as there aren't any messes like what happened with TONARI NO YAMADA-KUN it can't be all bad. It was dull, the release was badly timed (same day as THE PHANTOM MENACE...) way overbudgeted and mis-targeted (aimed at an audience that doesn't go to the theaters? What were they thinking??!!) So what about anime movies in the U.S.?
		POKÉMON continues to be the #1 anime property in the U.S. and the second movie, while not as huge as the first, does very respectably. Other than that films do OK. The big disappointment of 2000 will be The EVANGELION movies. They tank so hard and so fast, anime fandom and Manga Entertainment will both get whiplash. Since they're pretty much incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't know the series, the only audience they have are EVA fans, which is about enough to fill a half-dozen theaters once. If they were edited to the point where they made sense to non-fans, fans would rally against the vast changes. Double-edged sword—no winners.
		The second one is one of the most pathetic acts of masturbation disguised as animation (and I'm not talking about just the opening scene) ever made. It made me physically ill to watch. If I woke up one morning and discovered that I had made something like that I would kill myself immediately!
		I felt that way when the Beach Boys changed the name of the song they stole from me.
		Huh?
		They recorded my song 'Cease to Exist' on 20/20 and later changed the name to 'Never Learn Not to Love' and refused to tell anybody I wrote it. They stole a bunch of my stuff.
		Uh... OK...
		The OVA market perks up a little bit near the end of the year and there is still a strong push to get U.S.-Japanese studio co-productions going. That doesn't happen in 2000 either.
		I was hoping to see the first DVD-only OVA series come out in 2000. I think that's going to be an interesting new concept and want to see how it does. What about the U.S. OVA market?
		It continues to increase slowly but surely. There aren't any breakout hits but interest continues. Original works come out and 2001 looks promising.
		Production budgets and quality levels for TV show production finally hit a crisis level in 2000. The studios have been doing the anime limbo for years now and they won't be able to go any lower. Lower ratings on shows have shown that lousy show quality drives viewers away at some point.
		The only thing that keeps some shows alive is the Otaku Factor—there are fans who love the show so much that no matter how low the quality goes, no matter what is done to the concept and story, they will keep watching and buying merchandise. Greedy producers continually reduce the quality to squeeze every last yen out of the fanatics.