I saw a Batman manga at my local library once...to my horror. I'm okay if some Japanese artists out there want to do Batman..but if the sole reason for this is to put a Japanese "spin" on it...Japan, you have your own Bat Hero! Remember this guy? http://tinyurl.com/yw65qw

Please. Don't do this.

Hire Jack Nicholson, Have Alfred let Vicki Vale into the Batcave, Have Beetlejuice be Batman, hire Schumacher, put nipples on the suits, Have Robin played by a 30 year old, have penguin funeral processions, hire Jim Carey, giggly Two-Face, hire Ah-Nuld, turn Bane into a moaning zombie, and finally, have a poodle catch a Bat'rang and a bunch of stupid goons reprogram the Batmobile.

THAT'S how you eff up Batman movies.

Actually, I just want one of the stories to be Nip/Tuck turning Katie Holmes into Maggie Gyl (not going to try to spell it)

No, you can't convince me. Yes, I've watched all the anime classics (back before half of you even heard of them, I'll wager), and no, I've never seen anything in the genre worth the hype it gets.

Face it: Most of you dig anime because you're trendy fucks who follow the crowd, or you're easily impressed by "badass" visuals and animation that includes violence, tits, and swearing.

Give me "Les Triplettes Du Belleville" over "Ghost In The Shell" any day. Give me ANYTHING done by Mike Judge over anything done by MIYAZAKE.

You don't need to educate me. I've been there, done that, sold it to hordes of stupid fans, and seen who watches it. Otaku are about a half-step above furries in the geek heirarchy, and I have no desire to be part of that particular fan base.

Will they all emply the same "anime style" or will they be daring and portray a different "anime style" with each of the six episodes?

Let's see, you want mature content in your animation? Look no further than Ralph Bakshi's work. Ever seen "Fritz the Cat"? You could also grab "Rock and Rule" and see some pretty cool designs and FULL animation (meaning not a single fucking scene of still images with motion lines drawn around them) with lots of mature content.

It's clear none of you close-minded anime freak have even been to The Animation Show. Not all western animation is "cartoony" or like Disney... But you know what? Each western animation project/studio produces stuff that looks stylistically different from other creators, unlike anime which always sticks to the exact same character models, no matter who the animators are. It's assembly-line crap, that's why.

Then, of course, we have great stuff like "Batman: The Animated Series", and all of the recent D.C. comics stuff (save for The Batman and Teen Titans). We have great, well-written, well-animated stuff like "King of the Hill" which puts more intelligent content and social satire into a 20-minute episode than "Prince of Tennis" could manage in a whole manga series.

You can also go back and find great stuff like the Fleischer Superman and Popeye, pretty much everything done by Warner Bros in the mid-20th century, Disney's work (which is what anime rips off for their basis in style), Walter Lantz's great shorts, later material from guys like Tartakovsky and the folks at Cartoon Network. You've got Chuck Jones, who basically owns the art form. You've got great series like Duckman, The Critic, Home Movies, and of course Matt Groening's work.

I actually BURNED my VHS copies of "Vampire Hunter D", "Akira", "Lensmen", "Vampire Princess Miyu", "A Tale of Two Robots", "Street Fighter", "My neighbor Totoro", "Project A-Ko", "Crusher Joe", "Macross" (all of them), "Ninja Scroll", "Bubblegum Crisis", "Ranma 1/2", and "Ghost in the Shell", among many others. Is that enough, or would you like me to show you the manga titles I gleefully return or trash at my bookstore, too?

I have a friend who constantly tries to show me "new" anime flicks (which I'm familiar with because I sell them for a living, too) and every "new" thing is just the same old rehashed characters, style, plot, and set pieces. Doesn't matter if it's about girls who like a cute boy who happens to be a demon, or a bunch of spiky-haired martial artists from various walks of life all competing for the some sort of prize (honor, the sword, the ancient curse lifted, the girl, whatever). It's still all the same.

Call my bluff? I've thrown out more anime than you've probably owned in your life. Granted, I haven't purchased anything in that genre (and it IS a genre) since around 1995, but I've seen plenty of it. There's no way you can convince me that "Cowboy Bebop" is in any way "WAY DIFFERENT" from "Ghost in the Shell". It's not. If you can't see that, then you're just the deluded anime freaks I thought you were.

No, I'm not "dismissing" anime. I'm actively hating it because it's watered-down crap that is single-handedly ruining the animation world. As a fan of animation as an art form, I find anime to be the equivalent of velvet paintings of Elvis... Mass-produced, and not fit to hang in ANY gallery.

And no, I haven't seen every anime, but I have seen a lot of them, and I'm sorry, but MONOKE was boring crap, GHOST IN THE SHELL was a delightfully limp rip-off of everything Gibson and P.K. Dick have written, and GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES was a lot of silent nothing trying it's best to be an anime Schindler's List, if I remember it correctly. But hey--- They use music and really blatant images to TELL YOU how you should feel, instead of being able to tell a story without using such cheap schlock to manipulate your mood. FRITZ was scathing social satire with no apologies, even if it was exploitive.

And STREET FIGHT, by the way, was never one of my favorites... I'd personally rather watch the Flintstones' first season than STREET FIGHT.

No, I don't want Batman in "BELLEVILLE" style, necessarily. But I also don't want him in anime style either... Especially if it's AMERICAN anime, which is just a copy of a copy of a copy of a style.

I'd like to see animation that has the detail of BELLEVILLE, but with the style of modern comic books. Frank Miller's work animated would be beautiful... And NOTHING like anime.

Anime is many things, but it can NOT pull off noir without looking pretty bland and photocopied. What anime does well is cheap, barely-animated action (still drawings with barely-moving bullets, mouths, and motion lines) and cheap tear-jerking scenes (close-up on the big-eyed child's single tear, mood music to force the point, etc.), and I'd rather not have Batman be either of those.

Batman is a western comic that has benefited by some AWESOME artists over the years-- Almost all of whom draw better and more varied than ANY anime or manga artist. Give me an animated version of Steranko's work, or Miller's, or even John Byrne's for goodness sake! (and I hate Byrne's art!)--- But not a big-eyes, small-mouth, barely-moving Batman that is all about striking poses and overly-wordy exposition.

I don't care if you have your PRINCESS MONOKE or other anime crap--- Just don't keep turning western characters into anime projects! I don't think that's unfair.

Why is it everything western is being made into manga or anime, but you don't see manga/anime characters turned into western style animated films? BECAUSE THE ANIME CHARACTERS ARE ONE-DIMENSIONAL and wouldn't hold up without the style. Would you like to see a version of AKIRA done by a western animator? How about a nice GI Joe styled Vampire Hunter D? No? Of course you wouldn't. So why would you want to see American characters ALL turned into anime characters?

My problem here is that EVERYTHING is getting this anime treatment, not because it's a good art form, but because it's popular with the adolescents. TEEN TITANS is the biggest lump of crap I've ever seen, and Animatrix is a lot of showing off what they can do, but not a lot of decent storytelling.

I'm sorry, I prefer substance over style. You obviously prefer the reverse.

Some anime (the non-Penguin populated stuff) I like. Plus, I loved "The Animatrix." That shit was fantastic. "Final Flight of the Osiris" was more kickass and meaningful than the entire second and third movies. I know it wasn't anime -- more CG, actually -- but I'd pay to see THAT in the movie theater.

Here's to hoping this Batmanime is real.