I saw a character on the Pokémon episode #252 “The Ice Cave” that not only stripped the phenomenon of its innocence but stopped me cold. The character Ruujura resembles an image of Carole Boston Weatherford on a good day. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and it is a waste of what would otherwise be an intelligent mind to go around and invent imagery to accuse Pokémon of being racially offensive (and anime in general; let’s not forget the djinni Mr Popo of Dragonball). Mr Popo looks like a djinni; Ruujura is a caricature of Yama-uba. Worse yet, NOA lets Ms Weatherford get away with dictating their policies, blocking transmission of any episode containing Ruujura, thereby removing imagined Japanese stereotypes and inserting very real American ones.

I eagerly await the flames, especially if Ms Weatherford stumbles across this site whilst ego-surfing…