There weren't many kids. They were adults. Guys in their forties. Who were they? I began getting some hard-ball questions. I showed the pictures and then did a Q&A. The question about the eyes comes up, and then this guy asked a question about how many cel levels were used. Do you know what cel levels are?

The number of layers of transparent cels laid one on top of another to create the animation.

FL: Exactly! They put the background down and then the next piece of the animation then the next and so on. So this guy asks this and I looked at the director of the festival like, "Where are they getting these questions?" And he mouths to me "I-L-M." He was from Industrial Light and Magic. They were just down the road from the theater and someone said later that George Lucas was there. So this guy asked this because he was trying to composite some digital animation the same way the Japanese had done with the cel levels.

I realized, yeah, there were a lot of people in their forties, but there were a lot of people younger than that there, too, that couldn't have seen the shows. They were too young.

Where it really hit me was in the year 2000, the day before Easter, at the California State University, Long Beach. They asked me to kick off their thing and I said I would. So at this one I showed "The Three Pilots that Flew from Japan."

I go there and they're having it in the Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center and it has 1,200 seats. Woo - this is a huge auditorium. I told them I would do the show but could they pull a curtain behind the first few rows so I'm not looking out at this huge empty auditorium because that would be depressing. They said just leave that to us.

When the performance time came I couldn't believe it. The place was full. There were only some empty seats on the sides. People had come in by the hundreds! I stepped into the john just before the show and there was this young father with two boys who were, like, five and six years old. One of the boys was singing the Gigantor song!

This five-year-old kid is singing, so I pull up my zipper and I go up to the father and ask him, "How does he know that song?" He didn't know who I was; it was just before the show. He says, "Well, I grew up with these shows, Astro Boy, Gigantor, and Kimba, and I wanted my kids to come and see how it should be done right."

So I walked out on the stage and I was stunned. I thought this isn't some sub-culture thing anymore. This is mainstream! All those kids who watched the shows back in the sixties now have kids of their own and they're bringing them up with anime. That's coming full circle from one generation to the next.