Dear Mr. Anime,
How do they choose which characters in games will be weaker and which will be stronger? When they choose the stronger ones do all the weaker ones get all upset? Sometimes I think that Morrigan (DARK STALKERS, VAMPIRE SAVIOR) must have cried when nobody was looking when they made Dmitri cooler than she was. Have you ever seen the characters get sad or angry about this?
—Darren

Well, first of all, game characters are not real people. They don't exist outside of the game and whatever illustrations and books are done. They don't go home to their apartments and have pets and eat dinner with each other after the game. Stop writing them fan mail. Get over it.
Second of all everybody knows that Lilith is the coolest character in that series of games so it doesn't matter about the other characters feelings anyway. Her favorite color is red and she likes cheesecake. I know she likes me.

Dear EX Safety,
What's the deal with all this Lolita stuff that I see everywhere anime is found? I mean, there are just sailor suits everywhere! I've read that a lot of Anime is child pornography. Are the Japanese just total pervs or what?
—Michelle

Fetishes are a hard thing to explain, particularly if they are a widespread cultural thing that is highly ingrained. Your ideas of "weird" are based on those of your family and society and someone the next state over might disagree completely. This is even more so when you consider different countries, say England and France or Germany and India or California and the United States.
The Japanese obsession with young girls is really not any "weirder" than the American obsession with big breasts if you look at it clearly. Virtually every culture on Earth has something similar but some are more interested in hiding them than others. There is no way to explain or defend them.
Also, the legally enforced concept of "underage" in Japan is significantly lower than in the USA. So the characters being depicted in a lot of anime are not underage and most of them are interacting with characters who are the same age anyway. (Don't you remember high school?)
There have certainly been those who try to classify anime as child pornography, the witch hunt/Red Scare of the 90's, and with its young, effervescent, big-eyed, coming-of-age heroes anime makes a good target because it's not indigenous to the USA and it represents alien values to boot. This phase will pass and the control fanatics will move on to something else eventually. Anime will still be there.

Hey Beyond TV Safety,
I think that NADIA was better than EVANGELION because the characters were all cooler. Why don't they make more NADIA and why can't everyone forget EVA already?
—Capt. Nemo

Marburg (named for the city in west-central Germany north of Frankfurt where the virus was first found in 1967) belongs to the filovirus (Latin filum, thread) family and was the first of that family discovered. The filoviruses are very similar to each other but very different from most viruses which are roughly spherical.
When Marburg or Ebola (both of which cause hemhorragic fever) has destroyed a victim there are often large deposits that look like nests of snakes or bowls of spaghetti. Marburg is also the only known virus to curl itself into a ring.
Marburg and Ebola are the only disease-causing human viruses for which the host and natural transmission cycle remain unknown.

Dear Mr. Frazier,
Why are there English words in some of the Anime songs and why are they often so weird?
—Lee

We long ago discovered that teaching the animation staff and writers only weird English would not only be much more interesting, but it would keep them from being able to easily leave us and go to work for a higher paying USA company. Thus, writers think that lyrics like "midnight submarine" and "pink vibration" and "Gorby, dump the ashtray!" are perfectly normal, everyday English. It's always a lot of fun to go through immigration and customs behind these people.

Dear Scott,
What is the Japanese anime industry's position on fan clubs in the USA? What are the industry's feelings about cons? How about fansubs? How about what the anime translation companies like AD Visions are doing to the shows?
—Gene J.

The anime industry is always happy that people are watching and enjoying anime! The various production companies are starting to take note of what is going on around the globe and are trying to support anime watchers in all countries. Unfortunately, the companies are neither wealthy nor large, so this is a slow process and they can't really deal with individual fan clubs yet. They do try and go to cons to meet as many fans as possible. If you get a chance to meet any representatives of the industry at cons or elsewhere then definitely tell them that you like anime and want to see more. The more information they get the more they will be aware of the market outside Japan and the more they'll try to help expand it.
The anime industry absolutely detests fansubbing as it is not only unequivocally illegal but a modification of an artistic work with no permission from the creators. (If there were only enough ninja and killer cyborgs to go around, things would change...)
The anime companies are really happy that their works are being sold in the USA and around the world and want a lot more people to see what anime has to offer!!! As for what the anime translation companies are doing with the shows, the Japanese companies see the work that is produced and they can input if they want. If they don't do anything then that is by conscious choice because the quality of what is being produced is acceptable. Obviously none of the translation companies are hiding things and not letting the companies in Japan see what they're doing because they wouldn't get another show ever again.