According to the C21 website, 4Kids Entertainment, the company behind the American versions of the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh anime, is completing a deal with Toei Animation to bring the Magical Doremi anime series to the U.S.  4Kids programs the Fox Box on Saturday mornings (see '4Kids Gets Fox Kid Block') and plans to add Magical Doremi in order to attract more female viewers.  The Magical Doremi series is now in its fourth season in Japan.  This story of an 8-year-old girl, who wants to be a witch, and who is apprenticed to the owner of a magic shop, is the essence of what the Japanese call 'kawai' or 'cute.'  With an abundance of flowers, ribbons, bows, and the color pink there is no doubt about the target audience -- very young girls.  While this flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that has kept many shows appealing to girls and featuring girls in leading roles off of American TV, this series has been a very successful part of the Fox Kids programming package in France, where it began its run in 2000, just one year after it appeared on Japanese TV.

It should be interesting to see how this series will do in the U.S., where the 'girls will watch boys' shows, but boys won't watch girls' shows' mentality is strongly ingrained in the minds of TV programmers.