MTV has announced a new animated series, entitled Kappa Mikey, which will take viewers behind the scenes of a fictitious anime series, LilyMu.  An unemployed New York actor named Mikey Simon gets a chance to join the cast of the fading anime series; and despite the fact that he's a fish out of water in the world of Japanese anime production, the Japanese public takes a perverse liking to his voicework and LilyMu becomes a hit again.

Created by Larry Schwarz and produced by the Animation Collective, Kappa Mikey is the latest (and most ambitious in its scope) American attempt to create a homegrown form of anime.  Few things testify to the growing strength and importance of anime more powerfully than the increasingly numerous attempts to create American 'anime' series such as the giant robot series, Megas XLR, which is currently running on the Cartoon Network.