[mousepod]

While I agree that the openmindedness of the Japanese is helped by the fact that things like Manga and animen are absolutely mainstream (I'm going to avoid the term "cute", because I don't think that's how they see it) - I feel that Disney in the US perpetuates the "childish" and "cutesy" image itself, by its own narrow marketing strategies. Disney wasn't always this way, y'know. To quote Funkadelic: "If you don't like the effect, don't produce the cause."