Last Night I Saw a Samurai (He Was Black): Blackness and Animation [Not ready]

When I was 9 years old, the Pokemon phenomenon was just beginning to take over the planet. Dragonball Z was in relative infancy in the US, only just moving to a more prime slot from its place at 6 AM on local TV. I was in the third grade, and nary another soul in my class knew what in the world I was talking about. Nowadays, it is nigh-on impossible to think of anime without seeing tendrils of its influence all over black culture. From Lupe Fiasco’s verse on Kanye’s “Touch the Sky” (“Guess who’s on third, Lupe still like Lupin III”). To borrow a phrase that was popular a couple years ago, and therefore just entering my lexicon: you love to see it….