AllMovie

The weekly, half-hour Kappa Mikey was a refreshing flash-animated spoof of the Japanese anime industry, with a dash of the theatrical feature Lost in Translation tossed in. The protagonist was Cleveland-born youngster Mikey Simon, who as the result of winning a contest became a pop-culture sensation in Japan. Signed to co-star in the Tokyo-based anime series "LilyMu" -- a wide-ranging lampoon of such popular offerings as Pokémon, DragonBall, and Sailor Moon -- Mikey quickly learned that there was a wide gap between his co-stars' screen characters and their real personalities. The show's sweet, long-stemmed leading lady, Lily, turned out to be a shrill, foul-mouthed diva; the resident "bad girl" Mitsuki was actually the soul of courtesy and graciousness; shaggy-haired villain Gonard was in real life a lovable klutz; and furry animal mascot Guano (the "Pikachu" of the bunch) was in actuality a workaholic worrywart and the real brains behind the series. Other characters included "LilyMu"'s tyrannical producer, Ozu (named, no doubt, for the legendary Japanese filmmaker), and his obsequious, Smithers-like toady "YesMan." Though aimed at children, Kappa Mikey contained enough adult satire to be favorably reviewed by the mainstream press, which reacted as though this was the first-ever American series to make fun of the anime genre (it certainly wasn't, as witness Totally Spies! and Xiaolin Showdown). Debuting on cable's Nicktoons channel on January 1, 2006, the series moved to sister network Nickelodeon on August 20 of that year.