The ABC Family Channel has announced a new anime series, Tokyo Pig, which will debut on Saturday, September 14 at 10 am (ET/PT).  Jointly produced by Miramax and SME Visual Works, Inc., Tokyo Pig marks Miramax's first foray into television.  The central character in Tokyo Pig is a nine-year-old boy who has a magical pet pig named Sunny -- whenever the two are together anything the boy imagines can happen, which makes for an abundance of humorous situations.  The success of Hamtaro on the Cartoon Network has obviously opened some doors for anime series aimed at younger viewers.

 

Not that the ABC Family Channel needs the example of the Cartoon Network to demonstrate the growing popularity of anime.  The BeyBlade anime series, based on the popular high-tech toy tops from Hasbro (see 'BeyBlade Anime To Debut on ABC Family') has quickly become the ABC Family Channel's highest rated program.  Its success has led the programmers at ABC Family to create a daily anime hour consisting of BeyBlade and Medabots, that will air seven days a week on the cable network starting in September.