Anime as reason for dismissal from jury duty?

Caught this on the news today, where a potential juror was dismissed because he "said his views on the death penalty were shaped almost entirely by a Japanese anime cartoon called "Death Note.'" While I have no way to decide if he used this to intentionally get himself excused from jury duty, or if he's genuinely serious. As it is students are still being suspended, expelled and arrested for owning or making a "Death Note" since the series' release. I can't help look at this as just another opportunity to make anime fans appear to be immature, unhinged freaks. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/clairvoyant-cartoon-buff-nixed-theater-shooting-jury-29492226

*Tch* Obviously one point, he had no respect for anime calling it a "cartoon", which pisses me off! It also pisses me off that he uses anime as an excuse to get off jury, I mean, I can understand if work is on the same time as the jury, but to use it just for gaining time to waste?! How absurd!! Yeah, a lot of people do ruin the reputation of anime fans, although I rarely see such news, but still, it doesn't make it right to misuse someone else's ideals for your own idiotic gain, make something on your own! *Sigh* But, as long there ARE arrogant people out there, it won't stop, all we can do is step up with equal positive to build up a good reputation, and hopefully, negate bad entirely, showing that us anime lovers, otakus, or whatever you wanna call yourself, are good, honest and just simply love anime, manga, games or whatever fits our fancy, even though we can be quite random at times, but that's what makes us unique and different from one another.

On another note: IF he even saw the end of Death Note, he would know that he would die a lot sooner than expected, if his views are indeed that of Light Yagami XD

Dude was just grasping at straws for bust out of jury duty, hah. @Ichirai_Shonin I don't think calling anime cartoons is a sign of disrespect, he was just describing it to people not into anime so they'd understand easier. What's wrong with cartoons anyway?

If a person views on the death were shaped by Death Note, then yeah they really has no business being on a jury. I wouldn't say that alone says anything about anime fans, every form of media has it's own share of nutjobs.

Eh, people say all kinds of stuff to get out of jury duty. Thank god I can use the student excuse :p I don't really mind the cartoon bit either. I mean, the definition of cartoon is a motion picture using animation techniques to photograph a sequence of drawings rather than real people or objects. I think both western and eastern animations fall under that

@rance https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sonwhy-are-you-watching-cartoons-No-mom-its-anime-_/687024224670147?sk=info&tab=page_info That's why, I have no prob with cartoons, just don't mix them with anime.

@Ichirai What if that cartoon is Totally Spies (that has been a major influence of anime) that is Canadian-French or Johnny test, not American but a Canadian cartoon? Is that the same thing? And why is it in Japan, they say Spongebob is anime?

anime = cartoon just in case we forgot what the word "anime" means and all