In its ongoing plans to expand beyond the usual avenues for marketing its products, FUNimation has now joined the push to introduce anime through new, non-traditional media. As well as having its own television stream that can be licensed to networks in Canada and the United States, and its other standard marketing methods like DVD sales, online stores, and online video clips, it will provide programs through an on-demand service available to AT&T subscribers with video-capable cell phones.

Red Planet Media, a company developing social networking through the use of mobile phones, has launched the FUNimation Channel service and eventually plans to have entire seasons of several series available, as the company increases its reach and the number of networks for which it provides content. According to Red Planet president Dean Fesonke, this is just the beginning of the plans to flood cell networks with video programming, along with a massive and unprecedented advertising campaign.

The advertising will be provided by OlympuSAT, a digital network distributor. Kim Fragione, Vice President of Acquisition and Development at OlympuSAT, believes this new Red Planet Media cell phone service is ideal because the demographic that quickly adopts new mobile phone technology (15 to 30 year olds) is generally the same group of people who love anime. It would appear to be a marriage made in heaven, provided this demographic also has deep pockets.

Those AT&T subscribers with video-ready phones can now point their phone browser to http://jumpinmobile.com/funimation, or text "go funimation" to the number "22646." With that, they'll be able to view episodes of MoonPhase and Galaxy Railways on a pay-per-clip basis, with more series to look forward to in the future.

This is a fascinating time to be an anime fan, and watch all the different distributors experimenting with the new media and new technologies. One wonders if we can expect 3-D anime holograms sometime in the near future.