I guess I thought of it as people needing to actively be anime fans specifically, rather than just occassionally watching some anime and having fun with it. I suppose it’s similar to movies in that sense, where there’s quite a difference between a cinephile and someone who likes to put on Netflix to unwind.

Yeah, I think that’s a good way to phrase it. There is also a generational element, as I mentioned with the Gen Z statistic (probably more pronounced with anime because it is animation and a lot of the anglosphere still treats animation as “for kids”).

Also I want to apologize for probably coming across too brusquely before. I jumped to respond and then rushed to actually complete the response before I had to go to work. My bad.

I especially don’t know where anime (or, I guess more specfically, J-Pop) stacks up on the music/radio stage. AFAIK foreign-language songs just don’t crack the American music scene, but I’m no audiophile and I haven’t listened to the radio for close to two decades so

╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭