QuoteGhost in the Shell? Akira? Groundbreaking my friend, had everyone whipped up into a frenzy.
So you r saying you'd rather have nothing? Look at the success of the Clone Wars Cartoons, and they were shit house animation. Have you ever watched any Anime? some of the designs and artwork that these people come up with rival ANYTHING designed on a movie.
What I'm saying is that it's the CONTENT-- plot, character development, story, cinematography, that make them great. Anime itself is really just the country of origin and the artistic drawing style. If Neon Genesis Evangelion was animated in Germany with a German drawing style while retaining the same script and artistic direction, it would be no less (in)famous.
You prove the point yourself with the reference to Clone Wars. It wasn't Anime, but it was nonetheless spectacular because of Tartakovsky's heavy use of visual/audio techniques pioneered in Japan (which actually, didn't come from Anime either, but live action films). Like I said, some American projects would be right up there with some Anime if cartoons weren't so stereotyped as children's entertainment. That outlook has been changing in recent years, but it's still got a long way to go; especially since now some people start associating ALL Anime with porn. Ironic -_-
Trust me, if you live where I do, you can't help but see Anime in your everyday life. Of the thousands of titles out there, a few dozen are masterpieces, a few hundred are so-so, and hundreds more are crap. As I said before, all in all, the only advantage it has over Western animation is that the country of origin's culture does not restrict its content.
Another informational tidbit: The drawing style of one of the first Anime and Manga-- Astroboy, was inspired by Disney films :p
