Why is anime so popular in the U.S.?

Japanese anime is very much a Japanese thing. It is full of Japanese cultural references, and thus created solely for Japanese audiences. Heck, when I went to Osaka one summer, I felt like I was thrown into an anime.

Gantz

Street in Osaka

Osaka

In many animes, the setting is in Japan, explaining the familiarity I felt in Osaka. In animes, there are many cultural references made (from Japanese history, traditions, geography), and certain jokes that use puns. These references and jokes cannot be translated into English, yet American anime fans try to understand these references and jokes. People even spend free time scanning manga into their computers, translating and editing the scanlations, and then posting them up on a website or making them available for download. There are even websites dedicated to hosting manga, such as Manga Reader, so that fans can read them. Why do American fans put in all this effort in order to obtain something that is not from their culture? There aren't groups and websites dedicated to the translation of Japanese books (though there are groups that spend time translating Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese TV shows). What gives anime/manga an irresistibly not found in American cartoons?

I grew up with the increasing popularity of anime. My first introduction to anime was in 3rd grade (in 1998) when Sailor Moon first aired on Cartoon Network. My friends and I loved it, and we would pretend we were the sailor scouts. We wanted to know everything about the Sailor Moon world, but the movies extending the Sailor Moon storyline were not available; therefore, we read the synopses of all the movies on the Internet. After the popularity of Sailor Moon, Cartoon Network began to air other anime, such as Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing, in their afternoon programming block called Toonami.

However, the number of anime released were still limited, so my friends and I read the synopses of different anime online.

Nowadays, with the extensive use of the Internet, obtaining anime and manga is much easier. Websites are dedicated to stream anime with English subtitles, usually for free (Crunchyroll). Different groups translate and post manga online, even before the American publishing companies translate and print the manga for American bookstores. These groups that post translated manga online have posted hundreds of titles on different websites, such as Mangareader.

I am constantly surprised with the number of newly translated anime/manga titles that are coming out all the time. For the massive amount of translated anime and manga available online, as well as in bookstores and the occasional anime merchandise store, there must be a demand in the U.S.

Therefore, this leads back to the original question of why Japanese anime/manga, a media form made specifically for Japanese audiences, full of Japanese cultural references, is so popular in the U.S.