Anime is the US is about a $2.5B industry, whereas just movies and just box office revenue in the US is about a three times that at around $7.5B. Anime is doing great here and growing fast, but I think you are in a bit of a bubble as far as anime. It tends to be a "bubbly" subculture, so not surprising.
Anime is going to explode. Just did some google fu and apparently 50% of millenials and gen z watch anime weekly. Boomers probably watch almost zero anime so once the demographics shift in 30-40 years, you might expect half of all americans to watch anime weekly by these trends. And this is just considering present rates not the fact that these rates have been increasing over time.
Yeah, the forecast I saw researching my comment is it is going to get to about $8b by 2033 - which will make it about as big as the movie box office sales industry.
