True, a comparison of superheroes to Westerns is more apt in terms of film. Anime itself was never mainstream among normies, but superheroes weren't mainstream before the MCU at the most recent and the 2000 X-Men movie at the earliest. Your average normie may have heard of Batman, Superman, or Spider-Man before the superhero fad, but they'd likely dismiss it as geek shit like they do with most non-mainstream things.
(Although the recent Joker movie is a capeshit film in name only, but I digress)
Furries were sank because they were always about sexual depravity, and I think they wouldn't be as hated if they just went and presented themselves as a fetish community rather than a fandom, but that's neither here nor there.
But when it comes to fandom and other "nerd" stuff, I think capeshit is going to trade places with anime in the 2020's. The superhero trend is a fad and is being propped up mainly by Warner Brothers and Disney, which is why it was able to cross over into normie territory more easily.
See, the superhero craze is propped up entirely by the films of the major studios and given how expensive a single MCU flick is, all it takes is one box office bomb to potentially sink the fad. When the fad dies, I think superhero stuff will be looked at with shame among geek and nerd types the way that anime is today, especially Marvel.
Anime used to be really popular in the fandom sense of the word back in the 90's and early 2000's, and it had sort of a cult classic allure to it despite not being a hit with the mainstream crowd. Then the anime fad ended and superheroes became the big fad, but it's all propped up by the movies and everything else is sinking.
If the MCU movies weren't high-grossing blockbusters, it would have died earlier. As it is, we're due for an MCU flop in the near future. Endgame was the payoff that everyone was waiting for and now they've run out of quality material while capeshit (Marvel in particular) is becoming increasingly associated with SJW's and whiny bugmen, as is "weeb shaming"
I think the superhero boom will likely be replaced by another anime boom or something else in the mid-2020's, maybe earlier if a Phase 4 MCU film bombs right out of the gate. Joker grossed a billion dollars, but again, Joker is capeshit in name only. It's Taxi Driver disguised as a superhero film and was only tied to DC comics as a way to secure funding.
I don't think that the anime boom will be the flashy billion-dollar mainstream stuff that the capeshit fad brought us, but I'm not talking about the mainstream. I'm not sure what will replace capeshit in the mainstream circles once the fad dies.
I never said anime will be full normie mainstream, I just think anime won't be so despised by the geek and nerd circles like it is now, and that superheroes will be looked down on once the fad dies.
