AY>There aren't equivalent followings of American and European animation and
AY>comics....  Certainly not in the rabid obssession that anime derives from
AY>its followers.  

I beg to differ. From my experience, American comics have a
much more rabid following than anime does. There's certainly
a lot more of them slavering over the violence and sex
inherent in those things than there are anime fans. Check
out the number of Disney animation fans against the number
of anime fans and you'll find something surprising.

The rabid obsession isn't just measure quantitatively; there
is also a qualitative aspect to it. American comic fans go to 
more absurd means for their passion, from what I've seen. A 
collector's item comicbook can cost thousands of dollars; 
I've not seen a manga to be the target of the same avarice.

AY>Why?  What is it about Japanese animation and manga that
AY>sets it apart?  

Despite what I said above, I must admit one thing: the fans
of Japanese animation and manga are different from American
and European animation fans. In America, perhaps one of these
indicators is the extent to which an anime fan will go through
to get that fated manga issue or anime episode. Imagine; these
are foreign materials which must be acquired from whatever
sources possible. An anime may not always have an American
distributor like Manga or Viz. There are anime fans that even
go to the extent of learning Japanese to appreciate non-dubbed
anime!