how about Demon Slayer's Mugen Train movie being the highest grossing movie of 2020 worldwide?

That's fair and I didn't know that, but like 70% of that came from Japan as far as I can tell. Don't get me wrong though, 30% of 512 million is still huge, especially in COVID times.

Big companies like Sony and Disney have anime as part of their regular catalogue. It's not some niche little thing that only scrappy companies like Tokyopop will touch anymore.

but to discount anime as a whole being some niche form of media only known to those in the hobby is, IMO, misguided at best.

Oh for sure. I wasn't trying to say it's this niche little thing. It's definitely grown in popularity even in the last 10 years. It's just that for being mainstream, I see it barely mentioned. But maybe it's a mix of my own environment + having too narrow a view of what mainstream means.

I guess I thought of it as people needing to actively be anime fans specifically, rather than just occassionally watching some anime and having fun with it. I suppose it's similar to movies in that sense, where there's quite a difference between a cinephile and someone who likes to put on Netflix to unwind.