A Tangential Answer

Not that long after pondering "out loud" whether there are more anime and manga fans on this side of the Pacific than I'd supposed, the Answerman column on Anime News Network did happen to address a question like the somewhat more specific one I've wondered about, "how many people in Japan watch anime on TV without buying the discs afterwards?" Any reminder there are more fans of anime and manga in Japan than the few thousand implied by the usual sales figures (and that our own tastes don't necessarily "outweigh" theirs) seems welcome, even if the "they have to be higher than that" numbers I once thought had to be out there remain elusive.