It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an otaku in possession of a good anime collection must be in want of a waifu.
For once a person has reached the sublimity of possessing three harddrives full of Japanese cartoons, a bookshelf of dog-eared manga, and a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese via Rosetta Stone, the grotesque frailties of human partners can no longer inspire anything but disgust.
Anime is perfection. Perfection is anime. Therefore the perfect partner must be made of anime.
We love our waifus. We love no one else. We don't know any girls. We don't know any boys. We don't know any charming diminutive terms for intersex people we could, conceivably, love. We live in houses made of full-length body pillows. We have no one else.
Back in the early 1990s, anime was rarer in America than gold. Akira had made a certain cultural splash and Hiyao Miyazaki had a deal with Disney, but there was almost no anime on television. No internet distribution. No DVDs for sale in Walmart. No issues of Otaku USA at the Barnes and Noble. Even French Art Films had more cultural presence, more popularity, more ease of access than anime.