Or the people who say that are obsessed with subtlety and want everything to conform to the Western standards for art due to cultural hegemony brainworms? Sometimes I feel very guilty for engaging with this sort of media instead of something more "serious"
This. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who say this are the sort who if they even give anime the time of day, watch the English dub because they refuse to watch it in the original dub and read subtitles (not that I wouldn't watch English dubs; I still refuse to watch DBZ in Japanese for example because Goku's voice is screechy AND YES I KNOW GOKU IS VOICED BY AN OLD WOMAN STOP TELLING ME).
Even among well meaning libs, I think they're just really sheltered from the rest of the world and have no idea how different other cultures can be. The lib I know believes the only reason non-Westerners prefer their own media is because they're not exposed to American media (which he considers peak cinema).