Oh good, that's reassuring. I've wanted to start learning the language for a while, but beyond the difficulty in finding places where I could get lessons I was worried it would be dominated by idiot shits who have no lives past their body pillows. There are a reasonable number of Japanese overseas students at my university (some sort of language program with a uni over there I think) and they seemed quite relieved to learn that I didn't particularly watch anime/read manga etc. (although at an event to promote mixing between them and us natives I guess they were justifiably wary), although I will admit to having been drawn more into it in the last year. (Science degree. Kind of hard to avoid it and still socialise.)
I don't think there is any real stigma with watching this kind of stuff anywhere in the world as long as you avoid scary obsessive levels; it seems pretty universal to watch a little 'kids stuff' and similar to de-stress, or as a kind of cathartic release from more adult pressures.