East Vs. West?

You still run into this alot. And it's still as annoying now as it was then.
There are these people, usually freshly minted otakus who are new to the experience of anime and manga who spout crud about how it is so very vastly superior to Western animation and comic books.  I know because when I was in middle and high school was when I first got bit by the anime bug.  For frack's sake, my first email address is named after a model make of mobile suit... if that isn't obvious evidence then I don't know what else would be. 

And here's the thing... chances are, these people shitting on their own culture's western animation and comic books so much are woefully ignorant about the underground and cult classic western material.  They have the silly idea that all comics are about the archetypal stereotypical superhero or all cartoons still fall within what is referred to as "the animation ghetto" which is a notion that you have to sanitize and sterilize it all to be palatable for little children because some people in a stupid way have assumed all cartoons should be just for little kids (and therefore, necessarily need to be cheerful, or worse yet, for want of a better word "stupid").  So their reaction when you expose them to an adult cartoon or a comic about something serious/deep/dark is their head explodes a little bit, their eye twitches and they have a miniature bit of trauma.  After getting over that initial shock though, you realize that hey, it's possible to like both.
I'd suggest 50 cc s of some Ralph Bakshi followed by two Sentai Pills, kthnxbai.