I used to live a short walk from a Pokemon center and I never went to it.
I don't know if it's popular. I mean, sure, if you go to Akihabara you'll get an overdose of anime and gaming stuff, but the mainstream isn't that keen on either as far as I could tell. Anime typically doesn't play on normal television channels (unless it's pretty famous and aimed at kids like with Doraemon or something) unless it's late at night, like past midnight. No one that I talked with when I was there gave me any indication that they were fans of either, though manga is pretty dang popular among everyone since there is so much variety. Of course you can go into any video rental place and see a bunch of anime there so who knows.