Quote - why waste 2 years trying to render "realistic human characters", if live human actors can do the same scenes in 2 weeks or 2 months?

I don't think this is the issue.  It's more of an issue of creating a universe where all of the characters fit.  That's the reason the creators of Shrek used as for not making Fiona and other human characters more photorealistic.  The other issue is that the technology is still rather new so making convincing photorealistic humans can be daunting.

 

 

On the topic of japanese anime, I have to agree with Onimusha.  While I understand and appreciate much of the symbolism and themes in anime, the relevance to the story often escapes me at times.  As a result, I find a lot of anime to be really incohesive, especially with story transitions and such.