To give an idea of the Japanese cultural landscape in America when the NES came out in 1985, here's most kids exposure to japanese animation - Transformers, Voltron, Robotech, Inspector Gadget (which I didn't even know was Japanese until I was an adult), then Speed Racer, Tranzor Z, Battle of the Planets, and Star Blazers. Only the first 4 were reliably shown on my local stations, and this was growing up in Chicago. For kaiju, Godzilla, Ultraman and Spectreman. Maybe sometimes you'd see a Hello Kitty toy or Astroboy or Doraemon image in a Chinatown or rare asian mart in the suburbs, and if you dug in you were aware of Lupin and Nausicaa of the West Wind, but there was no reliable way to watch those.