Unlike American super heroes, who often seem to just go around defeating Evil, Japanese characters usually have other goals in life that play large themes within their lives. With comics, the merging of art and words creates a unique medium. The art pulls in the mind, and the words make the reality. A picture may be worth a thousand words, while words may convey what art cannot, but the two types together are truly powerful. As for Anime, animation can do inexpensively what special effects crews can't even touch.
Art is a limited form of virtual reality.
Art, however, requires plot to make a story come to life. As I've said, even children's Japanese comics and animation deal with things like death. They also show that one's enemies aren't Just Evil. In series like Gundam, you can see that the enemies have hopes and dreams of their own, and do, in fact, have reasons for what they do. They aren't just crazy, or just plain evil.