[Rei-Lin]

It's not just anime that has different pacing really. The entire Japanese film making industry is the same way. Take a look at Godzilla 2000 for example. If you listen to the commentary you'll find a LOT of things they changed had to do with pacing. For example, in one scene the main characters are looking at an X-ray image of a Godzilla cell. While the camera is focused on the X-ray image, you can hear the characters talking about it at the same time. In the original Japanese version the characters put the X-ray up, the camera stared at it for a few seconds, then the camera panned back to show the characters and THEN they started to talk about it. This happened in several places throughout the film, so the Japanese don't use a lot of overlapping dialogue in their films, which of course will carry over to the anime as well.

And also keep in mind that anime in Japan now isn't like the anime from the 80's or 90's. Since anime has exploded across the world now moreso than it ever had back then, they tend to make simple, character based anime to cater to American audiences. They know that American kids love a billion characters in their shows because that leads to marketing of the 100+ character figures, dolls, puzzles, games, etc. It's hard to find anime like Appleseed or Gunbuster or even Record of Lodoss Wars that focus on a smaller group of characters with a purpose and a goal and aren't there just to stand around for 4 episodes while some other character powers up to defeat the next bad guy in line. That's why Miyazaki films are so amazing to me because at least his films tend to "feel" Japanese, as in, people outside Japan generally miss half of what the film is trying to say. Not always, but that's just one example off the top of my head.

I will say I am glad that I still have two manga ideas that could easily turn into massive anime series and still be really awesome without all the cliche crap that usually worms its way into American tv sets.