When did Watching Anime Become a Trend ?

Anime trend in Japan definitely more earlier, for world wide, it's around 80s to 90s when Betamax and VHS cassettes so popular at the time, then around 90s up, Anime broadcasting on National TV make it Anime more popular around the world. 

Now watching Anime still popular mostly on Internet after National TV more rarely broadcasting Anime. 

Shortly to say world wide trending watching Anime is around 80s to 90s, when Betamax and VHS popular it, then followed by National TV and Internet.

All my review are based on my real experiences and research.

Is Japan Still The Leader of Anime Production ?

After many western countries abandoned 2D animation style long time ago, you can say this time Japan is still leader of anime productions, but gradually China, Korea and some countries from Asia(?) will following Japan as leader of 2D animation productions as well in the future.

Chinese Anime example:

Korean Anime example:

Why is Japanese so hard to translate ?

If you mean translation by using Google Translate then the reason are

1. Because Japan and English has different grammar construction. English is SVO and Japan is SOV.
2. Different interpretation of paragraphs context by Google Translate system. Google Translate Not so good for translation Japanese long words or long paragraphs but still dependable for a single word or very short/very simple paragraphs. Recent slang words and new idioms also take in place.
3. So at least you need some basic knowledge about Japanese language when using Google Translate.
4. This problem also happened to other languages have different grammars construction and different contexts interpretation system with English. These things make English translation from Japanese on Google Translate appears “error" in your eyes.

*Hinako Hasegawa from Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai