Here, “eccentric” is an understatement.
In respone to newgeek’s post, I think that what needs to be looked at is what could be considered to be Eccentricity and what could be considered to be Comedy.The medium of comedy is not limited to a single culture. However, the perception of what IS comedy changes depending on the location. As such, comedic anime could be said to symbolize the nature of comedy within Japan. If you look to the West, there aren’t nearly as many comedic animated television shows as there are in anime. I live in the UK so I could be wrong, but all I’ve seen of something animated in a comedic vein is Family Guy, Futurama, The Simpsons, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, King of the Hill and, in a more extreme case, Drawn Together. Pretty much all of these shows rely on parodies and cultural references to be funny whereas in anime that isn’t so (well most of the time; Excel Saga does use numeroues references itself).
However, eccentricity isn’t limited to anime. The very nature of the characters we see in Western shows are normally based on some sort of archetype within the society, only taken out of context and replaced in a less accepting culture or pushed to the extreme. And in other times they are pretty much as zany as other anime characters, such as Zoidberg in Futurama, rather than being based on anything; it’s just the creators or writers of the show attampting to entertain the audience. I think it’s less that we look for zany characters within a show and more a testament to the nature of the similarities in the medium of animation that leads to the existence of eccentricity.
The nature of anime doesn’t affect my view on Western animation because each type of animation has it’s own quirks/eccentricities; as such, I also don’t look for the Anime Eccentric within anime as I simply wish to be entertained.
Grand Punk Railroad 
I LOVE COMEDY~
And I think anything is funny as long as you’re on a high, lols
In google I translated “eccentric” into Japanese and got 偏心. But then when I searched that in google I think the first site was in Chinese (well that explains the kanji…I guess…) Anyway, with online translators being too “precise” I guess that has no relevance whatsoever.
What I was trying to get at was that language and conceptual barriers prohibit us from understanding truly a Japanese sense of “eccentricity” – perhaps they don’t have one, or it isn’t the same as a Western one. Maybe their “comedy” and “eccentricity” is really the same thing, and so us separating the two concepts only makes this worse in trying to understand it.
That’s probably not the case, though, although you were touching upon that in the first paragraph.
I think that for Western cartoons, the icons are and have become symbols in themselves. Peter Griffin doesn’t need to reference other cultural symbols all the time because his actions constitute a creation of iconic development. So instead of thinking “oh, he did what Michael Jackson did,” it’s “oh, it’s what Peter always does” or something.
@blissmo
I don’t think it really matters, as long as it’s funny enough (like School Rumble)
@lelangir
There are always going to be a different understandings of certain, say, themes like “eccentricity” and “comedy”; it’s most likely been defined by where you have grown up and what you have learned to be examples of those meanings. That’s why I see those things as seperate in my mind.
Concerning your third paragraph, I think that would mean a developement in the nature of “eccentricity” in Western Society, as these icons become references for eccentricity in and of themselves.