Unlike sites like Reddit where an overarching hivemind will dominate the entire site to the point where your cooking, gardening and Reality TV subs will all contain American politics for some ungodly reason, 4chan still seems to be siloed in to specifically focused communities.
Ignore /b/, /pol/, r9k and all the weeb stuff and you can find some properly good communities which remind me of the old internet. /sci/, /mu/, /biz/ and /fit/ can all have their moments from time to time.
The original intent for all the boards was for anime fans to talk about something within their group (ie with other anime fans) that wasn't /a/nime itself. There's a screencap from an old /g/ thread on the same topic (someone complaining about all the weebs shitting up their board; meanwhile the board is literally named that because of "gijitsu"). But over time many of the board cultures shifted to the extent that they have / want very little association with anime.
The two aren't contradictory, it's more that due to historic traditions as an offshoot of 2chan and cross-board culture, "otaku" culture still exerts a strong influence on most of the boards.
