Actually for me it's more like the relation of visual elements to the genre.
It's not like I don't like non anime comic style, but looking at the realistic proportion and facial expression to me gives off a more mature and 'masculine' vibes to me, like it was aimed for male audience most of the time. Also that if a comic is drawn in the marvel/dc style I will assume that comic as something serious, mature, intense/action packed and realistic. -- why? because of the design and visual elements.
Like most people in this thread mentioned, realistic characters are really close to realistic people so it maybe harder to relate to them or imagine them in that character's place because they assume the character is based on someone's existence. Cartoony style on the other hand tend to give off a vibe that plays at reality, and more imaginative I guess? like in terms of visual elements, they tend to give off something fun, silly, cute and childish vibes so a serious story with them tend to be more of either a plot twist at the end or serious/mature elements aren't meant to be taken seriously(like what you will feel if you rewatched tom and jerry from your childhood and then as an adult)
As a creator, and in terms of an art style, I chose it because anime/manga style is actually very flexible to work with ( that's the appeal for me) and has a lot of different range to match a certain genre, and may be tailored according to the target audiences too. For example: I noticed shonen anime tend to have bright colour palette and lively eyes, the protagonist are more expressive in terms of facial expression which shows that the MC is young, seinen have muted and dark colour palette and serious eyes, and the expressions although expressive, more realistic in a sense to match the environment and theme I tend to notice tend to have strong shadows and linework too tones too. Shoujo have a lot of cute and innocent elements their tones have a lot of sparkles in terms of screen tones which make it give off a more girly vibes, josei have more of an elegant and mature elements, the use of tones although minimal tend to be more on emotional -- which means that through looking at the elements you can have a rough idea on what will the story is about.
And There's also the factor of aesthetic and design elements to consider too, like if you have been reading different materials for very long, you can actually tell the difference in terms of art and design style between a western style comic ( which also has a variety of art style btw), a manga, a manhwa, and a manhua (yes these three aren't the same and their design and visual elements are actually different in terms or general art style) and in the end, cultural differences plays a huge part in terms of storytelling,
In terms of proportions. although not as realistic, the proportions actually have a certain count to match the world. like for example facial proportion to body proportion actually, if you will notice, they have a certain 'count' to match the head to the body. The facial features also have counts which still matches the standard facial proportion in realistic drawing as well but that is for another discussion --- each art style has their own visual aspects and each has their own 'appeal' so i guess this isn't really more on which art style is better, it's more of a matter of one's preference after all.