Netanim ns-3 interface is "hardwired" on the modules it can understand.
As a result, if you try to enable only a specific module *and* NetAnim, netanim will build unnecessarily a lot of other stuff.

In light of modularizing ns-3, it would be helpful to have netanim probe for the available modules and build itself accordingly.
Another approach would be to slim down netanim to its bare minimum and to include the netanim support in the modules, so to revert the dependency (much like the energy module does).

In the first case we'll have to do some magic in the code and in the wscript, but the changes will be limited to the netanim module.

In the second case the changes will be way more intrusive, but I feel like they will be more rewarding on the long run.
Moreover, adding new types support to NetAnim could be way easier in this way, leaving the burden to write the proper code to the specific modules developers.