Assets Folder Not Getting Added To Android Studio Project and APK

Finally got it. Appears to be a bug in Android Studio, but to make it work, in the Project pane, go to Android view and (this next part is critical) right click on the res folder and go to New->Folder->Assets folder. You might want to click change folder location to be sure it's going into the main folder (mine was) just to be on the safe side.

You must right click on the res folder. That was my issue. If you right click on the module or anywhere else, even though the folder will get created in the proper spot, Android Studio and gradle won't treat it as a resource directory and just ignores it.

Be sure to create folder in app/src/main/ and call it assets.