The anime is Genshiken (2004), I picked it up on a whim. It's alright so far. Very "by weebs, for weebs". The manga is from 2002.
The 80s and 90s being a pass of the baton from veterans of the early days to more modern staff, which already grew up with anime, and the success of Evangelion and merchandising had some awful long-term consequences even if it was probably unavoidable under capitalism.
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See my edit lol
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Yeah, the romance novel world got real weird with it after the internet let people share their extremely specific fetishes and ebooks let people self-publish literally anything. Of course, we also get Chuck Tingle, so it's there's some good with the bad.
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ChatGPTingle, an AI that's only ever read Chuck Tingle and cranks out 1000s of pastiches per day
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Romancing the Coronavirus my beloved