Is it all right to, in some sense, trick people into reading your book or watching your show? Is it simply a case that if you told most people that Saiunkoku was like, political shoujo, that it would turn most people away?
Apropos that, a few bloggers I know admitted that they picked Divergence Eve for the grotesque breasts, and stayed for the sci-fi horror story. Hard to say if was a success though. An equal number were repulsed by the designs.
Anime often makes truth-based marketing impossible. If someone told you that Manabi Straight was an intense political thriller, would you believe them? If you believed them, would you watch it?
I think more and more that in our age it all is not very important for the fans (although it sucks to work for the companies). I remember how faithful seethed, seethed about ADV's supposedly poor marketing of Azumanga. And? I heard it was on its third reprint now in R1. Everyone knows about the show (not everyone loves it, but it's ok). The only loser here is ADV, but consumers are fine!
UPDATE: Omo tries to expand on the theme, then quickly falls into advocacy of Simoun and stays there for the remainder of the post.
It’s a show where you don’t need yuri goggles to see the yuri, but the yuri is actually a lie.
Just so we're clear, I'm not watching that. I've read those 500-word posts Omo mentions, from DiGiKerot and Lawson (if you count the rewatch).