/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Let's say it was a gradual but steady shift of target demographics.
As far as the currently lineup goes, Morning Musume and Hello!Project stands less than a snowball's chance in hell to replicate its past feats, like the yet unmatched height of 1,646,630 copies sold for Love Machine. With an average of about 40,000 copies sold a single, which aren't even much to shout about to begin with, you can almost say that they're just within a hair's breadth of their definitive undoing.
And as for the pedo-pandering part, just take a look at how the average age of MM as well as every other secondary group has decreased with the years and how, incidentally, the number of photobooks and other follow-on products experienced an inverted trend. You know they ARE aware only otakus are following them and they're hell bent of squeezing them for all they're worth.