/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9930231
The short answer is the lolicon movement.
At the start of the movement (1979) there was no media made for lolicons so they mostly watched anime and read manga starring and made for little girls. Stuff like Himitsu no Akko-chan.
As the movement gained steam they started having media made specifically for them e.g. Lolita Syndrome. But lolicons never really stopped watching girls shows.
Japan has always had some "unique" views about things like age of consent laws so the movement faced less resistance than it would in other places.
Once the barriers were broken down it became profitable to market media to BOTH girls and lolicons. So you end up with shows like Cardcaptor Sakura that are specifically marketed at both demographics.
Girly media in Japan thus has twice the customer base and is comparatively successful as a result.
For a while it looked like something similar might happen in the west with the rise of the brony movement, but that seems to have cooled off.