Your first hypothesis is completely valid, and it occurred to me that this decision could have come from the top - but it's also a red flag for me when one or t

Your first hypothesis is completely valid, and it occurred to me that this decision could have come from the top - but it's also a red flag for me when one or two individuals in a client's upper management or worse, investors, inject themselves into art decisions by overriding choices presented to them by trained and experienced professionals they've presumably hired to that end. Those companies tend to also override other suggestions presented by employees or contractors in other areas. Which implies a management style that isn't utilizing its hired talent to full effect. As far as appealing to technical people who overlap with enjoying Anime, that would be a very specific decision that might be appropriate for a video game company or something, but even then it would have to be justified by having some actual connection to Anime culture. Otherwise it's sort of just appropriating a style... in the hope that some percentage of crossover exists between users, investors, and this subculture being heavily referenced. My theory is that no study was done on whether or to what extent that crossover existed here before choosing it as a theme, but if I'm wrong I'll eat my critique!