It seems like her favourite character died at the very beginning of the story? He died at the beginning test to get into the academy, so how would he get merch and become so popular? Why did it take her so long to get to the section where he died?
And speaking of merch, I see that these comics often say there's collaborative cafe events in them, are they really that common in asia? Like I'm trying to imagine some niche indie game having a collaboration with a cafe, and I'm just not seeing it happening, so I think these imaginary events aren't particularly believable outside of big hit games.
Don't even get me started on the merch for niche character within a niche game.