This is really interesting to read. In the past, say 20 years ago or so, it used to be common to see this kind of stuff but towards women in manga, but it was in the guise of comedy. It was already a disappearing trend by then but it was still there and that is what I grew up with. Over time it disappeared but certain tropes of it stayed very much alive even to this day, and I do find it pretty weird that it keeps being used the most in shoujo manga of all things.
Anyway, the interesting bit: after all of this, probably in the last.. 6-7 years or so? There's been waves of counter-culture to this in manga. They were pretty mild at a start and then it got more and more intense, which was refreshing. But it never really reached a tipping point-- it was all still sort of mild. This manga feels like its at the brim of some sort of tipping point. It still has some ways to go before reaching that reverse-era of 35-20 years ago since this is still very much male-centric, but it'd be fun if we could see more of this