it has been a cash cow for a long time.  it's the same with everybody who has eva girls as waifus when they were blatantly deconstructions and critiques of waifu tropes. and the show being loved by no-life otakus despite the message of needing to grow up and out of that kind of thing.  sometimes a piece of deconstruction media is just too good at parodying its source material and gets adopted by the very people it was criticizing.
Canada