It's funny that Naruto is only series I know of that actually did that.
The rise of the internet and social media is a huge reason why. Just another con to add to it all. Japanese studios, authors, developers, directors, etc have access to international opinion at the click of a button now. Especially with things like DeepL and Google Translate helping bridge the language barrier. It's a good and bad thing.
Sadly, a lot of bad has come from it. A lot of loud western fans are typically sex obsessed in some way and will cling to the sexy character or fanservice character and praise them to high heaven with false praise that doesn't make sense or that the character doesn't deserve all because they get their rocks off to said character the most. Usually while burying the more important/well written character(s).
Naruto is a grand example of that and how it bit the series in the butt. If I understand humanity as well as I do, this won't be the last time something like this happens. It makes me apprehensive to ship things and trust in authors/directors/writers/etc.
I'm a straight woman on the internet who cares more about story than sex and I like well written and well developed mutual, healthy romances. How 'sexy' or 'cute' the character is has absolutely zero bearing on me. Like, it's in the negatives.
I already have to put up with a sex obsessed anime world where games and the like are flooded with waifus. I'm not asking for more men, just actually well written and designed characters.
On twitter I constantly see what men prefer to ship vs females and it feels like the majority of men don't care about the ship as long as the girl is sexy and gorgeous. Obviously it's not exclusive and I hate to bring in gender to it all, but that's what it seriously feels like and things I'm noticing. It's just frustrating.
Guys kind of dominate the anime sphere so I just constantly worry about the coomers only getting catered to.