The "everybody is cute" art style that modern manga and anime converged on is very ugly. It tracks with the degeneration of the audience; there used to be content made for all sorts of audiences but now it's all made for weirdo manchildren. This has been a trend starting with Japan's economic stagnation and getting worse every year. Investing time and money in an anime or manga production is risky and the safest bet is to pander to the most reliable audience (the manchildren.)