@SuperDicq what do you mean by gatekeeping exactly?

Producers of content (whether anime, songs, or manga, etc.) want to reach as many people as possible. If the content is agreeable the audience becomes larger and larger. You cannot stop this, and if you tried, you'd be pushing back against the inherent needs of artists.

Once a certain level of popularity is reached it can create a situation where a certain culture of content is massive, yet doesn't align with globohomo tenets held as sacred in the West.

What do? The answer to this is what occurred over the last years with Western money and Western influence (mostly Jews) meddling in Japanese otaku culture.

Now in the case of McDonald's, is it McDonald's Japan that makes use of Otaku culture? Or McDonald's America? Because those two can have a different set of expectations of what's allowed and what's not, while operating in different cultural environments.

And what was your initial issue anyway? That corpos exploit grassroots/independent icons of Otaku culture for economic reasons? Well, ignoring and avoiding them in Japan would raise even more attention, as the country swims in anime culture. McDonald's going against the grain by ignoring Otaku culture would be a statement in itself.