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Although I agree with everything you said, I was talking to my friend who's also a harowota and a Akanechin oshi and she said something which I might agree. Akanechin is considered fat by japanese standarts, so this may answer why she's not that popular. She's kind of Zukki 2.
Exposure, distribution, early focus on her other gen-mates, the self-fulfilling prophecy of the agency pushing popular girls to the detriment of those who aren't already getting a lot of fan support, and she also admittedly took quite a while to show a significant level of improvement in her skills. Something also worth mentioning though is that H!P has a lot of active members in various groups that also retain their own popularity among fans who either primarily support just one member or otherwise have to split their money between the goods of multiple members in multiple groups. Even for Akane being in MM, that doesn't guarantee that she'd have enough exposure compared to some of the popular members of various groups like Karin in J=J or others that may get regular photobooks and magazine shoots. A saving grace to keep in mind though is that even as someone that doesn't get a lot of exposure in her own group, she still manages to sell reasonably well for a group with so many members.
A lot of members end up remaining back-girls for large portions of their time in these groups until enough of their seniors leave that they're one of the last remaining anchors to a previous era for those older fans. Akane isn't particularly disliked even if she isn't everyone's favorite, so she stands to benefit quite a bit as more members graduate and she ends up collecting a lot of the fans of previous members. With new younger members coming in, she's shedding the mantle that she's held onto since being announced in 2014 as the baby of the group, so now she'll have to be taken more seriously as a senpai. She's also been really coming into her looks lately though, and that often precedes a popularity boost on its own. A lot of factors are lining up now that she could be given a lot of opportunities for exposure soon.
