Sakana is the company mascot. His design is simple and memorable. Good for marketing.

Arguably Sakana merch is easier to explain away if you'd plan to have colleagues over, or go out with a shirt, he's just a silly fish in a suit and the knowers do get the inside joke.
Then, the CEO of the most profitable Canadian coffee company using a fish as an avatar is just hilarious on its own.

Sakana is the most marketable CEO cuz he’s simply a fish

Sakana honestly just has such a zanny personality himself. His model is literally a fishman. He somehow balances being just as detached from reality as his talents while simultaneously being surprisingly chill. He annoys everyone around him but still manages to command respect.

In my opinion, people are just starving for the concept of a rich/successful guy not being completely garbo.
So when Sakana or Yagoo shows up, both of who are just chill guys who are married and like to help others with their business, it is so rarely wholesome that the internet latches onto it.

Old jealous lady seething that Sakana is a better idol than her 😭

It's definitely a meme but in the case of Sakana unlike Yagoo or other CEO's since he has an actual "avatar" outside of just being a dude so he's a meme that sells lol also helps that he interacts with the talents often and there's many stores about him. Sometimes he's chilling in chat sending supas roasting them, doing interviews and even playing games with them sometimes so you get to see a lot more of his personality and he's just a funny dude that also happens to be their boss.

It´s easier to wear a silly fish shirt etc in public, than an anime waifu one.

as someone who made an art of clio wearing a sakana hoodie.. it is what it is 😂

I find Sakana's design very pleasing. He's just a silly fish man. I'd buy a plush

I think the thing with fishman is that he's the common denominator. It doesn't matter which Phase girl is your oshi, the fish is her boss. So you buy Clio merch and Sakana merch, the next guy buys Uruka merch and Sakana merch, the next guy buys Hime merch and Sakana merch... and suddenly Sakana merch is sold out.

Sad to hear the closest we'll ever get to a Phase Male gen is Papakin though. He's gonna have to hard carry.

A straight laced anthropomorphic fish boss being terrorized by anime girls is a genuinely fun and novel character concept.

Sakana the character and Sakana the person are two different entities.

I think that has actually been a big part of phases success. The coffee, asylum, fish boss, and other stuff have added up to make the company a character in its own right.

Bc a fish in a suit is less noticeable than an anime girl.

I said it before, I'll say it again, every time one of the girls bring up a story about Sakana, I can't help but think of Producer from Idolmaster

Imperial cult of fishman

I always assumed it was because Sakana didn't have any official merch. We'll buy our oshi's birthday merch or event merch, but there's not a lot of ways to get something Fishman related. So we have to go third party to fill that void.

Sakana is well liked because he’s playing the straightman character for the whole company of comedic relief characters.  Also, CEOs are inherently interesting people by nature of entrepreneurship and its risks.  They’re both the face of a company and interesting, storied people because of the journey of building said company.

Not Clio being jealous 😂😂😂

A part of it is that good bosses tend to be a rarity irl so when one is actually affable people like that, also prob less embarrassing to wear a meme vtuber boss shirt then an anime girl shirt

As the saying goes it takes a real man to become best girl.