if we're being completely honest with ourselves, it was really presumptuous of japanese developers to keep making galge and fronting them with their attempts at pretty anime ladies after 1994 when darkstalkers came out and gave the world morrigan, and capcom wasn't even trying to make a dating sim or anything (yet)
i'm saying we'd have had 90% fewer dating sims than we ended up having during the gold rush if akiman had ever set his sights on them because we all know deep down that if any artist is capable of making the "unattainable neesan final boss to end all neesans" that some games tried to eventually achieve, it would've absolutely been him and every artist not him should be thankful that he gave them a fighting chance to survive in the genre simply by not participating in it
gonna jump in and say that Capcom was in a position to take the otome game crown, at least, but didn't go through with it: "Tokimeki Requiem", a "by women, for women" romance game with a wide palette of different love interests that was being made/proposed somewhat unofficially by legendary Capcom illustrator Kinu Nishimura, and I do think she could've been the one to bridge the gap between more naturalistic designs and the larger-than-life, almost mascot-y design style codified by Akiman.
There have been various murmurings about why it never came to fruition, but Akiman recently stated that he had a very specific reason for nipping it in the bud: Nishimura had previously run point on illustrations/character design for Cyberbots, a game with a modest sales ceiling for which she drew way, way more art than was necessary or practical, and Akiman sensed that this project was already on that same path, so he was very firm about stopping it in its tracks.
Nishimura did eventually revisit this concept via Kenritsu Ragnarok Koukou, a doujin manga she produced shortly after going freelance.