>>11819683
Don't overthink it, anon. You wouldn't have bought it simply because it didn't use a visual language compatible with your cultural/consumer conditioning. Each image is exactly as Gay or Not Gay as its counterpart for the region it was or was not made for.

Part of it was marketing concerns in that era; obviously the Anime boom would later prove that Western mainstream consumers could actually find Japanese aesthetics appealing. But at that time, some American execs were even doubtful of local illustration/comic-book art aesthetics and instead demanded toy packaging-style illustrations. For example, the "motion lines" you can find in some covers like picrel were a classic staple of toy graphics, intended to convey motion/animation features. The European releases were more open to use the original Japanese artwork, partially because it was a good enough ersatz Western Fantasy Illustration in this case, but also because the Neo-Orientalism Boom had started in Europe a couple years before it did in America and publishers were more open minded about it by that point.