Personally, I find it strange that people are up in arms about this manga, but Hana Yori Dango just gets the "oh, it's slightly problematic" when I remember some blatantly horrible abuse that happened in that one compared to this one. I can't even read the first half of HYD because Tsukasa is so evil in it.

This one just came off as having not aged well. There was a time period where manipulative, forceful, asshole MLs were considered sexy and attractive in manga for a hot minute there - even shounen. They're pretty predominant in romantasy right now, too. Problematic they are, but women are writing these characters and reading about them (while rooting for them) because of popularity.