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There are certainly a number of factors... But bad marketing certainly doesn't help it... As well as the content... And the hiatus' over the years... Guyver is a very old series, almost 40 years old... And yes, for those of us who have read and followed it, we love it... But Anime trends have come and gone... And the current trends do not mesh with the Guyver's old style, and they haven't for a while now. Today's anime demographic is focused on different kinds of series... And Shonen Ace is full of these other series that are basically trash, but trash people like because of various reasons (I have been known to read some of them... ). The simple facts that Kadokawa has kept Guyver alive, and that Max Factory is still releasing new figures doesn't make ANY logical sense... But here we are... And we are so very lucky. When the pre-order for the new Figma went up, I posted it in a Facebook group that is about 70's, 80's and 90's anime. Lots of positive feedback and over 1000 likes... but only about 50 or so people said they were pre-ordering it. People remember Guyver, yes. But most of them do not even know if they still like it... Or even like it enough to read almost 32 volumes of free manga to try and catch up. Hell, most don't even know all 3 animated versions can be found on just Youtube alone...

Well, I believe the term "Cult following" means that the numbers are low to be mainstream. In addition, interest doesn't necessarily equate to sales numbers. Interest alone is not enough, and corporate needs those interest to be translated to sales. You ask everyone you talk to that is interested in Guyver how much Guyver merchandise they have. Most likely, they won't have much. At the end of the day, it's still all about the money.

I think this could be a lot of things. A very solid indicator is the sell-out numbers. Obviously since Guyver is serialized under Shonen Ace, which is published monthly and has a much smaller circulation than other popular magazines like Shonen Jump (which is published weekly), the exposure is not as mainstream like those of Naruto, One Piece or the likes. The author might also not be too keen on accepting collaboration with other forms of medium. The reason why we see a lot of Guyver figures is probably because he is friends with Max Watanabe who is a legend amongst hobbyist. In addition, when they rebooted the anime into a 26 episode series, it did not do quite as well as expected. Lastly, us cult followers of Guyver are few in numbers, and despite our support for the franchise, does not generate enough profits to merit pressures from management to push for Guyver.

Character development. Sho is pretty reactive but doesn't show very much agency. We also don't know much about any hobbies or his history or relationships. We get a little bit, but not much. The enemies are pretty cut and dry too. Obviously it has something that we enjoy, and it has a fairly large cult following, but it's not mainstream because of that lack of character. edit: oh but of course it does improve later, but it takes a long time to get to the better character bits.