As if one joke is going to undo hundreds of cancelled products, declining quality of search results, dictating web standards by fiat, capricious monetization and account suspension decisions…
i believe this may be possible due to the different culture in japan. if you watch japanese tv you will see a lot of ridiculous (to us) game shows and other very entertaining productions.
and while japan does have a culture of obedience, it only takes the top japanese executives to say that japanese culture is different and so they should be allowed to continue.
stopping those fun projects elsewhere in google is a bit harder to understand but i guess that while the other regions have less of an obedience culture, i think at least the west has more of a "work is not a joke" culture, and so those that don't like these jokes are probably just a majority or even a strong enough minority with support by higher ups at various levels of the hierarchy that pushed out the fun parts with at least some support at any level.
Is the old Google returning?