Well, are you familiar with the setting of the show? I guess for people who aren't in Japan, it would feel more like just another coastal Japanese city, with girls and mechs. What annoyed some of the viewers is that the show itself was not only blatant in making the location it is set in nice looking and attractive, but there were also various tie-ins to attempt to use the show as a vehicle to drive more internal tourism to the place.
In the anime industry in particular, it is not unusual for shows to feature actual locations within Japan as settings. But they're usually not particularly overt, and simply represent the result of the art direction team scouting for locations and liking what they find. As a result, when a well produced show gains popularity, the setting it is modeled after also sees increased traffic as fans visit the location on a "pilgrimage" of sorts. This can either be a source of increased income for the region, or a hassle in the case of actual schools who don't want the extra attention.
In the case of this show though, people seemed displeased with how artificial the push was, especially with the actual city in question being a sort of sponsor for the show, trying to help promote it. This was perceived as over-commercialism, which is kinda ironic for an anime, and along with the other sponsor tie-ins for the show and the general pandering in the actual content, it seems lots of people just had no desire to support something which they viewed as nothing more than a marketing vehicle for the stakeholders involved. Being an original IP also means that there was no pre-established fan base they could rely on either.
)
