unions

Meh, it's a Japanese thing, and therefore Japanophiles enjoy using that iconic imagry around the world. Japan only more recently started leaving behind their extremely heavy prudishness, similar to the 1960s hippy movement in most Western nations, and so this is their version of a "scantily-clad female", dressed up specifically with the intent of causing excitement. I doubt many people ever physically wore such an outfit, although the way it looks here makes it look more like something you'd see in a Vegas-style casino (irl image, mostly SFW but still out of sensitivity I am merely linking rather than auto-displaying it here), which is an exact analogy to the more anime & video-game style.

Also btw there is a male version - e.g. the chip & dale style. Example irl image. Notice how both the above for woman and this here uses fishnets, either as tights or in lieu of a shirt.

The point though is that they are "dressed to impress", and like not in a business suit kinda way, but rather to titillate and excite the audience, even if just shy of the NSFW line. Joss Whedon's (and so many others) "lens flares" in movies or is a non-person example - something that adds little to nothing in the way of substance, and in fact somewhat even if only slightly distracts from such - and instead is purely for style. Another example would be those wing / wind-spoilery things on cars, which if you are doing city driving you will literally never get any functional benefit from whatsoever, yet they help them sell b/c it pushes an "image" to the potential purchaser.

TLDR: one way to think about it is that comforting lies are style over substance, while unpleasant truths are substance over style. Though really that's kind of a distracting dimension, since no matter how you package the latter people don't tend to enjoy it, and vice versa for the former... - but still, those thoughts do often travel together.