as someone who smoked for years watching this hit close to home and made me not want to smoke. The first few episodes were like "yeah I've done that". smoking butts, finding a "long one" and being thrilled about it. being broke and trying to make a pack last until next pay day only to smoke them all in a day. smoking one that had a bit of "slime" on it. It's pathetic and indeed gross and i think that's the whole point of the show. you can't watch that and idolize the characters, they're gross.

For that reason, I kinda feel like banning it on the basis that it encourages smoking is misguided.

Perhaps it's less about whether it encourages smoking and more about whether it runs afoul of laws concerning the depiction of real-life cigarette brands on TV. I don't know Taiwanese advertising law though!

A cynical part of me wonders whether the people making the show did this on purpose to generate headlines since anime are usually carefully made with no direct references to real-life brands.

No you see, we, adults, have to conform art to snoons’s sensibilities. If the Anti Press Authoritarian says it's gross, then even 三國演義 needs to go, accordingly to Taiwanese law!
We wouldn't want gross things now, would we?

Fair. I suppose the episode I seen was more blase about it, like it was just normal for all the characters in the show to smoke which isn't good, but could be worse.

no