As for why the recent influx of Gadabout Bunnygirl Ayabe art... well, you can customize your characters in the DQ III remake now, and picking the Female Gadabout with low ponytail and brown hair gives you a dead ringer lookalike for Ayabe. Female Gadabouts also wear blue bunny girl outfits, which just so happen to line up with the "Admire" colors worn by Ayabe.
Someone on the Japanese interwebs noticed the above and posted a cropped screenshot on a Japanese discussion board, and thus a new meme was born.
