Japanese here. There’s specific editor often categorized as “アスキーアートエディタ” (Ascii Art Editor). They often comes with libraries of existing AA to modify, and can display image with low opacity to “trace” image.

Large part of jp ascii art appeared in 90s to early 00s at underground forums like 2ch. Those editor were tailored for their speifics such as font family (MS-P Gothic) and size. The display/font system is different nowadays, but unlike “AA artist” in those times who is 100% comitted to make vertical line aligning pixel perfect most of people find those AA displays ok.