The State of The VTuber World - February 5, 2024 Part 2
Why Do You Drag Hololive Into This?
I think I’m going to start this second part by answering this question, because I think that’s what people are most upset about. I wrote more, but I was pompous enough.
‘Nijisanji bad, Hololive good’ is probably the most agreed upon idea in the VTuber world. It is up there with ‘there are no married bachelors’ or ‘the earth is round’. So, if I imply the opposite, I am trying to do something rhetorically.
I used to teach Physics as a lab student and one of my favorite spiel is regarding the ballistic missile and the hidden assumption regarding ballistics. The hidden assumption in ballistic is that Earth is flat, by the way. Those 101 ballistic questions are 100% Flat Earth Science.
So, I would say that to the flat earther that we already teach flat earth science, why are you so upset about it? Because the oddest thing, and I think it’s the oddest thing, is that Physics tends to work as it seems. Earth looks flat for a while, and in those small ranges, you can assume a flat earth and get a reasonable estimate. But if you look far enough, well, Earth doesn’t look flat anymore! And the flat earth assumption starts to drift apart! Isn’t that strange?
Because Science is not about reality, but matching observations. This is why in optics, the image in the mirror is behind the mirror, because that’s where you perceive the image, even though obviously there is nothing on the other side of that mirror.
Sorry for the tangent, let’s get through the offending segment from yesterday.
Because given what I said regarding Selen in the past six months, I am starting to believe that she took the overbearing copyright system leading to delays to her numerous projects as a personal insult and bullying to her. Of course, the problem is that this would still happen, for example, if she was in Hololive. Right, if ANYCOLOR is a black company solely for this reason, then well almost all Japanese companies, including Cover, would be a black company.
Note that when I was writing that particular section, only the ANYCOLOR response was out. I was basically the same boat as the JP fans. There is a section below about why JP fans think Selen is in the wrong here, which I will get through in a couple minutes. I was assuming that Selen’s problems were solely regarding the delays leading to frustration and perhaps delusion regarding said delay leading to terrible outcomes. Later reports have shown there might have been more behind the scenes - I’ll repeat this in that third section.
But let’s get to the second sentence. The emphasis is right there ‘sorely for this reason’. What I am saying is that having a particularly onerous copyright requirement does not make a black company. Not that Hololive is a black company like ANYCOLOR, because… come on.
It’s a trick I use a lot. A is B because C, but D is not B because also C. There are two possible resolutions. One that everyone assumes, which is that D is actually B, or the argument that I am almost always trying to make, which is that A is B not because of C.
Indeed, many have pointed out many more convincing reasons why ANYCOLOR is a black company, I will highlight the one made by u/PointmanW
If Selen ran into problem within Hololive she would have been offered much more support instead of being bullied into suicide. if she is terminated they wouldn't try to drag her name through the mud with a 3 pages long statement listing all the "sins" they believed that she has committed.
Indeed, Selen would have gotten a lot more support from Hololive and would not have gotten to the point where Hololive had to write 3 pages of notes, although I would note that with the case of people like Sana/Magni/Vesper, the level of support from Hololive might not be enough. Japanese companies are cruel mistresses, no matter how generous they might be.
Probably in the worst case scenario, Selen’s fate at Hololive would be akin to Vesper. Or she might jump too far and might have left like Rushia, or more likely Mel.
I feel I’m being pompous, going ‘HAH! You fell into my trap card!’, but this rhetoric trick started out as a curiosity, but it became kind of a test. A test of charity - it’s so easy to dismiss the opponent as heinous by accepting the ‘repugnant’ conclusion, but it takes a real thinker to assume that I am a good spirit and find a different resolution, which is readily available.
Although some of you might be playing the same game. Provoking me as I am trying to provoke you in some sense, throwing out what seems to be an outlandish conclusion.
That is the art of rhetoric, I guess. Everyone throwing muds at each other.
Civil War
Honestly, I think I wrote pretty good posts leading up to the Selen incident. The section I wrote right after Pomu announced her graduation detailing the known problems EN had from the very start matches nicely with the current expose on the working of the company.
My personal feeling about Nijisanji EN was that it should not have existed in the first place. And my account of that section was me recounting all the times when that feeling arose again. This is why I don’t feel too saddened by the merger. Given what we know, merger already happened and EN was basically in ‘denial mode’ for the past year. It’s time to wake up.
Honestly, ANYCOLOR should have realized they should focus only on JP after their disastrous attempt at a CN branch. VirtuaReal feels almost bizarre to me, considering ANYCOLOR was so burnt trying to get into the Chinese market, and I almost wonder if bilibili did not decide to throw money at them, that ANYCOLOR would work that closely with China, not that they do now. Barely anyone in JP streams in bilibili, more EN people stream there probably for good reason.
Sorry, I got sidetracked. Another section I wrote recently was titled ‘Selen vs. The Management’. And when I wrote that title, I thought I was being too aggressive, but that was just the truth. Selen really decided to challenge the current Livers against the management, and I’m starting to believe Selen has won the gambit, at least partially.
The most ‘aggressive’ responses from fellow EN Livers have been Ren, Hex and Ver. If you remember from last week about the canaries in the coal mine. Kyo/Selen/Ren/Hex/Ver would likely round my five choices for the canaries, and all the canaries are singing now.
Considering the new EN director position, Livers are probably at this point going to be hard at negotiating their stance regarding the future. Do they take a chance with the new EN director, hopefully getting more support and finally getting those 3Ds? Can they successfully negotiate their position after the merger, making sure ANYCOLOR doesn’t bury them alive. If they want to leave, they have to make sure their departure is amicable to all parties, and given the management’s stance against Selen, this might be close to impossible. So trade-offs.
It’s kind of funny because the start of my hate train was me pointing out a possible conflict of interest regarding Hololive talents, which obviously did not happen as Cover backed down and realized the talents have to face the music themselves like Ririka and recently Koyori, and I’m writing the same thing about Nijisanji and obviously I’m expecting the same kind of hate comments from various Nijisanji fans. (That was a joke.)
Japan Hates Selen
There is a famous saying - For westerners, religion is a series of beliefs. For Japanese, religion is a series of actions.
Doing the right thing is not really the top priority for Japanese people as much as doing things the right way. And ANYCOLOR’s statement, as you might have guessed, emphasizes that Selen did not go through the right channels to present her grievances.
It doesn’t matter why Selen did such and such, it matters more to Japanese people that Selen went about it the wrong way, because Japanese don't hold many beliefs.
In fact, that's a common refrain for Japanese regarding the Chinese and Korean, that we are too emotional, that we sometimes believe that there are justices beyond laws. Hence the latent sinophobia that aids with the dismissal of Selen’s grievances.
You might posit that Selen might not have had a legitimate way of grievances. And given the leak by chestnut, for example, show that this might as well have been the case.
I wonder if someone posted on the dead bird site the Japanese translation of that leak, because that would convince JP people toward Selen rather than what Selen will likely try.
If we convince the JP public that Nijisanji EN was run very poorly, which we now know to be the case, and that there was very little recourse for any such grievances, JP might be more sympathetic to the situation, and the ball will be on ANYCOLOR’s court once more.
10% Drop in Two Days
Well… now we are getting somewhere.
We’re in unprecedented territory. ANYCOLOR might not exist by the end of year.
Best case scenario - Riku is thrown on to the toilet, complete management change. What a boon for JP as well as everyone else. KR and ID revival is on the cards.
I’m worried Mario Kart Tournament will have the 3D announcement and that might stop the bleeding from the financial sector. Well, then the numbers will arrive, probably.
I honestly thought because JP was okay and the JP reaction was cold that the financial market would take lightly to the news, but apparently the investors are on the bird’s side.
Okay, I’m going to take this time to talk about why I believed in ANYCOLOR for so long.
If I were to imagine the perfect agency, I would think of five categories.
Cross-gender interaction and LGBTQ+ support
Diversity in talents and perspectives. Singers, Actors, Gamers, Writers, Artists…
Large, lifting the most boats as one possibly can.
International appeal, talents from all six continents and more.
Long-term planning and thinking.
At the time when I started writing this newsletter, Nijisanji was the closest to that ideal. One might look at this and think Hololive is - and that is true regarding international appeal and probably long-term planning, but Hololive falls short on the first three criteria, and if you read my criticism of Hololive, it mostly pertains to these three topics.
Hololive is fundamentally blocked from achieving my dream because they are an idol group, which inherently limits cross-gender interaction and talent diversity. You can see that with the dropping of people like Sana/Magni/Vesper. They were a reach that did not work.
Meanwhile, Nijisanji’s problem could have been undone with more chutzpah. They could beef up their international staff, they could focus on diversification, they can continue to pursue the aggressive strategy, debuting as many talented people and giving them support.
Ever since I started writing this newsletter, Nijisanji has walked away from my prospective. But I vainly hoped that ANYCOLOR would change their minds, because well… that is why Nijisanji got big. That is the selling point of Nijisanji, and by walking away from that, you lose the selling point and people are not going to buy and the company would drop.
Unfortunately it was a bang and not a whimper, but a lesson learned.
Edit - There is evidence that Selen’s termination had little to do with the stocks. Remember that ANYCOLOR recently had a rise because of a Goldman Sachs evaluation, and it’s clear that rise has receded, and the stocks are down generally so there’s that. Stocks need to fall down to about 3,000 if the Selen effect really is happening.
Sign wa B
This is a response to u/PixarsCars2, but it won’t feel like one until later. Mostly I will respond to that second part, because regarding that first part - I think I wrote this earlier somewhere else that, at least during Selen’s suspension time, I was going back and forth between ‘ANYCOLOR will be fine’ and ‘ANYCOLOR will be dead’. If you read through the sections, you will see that there is a large swing between optimism and pessimism. I think people think I was pushing this agenda of ‘ANYCOLOR will be fine’, because of this second part.
But before I talk about that second part, I’m going to take a detour. It’s nearing two years since the Rushia incident and during this time, I would think back to the Butterfly Protocols, and specifically where VTuber World stands between Option A and Option B.
Option A states that the VTuber identity is separate from the person, in effect the person is playing the character on stream, but the character does not represent the person. Option B states that the identity of the VTuber is a representation of the identity of the person behind.
VShojo is the prime example of Option B and it’s a key part of their Creator Freedom, which is this philosophy that the talent leads the VTuber project while the management helps, which is in contrast to kind of philosophy of someone like Kizuna Ai, which that the project and the image and direction is lead by the management and the talent just plays the part.
In the past few years, we have seen a slow shift in the general VTuber world from Option A, which was de jure position back during 3D Video days of 2017, to Option B, starting from small EN group, spearheaded by the jaunt of Miori Celesta, and slowly working its way up to mid-size Japanese companies like VEEProject and then 774 inc. until we are at a point where Hololive is slowly taking the steps in trying to maneuver an Option B solution.
Because of the Pressure Cooker.
I don’t think I am wrong to say that Hololive talents are under a lot of pressure. Right, not only do they have to stream to an audience, but they also have to be in multiple concerts and other events and there is the responsibility of being in such a large company.
As Nerissa said (I think), it now takes a year for training to happen, and it seems the training is quite intense. And in terms of VTuber companies, a year is a long time for training. People might wait for longer, but that’s usually due to modeling and timing issues, not training. People who are up to that challenge are still not really going to apply for a streaming company, and so the number of applicants who can survive the ordeal is likely going to shrink.
And unlike other idol groups, the people behind Hololive are usually older, which means there is less viability in which these people can work at the capacity they are doing, and it’s almost unavoidable that that capacity would increase rather than decrease as their fame increases.
And so what happens when the talents can’t go on at the level Hololive performs? That’s the pressure cooker. And I think I talk about this confidently not because I want Hololive to explode, but that I know Cover is also thinking about these kinds of problems and Cover’s actions usually tend to deal with these problems. So, I’m talking about the problems in order to explain what Cover is doing, because that is the point of this blog.
And I think recent news in Hololive regarding these talent-drived outfits is a step towards deflating that pressure cooker. By having the talent be more involved in shaping the character, perhaps they are trying to maybe give some of the IP towards the talents, and perhaps even create some kind of emeritus status for talents, not unlike the OG marker that Coco has.
So that’s what I think right now. I think Hololive is following this general trend of agencies leaning towards Option B and in general Creator Freedom that VShojo touts so much, and to add on, I think one of the major causes of ANYCOLOR’s troubles in general is that ANYCOLOR is one of the few who is holding onto Option A and the ‘old’ way of doing things.
Bonus - Looking back at KR/ID
As the EN merger feels imminent, I keep thinking back to KR and ID.
Maybe because the last real memory I have of Nijisanji is the 6th anniversary broadcast, and KR also shines in these kinds of programs, and it feels like KR have grown quite a bit.
I think back to the troubles regarding KR, because it was a lot. Again, me scratching for similarities regarding current EN problems, in order to give me guidance. I believe almost all of the problems that were mentioned with EN happened with KR one way or another, some of them less serious, others more serious. And right now… KR is doing great!
Nari is at the height of her popularity and has 3D, Seffyna is growing once more, Suha is nicely balancing KR/JP audiences like a champ. Yun is doing great. Nagi is doing fine. Roha is doing okay although her growth has stalled. I mean the fact that it’s LoL season…
And that got me thinking back to NijiEN’s future after the merger. It’s a common stance this was a boon for KR and a disaster for ID, but was it because ID was treated unfairly compared to KR after the merger or simply a difference in perspective? Like if you go from Level 2 to Level 5, that would feel very good, but if you went from Level 10 to Level 5, you will feel terrible, even though you ended up in the same situation as the previous person.
So, if the rumors regarding the handling of the EN branch were true, then EN’s future could be more like KR rather than ID. Again, you also need to wonder if the JP management also sucks but JP people are used to the situation, or if EN management is worlds away from JP.
The ‘leader’ of the branch tells us about the whole branch themselves. Suha is multilingual, friendly with everyone, resilient and resolute, but immensely kind and generous. Hana is also multilingual and kind to a fault sometimes, but crumbles easily under pressure. Hana prefers a smaller, more cozy audience, who can handle her mental breaks and exhaustion.
The fact that the equivalent position for EN is… Elira does not bode well for the EN branch.