The State of The VTuber World - January 8, 2024
The Great Unpivot
The downfall of NijiEN started before NijiEN even existed.
“Back when NijiIN was rebranded to NijiEN?” Well, actually the fact that NijiIN even existed suggests how haphazardly ANYCOLOR’s foreign expansion was.
During second half of 2021, I was tracking the initial rise of NijiEN, and I don’t know how many know this in the audience, but the growth for the first three waves of NijiEN was slow, faster than ID or KR but much slower than JP at the time, let alone anyone in Hololive.
I posited that this was partially because of ANYCOLOR’s attitude towards EN which was indifference. It felt like ANYCOLOR didn’t really want to expand there, if they wanted to, they would have done so long ago, considering how the average EN skills for Nijisanji Livers was higher than the average EN skills for Hololive members at the time.
First Obsydia, then Ethyria slowly set the tone for NijiEN was, something distinct from HoloEN, but borrows heavily from NijiJP’s aesthetic. The problem then was that the management was reluctant to buy into this new dynamic until the Luxiem and Noctyx boom. I complained about this reluctance and cautioned that this might cause trouble.
Then the Luxiem and Noctyx boom happened and I worried the boom might blind the management and it might cause them to short the branch instead of building on a steady growth as they did before that boom. But by Iluna, things started to feel good for NijiEN.
So maybe I was in denial for the past year and a half, given how early I knew NijiEN was going to be a failure. Perhaps it was because I like the talents and I like the dynamic, and the same thing is true for what is going to be Nijisanji Proper. But again, personal reasons.
When the streams died down for the preparation for NijiFes 2022, this was when the viewership crested, and when EN participation for NijiFES 2022 was stunted due to administrative issues, rarely a time when Nijisanji was beset with an external problem with Hololive avoided, the decline in trust started to build and then Yugo was kicked out, kickstarting the downfall.
I always wondered what led Yugo to leave so anonymously, and one thing I point is how Yugo never really expressed his Thai background… which is a shame, because Thailand was and is a booming market and if ANYCOLOR wanted to expand further, Thailand would have been a good place, considering they already had ID presence, but you know that ANYCOLOR has abandoned the foreign expansion for quite some time by then.
Rest is something we are already all too familiar with, so we have arrived at now, where it seems the downfall has been cemented in some sense. I do not know if Pomu is the start of the massive defection or an aberrant last-minute decision, but if it's the former then I think there are two questions that would need to be addressed for the grieving fans and investors.
First, for the fans who truly just wanted the talents of NijiEN to be in a better place, and for VShojo for their vicious campaign (exaggeration is mine) - do you really think VShojo can handle 30 or so talents in the next two or three years? One of the reasons VShojo feels so nice is because they have few members. Suddenly gaining 30 would strain even their deep pockets, and personally I just don’t think VShojo is up to the job of being the caretakers.
And being independent is good and all, but it does leave for less opportunities for current NijiEN Livers. Not everyone is going to have the success of Unnamed. The downfall is a loss.
Second, does the downfall transfer to the main branch? When people defend ANYCOLOR from me, yes people do that oddly enough, they usually refer to the success in Japan.
Indeed Nijisanji is marked by their success in Japan. Simply put, Nijisanji didn’t put their resources in EN or any of their foreign ventures because they didn’t need to, while for Hololive they did need to, because Nijisanji took the lion’s share of the JP market. Yes, this does add to the underdog story that I wrote about in last week’s newsletter.
So, if EN is disbanded and we are dealt with all the debris and fallout, will the rot continue onto the main branch? Is Chii-chan and Momo an omen for Nijisanji Proper? Or will JP do fine as they did before. If the latter is true, then the great unpivot would be complete, and Nijisanji will be back where they want to be, which is the middle of 2019, their hidden golden age.
Edit - u/Neidhardto put an interesting theory in the weekly thread. If you couldn’t address from above, I am actually torn as to if Pomu is the last of the graduations for a while or the first of the graduations, because it really could be both. But if Pomu had said her wishes beforehand, I actually do wonder if the 3D model trouble was actually an excuse, considering NijiFes.
According to Rena(?), the Livers aren’t notified about the graduation until the day before the actual announcement. If that’s true, the fact that Pomu is out for all that 3D stuff they were doing in 2023 would be quite suspect, since they wouldn’t know about Pomu’s decision. But Pomu probably didn’t want to show herself for months after her graduation because of all the 3D stuff, like she is some kind of EN version of Mayuyu, so maybe there was an excuse.
Perhaps the AR Live and 3D debuts are imminent. Mya’s words about the 3D studios being booked for the entire year are still in my memory. There are 18 JP members in ‘23 and 12 are eligible with two more coming in the next month or so. But 14 debuts aren’t really enough considering something like ‘20 or ‘21, so I thought the rest were filled with EN. Pomu’s graduation threw me for a loop, but the above theory holds water to me…
And remember that new tech they unveiled, its use is in foreign events, and that is more in line with EN than JP. All this suggests the decline might not actually be on the table in 2024. I am reminded of 3rdFes, that was three weeks after Rushia’s termination and I was wondering if AREA15 and HoloMyth 3D performance would be enough to shift people’s mind, and they were more than enough. If there is a slate of 3Ds happening, would something similar happen?
That is also an interesting question. A new question, but still just as interesting.
Edit 2 - Might be the most pro-Nijisanji words I’ve written… ever?
I was thinking about why Pomu’s 3D renewal was delayed, and I wrote above it might have been an excuse, and I think there’s some truth to that, but I think it’s not far off that Pomu’s 3D renewal was delayed for almost an entire year, considering the resources.
Right, EN is successful in ‘22 and they want to go to the next step with the AR Live, but then Mysta says he’s leaving because ANYCOLOR deigned to fix his personal financial issues, which is something no companies should help you with for many reasons (among others), so kind of scared of losing people, they accelerated the AR Live, which flopped because accelerated schedule never works out, and now both Mysta and Nina has to leave.
Now they basically have to go back to the drawing board, re-do all the songs and presumably add Iluna and Xsoleil as well. That is going to take months, so the 3D department is going to focus on Ranunculus and Voltaction and the concert week in June of ‘23. That would push Pomu’s fix to at least the second half of the year, and then Pomu calls it quits, so there is no real reason to fix the problem anymore so it gets delayed until NijiFes.
Like I know why Pomu wanted to showcase her 3D more, considering she was going to leave, but on the management side, there was little reason for EN 3Ds in ‘23 at all, so… I mean there was no 3D appearance for Elira or Finana until like October anyways, so there’s that.
I don’t know, that was the line of thinking, and it makes me wonder why Pomu is leaving at all, unless she really just felt she did everything she wanted to do in Nijisanji, because even if Pomu hated Nijisanji’s guts or something, she would likely wait until the 3D, which absolutely have been delayed until now for the above reasons, right? Like, the delay was longer, because even Symphonia was delayed 9 months, and that had no change in plans, and here we are adding 11 new 3Ds and have to completely change the list, since two and now three people are leaving.
I think quite a lot of things can be explained in a pretty logical sense, and part of why I write the newsletter, because I did the same thing for Selen’s Worst Christmas two weeks ago, and so on and I think back to Hololive, and I remember people being upset about delays in foreign 3D there, but when that was abated in ‘23, people just kind of went back to normal.
So, if the theory in Edit 1 is true, then by the end of this year, we might look at this flailing as a thing of the past, and even the wrenches that I referred to - considering the backlash from Ironmouse - might not be much of a problem. Although I still think there would be quite a lot of people leaving probably just after their 3D debut or even before.
Why is Nijisanji Successful?
I know it’s a laughable assertion given the current news, but I want to write about what I heard from a private conversation I had with a colleague regarding the topic, in fact it was a bullet list with three points, and examining the bullets would entail its current problems.
1 - Aggressive Debut Strategy
One of the greatest things about the entertainment industry is that it could generate its own hype. With clever marketing and hiring, you can turn that downturn into an upturn with a flash. And if that upturn is fast enough, we’re now on a roller coaster that only goes up!
The sheer size of Nijisanji daunts many, but Nijisanji has a clever method to keep the company unified while still maintaining the diversity. As I said before on ‘How to Watch Nijisanji’, the goal for you is to understand everyone in Nijisanji without actually watching everyone’s streams.
For example, you might not watch Aia’s streams, but you should know how Aia behaves, what her character and quirk is, her recent events and announcement and so on, sheerly through all the collab Aia does with everyone else in the company. This is why large international tournaments are the bread and butter of Nijisanji, they are the best way to know someone quickly and with a controlled and well-meant manner. No need to plan other than the organizers.
The pick-up schedule is not dependent on the individual growth like Hololive, which is why they need six months minimum in order to introduce a new gen, but their integration to the overall Nijisanji community, which could be quick as, well, three weeks, which was the speed of the 2019 debuts. This means focus on hiring and training not just talent and staff.
Nijisanji’s problem was that they are relying on a hiring method that is counter to their method of building a brand and audience. They should have focused on getting as many people as possible and then focus on training the staff for deployment, so that the growth in staff is appreciable to the growth in talents. But that method has kind of been lost in time…
2 - Uniform Merch
Nijisanji, like any other company, has to balance unity with variety, and Nijisanji does this through having a set of uniform merch, like the famous Birthday merch. Not only does the uniform merch cut down production cost, which is really important, but it also creates an uniform care of the company and serves as a year-long promotion of the various members of Nijisanji.
This is why I was clamoring for the birthday merch for ID and KR, because it would present an universal uniformity on the part of ANYCOLOR. It shouldn’t matter if they only sell 3 copies of the merch, the idea that it exists on the same level as people like Kuzuha matters, because preferential treatment will inevitably happen. Only the popular Livers will have clips, only the popular Livers will trend. (Another reason major international tournaments are important is that it only takes a single stroke of luck for a small member to get trending and get a boost, and also it strengthens the interpersonal relationship, further cementing the unity).
3 - Focus on Voice and Radio
The famous line is that if you want to support the artist, you should buy a voice pack. Indeed, voice packs usually bring the biggest bang for a buck, not just for an artist, but for the company as a whole. And Nijisanji is famous for its voice packs. It’s not like other companies give out voice packs, but strangely Hololive voice packs are more in the consciousness of what Hololive is than Nijisanji with their voice packs, at least from my experience.
This focus on voice and radio actually has on knock-on effect, but on the talents developing their unique singing style, which led to an explosion of views in the M/Vs in the past year.
Hololive is an idol group, so their singing and performance eventually kind of coalesced together and this is the reason I slowly tuned out of Hololive. But Nijisanji thrives on variety, and that includes music. You could have someone like Melissa or Uiha or Gwelu or Yashiro or Shachou or Rosemi or Reza or Noor or… you get the picture.
I think it’s important that Nijisanji is not an idol group. This is the reason I frowned upon the debut singles from NijiEN. It presented an idol-like opening to a decidedly non-idol group. And the troubles regarding Ethyria in their first months showcases how bizarre their approach to NijiEN was, as if they were thinking they had to be like HoloEN to get anywhere.
It’s like they forgot to perceive Hana Macchia, whose fame is of a streamer first and singer second, or the successful FPS streaming from people like Bobon.
Hopefully this section gives a good clue into my complicated relationship with Nijisanji. And if you go and subscribe to the e-mail, I will go further into this in my bonus section.
Edit 1 - One of things I feel like that makes Nijisanji so interesting, since there are plenty of people of who are saying this recently, is like how long the the call for the collapse of Nijisanji has been, like ever since the middle of 2019, when four people left, one of them actually a pivotal figure in SEEDs 1st, Nakao Azuma. Narukami Sabaki famously said 30 people were leaving in droves in April 2020. It’s almost a perennial theory that Nijisanji is about to collapse.
But they haven’t. It’s the same thing people say about Japan itself. Oh, they can’t possibly compete with the West, or they can’t remove themselves from the rubble after WWII, or something to that effect. The thing is that things collapse when you least expect it.
Bravery of Brave Group
I have been cautiously looking at the recent success of Brave Group, and their pivot over the last two years at this point, and I think I will focus on one aspect.
As I said above, the reason Hololive was able to maintain its international presence was that it had to, since Nijisanji took the lion’s share of the JP market at the time. This is even more so true for Brave Group, hence their expansion to places like Thailand.
Brave Group went one step farther than Hololive, which established local branches in the U.S., E.U. (well, London) and now China and Thailand. This is a complicated move, but it’s something Brave Group felt they needed to do and probably so. One of the advantages of this, and I think this was best explained with Nijisanji ID at their height, is local focus and community.
I will bring this up again, because I can’t get the thought out of my brain, but when people talked about the delay in AREA15 3D, I talked about how the HoloID members weren’t enough to justify the costs… but I did say that NijiID doesn’t have that problem. It doesn’t matter if most of the ID members were in Kuroko form, 3D streams would be a game changer for ID, and considering the physical nature of many of the members, it would be very much clippable.
The fact that they did not include a 3D studio when they expanded their ID branch was a travesty and I wonder if the thought was even in the minds of people, but still… Hana’s 3D would have done when she was still in the spotlight, this would give a very nice boost to the rest of the ID community and if they rent out the studio to other ID groups, this would encourage facilitation of the community, which is what I want out of Nijisanji.
But back to Brave, the advantage has been taken full force with V4Mirai pumping out concerts at the same clip as HoloJP, meaning they have an advantage in EN concerts, which Cover and ANYCOLOR had been desperately attaining. (That tech from the above edit for example), and presumably the same would be true for globie and now idol Corp.
There are others other than the biggies who are trying the same thing - Project Kawaii was the first to try this with rather disastrous results, although they are okay now.
Effects of The Earthquake
Japan got off to an auspicious start in 2024, with a major earthquake on a major holiday, then a plane crash a day after. Hopefully, it was simply a reverse omen.
This section will be an outline of what the earthquake caused for Hololive and Nijisanji. In the end, there was only one real mishap and funny thing is none of them is Japanese!
Starting from Nijisanji, the New Years Program got delayed, but only for one week, which isn’t bad and the recorded section still aired on the day it was promised, so it was only a half a loss.
The 2nd Koyo24 was in jeopardy, but thankfully it was able to appear as planned. But the real conundrum was with the Advent outfits, whose delay led to troubles because Nerissa was with Kiara by the 5th, when they were able to reveal, but it seems to work out okay.
Rosemi was able to debut her outfit on the 4th. I wonder if Selen’s announcement at the end of the year was also a new outfit, which would mean Selen will reveal a new outfit on her return, which is not without precedent, in fact it’s pretty common in Nijisanji. Elira did it, Roha did it, and so on… although with the Pomu news above, I wonder if it was graduation instead?
So, overall, the traditional line still holds, when there is an external factor, Hololive tends to take the brunt compared to Nijisanji, as opposed to internal factors.
Nijisanji Mahjong Recap
Group A - Deron / Debi / Shiina / Kirame
As expected, Debi just gets hurt once more with a really strong group from the bat with Deron and Kirame hitting the poor koala left and right. Deron has a hospital visit, but her ‘main’ group is I believe first, so she would be fine to visit the hospital in the interim.
Group B - Gwelu / Belmond / Leos / Ruri
The chaos group. Leos with a full flush was a good flourish, but Ruri played her hands well, and got herself into the finals. This was a pretty tense round, as expected.
Group C - Ritsuki / Fuyuki / Hibari / Sho
Rube with a perfect defense in the beginning, and Hiba dreamed of some orphans and then various other things, but Ritsuki was strong as always but Fuyuki had a last-minute Oya sprint, slowly getting her way to winning overall with a great last flourish.
Group D - Kaida / Seraph / Milan / Levi
Milan made a good push, but a big end from Seraph was enough for him to win here.
Group E - Ryushen / Fumi / Miyako / Wen
Ryushen was strong as always, Miyako ATM was reliable, and Wen moves by points.
Group F - Mahiro / Toru / Gaku / Haruka
Mahimahi did well, but… like what was that last round? That was… weird.
Group G - Ittetsu / Chima / Masaru / Naru
Chima’s opening gamble paid off, and generally this was a fun good group. I didn’t know this would be a fun group, and I didn’t know Chima would actually win here.
Group H - Lauren / Elu / Meloco / Suha
Elu was strong as always, Suha will go with that last round flourish. Meloco… might have been half asleep, throwing away a yakuman to start with. First minus of the game.
Group I - Sophia / Kei / Roco / Sara
I think this was Sophia’s show, with Sara not able to finish and Kei with an after-act. Roco ends up with a minus here, even though she made a brilliant effort.
Group J - Hajime / Lain / Furen / Mao
Truly Hajime is called a King for a reason. Truly brilliant plays, and Mao is improving!
Group K - Genzuki / Emma / Toto / Hari
Man, Toto got some really good tiles in this game! Man, that last game was scary!
Group L - Kokoro / Kanae / Tamaki / Hana*
Very tight and professional game, that last tsumo had the perfect timing.
Group M - Kazaki / Derem / Rai G. / Roha
The International Group. Not an exciting game, but interesting nevertheless. The Japanese representative moves on, but Derem will move on with the highest points.
Group N - Rika / Fuwa / Meruto / Seffyna
Wow, Meruto is terrible at this… and she’s in the main round. I am glad that Seffyna goes on.
Group O - Kyoko / Rion / Alice / Oliver
Roki got really lucky in the first round, and Alice was in last place and then… and then… Ma’am, this is not a meat shop, don’t just take the meat prize every single time! Seriously…
Group P - Akira / Mikoto / Akari / Luis
Q and P swapped places due to the host, but whatever. Replacement Akari did nothing, but the previous year’s replacement did very well, and went on to the main round.
Group Q - Saku / Manami / Hima / Kanato
Call it beginner’s luck, but Sasaki Saku played her tiles right, and earned her win.
Group R - Hayase / Kuzuha / Rai I. / Kagetsu
Well, Mana did say Rai was the real Mahjong hero… and that’s true. That’s it.
Group S - Jiyu / Nei / ABO / Toya
Tense but ‘normal’ round with Toya returning back to his strengths. Toya did get a mindbreak when Jiyu called Mya Kokoro-chan and she replied positively, so did he actually win?
Group T - Ars / Kanda / Nozomi / Kotoka*
What… was this game? Am I starting to lose things because what were those plays? And how did Ars actually win this game? Because this is not okay.
Group U - Tomoe / Momo / Karuta / Mana
Kind of a quiet finish, although Karuta’s final round was pretty cool in the end.
Kotoka replaces Naru, much like how Hajime replaced Maimoto, being two places below the cutoff. The person immediately below, Hana, presumably declined due to the weather, which is funny since last year it was Ars that was in Hana’s spot, and now Ars is in the main round by winning her group, and in fact it was in Kotoka’s group. Does that mean Hana will win her group next year and make it to the main round? I’m sorry for that diversion, to the main round.
Group 1 - Deron / Sophia / Saku / Wen
Delayed because of Deron. What a beautiful and strange game, double riichi ippatsu followed by a freaking rinshan. The newbie Saku, or is it Saki, did admirably, but it’s the newcomers.
Group 2 - Ruri / Hajime / Rai I. / Leos
Not exciting, but still a professional game. Hajime is still king and Leos did okay.
Group 3 - Fuyuki / Toto / Toya / Kotoka
Toto is as strong as all of Mitarashi-dan. Hakase plays kind of oddly, but it works for her.
Group 4 - Seraph / Kokoro / Ars / Kei
Ars’s plays still baffle the minds of the audience, but the right two people made it out here.
Group 5 - Ryushen / Kazaki / Karuta / Ritsuki
That was a long round and mostly because Karuta was on a freaking roll, that was fun.
Group 6 - Mahiro / Seffyna / Suha / Milan
The Koreans did very well, but that last-minute move from Suha means only one goes on.
Group 7 - Chima / Alice / Kirame / Meruto
Chima had a lot of dreams but Kirame was too strong and Meruto kind of skidded on by.
Group 8 - Elu / Akira / Derem / Joe
Round of double east. Derem held on well and Joe was a master as always.
Group 9 - Wen / Sophia / Hajime / Leos
Hajime showcases how much of a king he was, but Wen’s gamble worked out here.
Group 10 - Fuyuki / Toto / Kei / Kokoro
I cannot believe Kei tsumo-ed three times and prevented Toto from even being Oya!!
Group 11 - Karuta / Ryushen / Mahiro / Seffyna
This was a tight round, but Ryushen showcased their strength from the Shinki League.
Group 12 - Meruto / Kirame / Joe / Derem
A lot of exchanging riichis all around, but a last minute sprint means Meruto moves on?!
Finals - Wen / Kei / Ryushen / Meruto
I think this indicates that this is going to be a fun year. This was really great, not in a competitive way, but just kind of a comedy of errors. I don’t know, it feels like a final of something.
I think this year was a little bit more messy and a little bit more fun.
Honorable mention - Shirayuki Reid. His tension has been way up from this year… I am not sure what is going on, but like, what did he get for new years, because I’m worried.
In Other News…
Usami Yuno is finally leaving at the end of month. That is the last of the first Gen for Re:AcT gone. In fact, let’s take a look at the remaining members.
Key: RA - ReAliz, KS - Kaleidoscope, SR - Sinkirow, PF - Parfait (Reminder they don’t actually exist anymore, the new groups got disbanded some time ago)
2nd Gen - Kyo (KS) and Leona (RA) are still going strong, with Kyo back on business after her other business basically got settled with Kamitsubaki. Kanau (PF) and Mia (RA) are doing pretty fine as well, especially Kanau who got her 3D in the later half of last year.
‘3rd Gen’ - Hano (PF) has recovered from the slump and maybe will see that 100K milestone, Tsukimi (SR) is… I always forget she is still here.
2021 - Aria (PF) & Yukino (SR) got 3D in ‘23 and Lie (SR) had her 3D during the concert Re:AcT had at the end of the year. Rose (RA) is still below 10K, though, so we will see.
Tsubasa - Suu (KS) & Lisa (RA) are doing okay. I think they are the most well-off, other than the big two at the current moment. Don’t need endurance streams and such.
Re:Mixx - Nemu’s short live was a resounding success, surpassing Taran, whose endurance singing stream is one of the hidden gems (read - horror) of the VTuber world. Creil is doing okay, even though she is one of two members below 10K, not including…
ReAcT Gaming - They are still there, on Twitch. Sayo, Amu, Inari. That’s it.
Total: 4+2+4+2+3+3 = 18 members still remaining.
But every closed door is just the intro of a brand new story, and the new story is that NoriPro has just announced the first four of eleven talents they hired back in September.
We have three new people and a recruit, which is Seto Kazuya, who is quite a biggie. The fact that Kazuya is in the first batch tells me there might be big surprises later in the year.
One of the new members is also a ‘mama’, in fact the mama of Yozuna Niu from Neo-Porte! This might make for a fun collab, and perhaps another mom in the VCR events.
Another big debut is Phase Connect JP. I wrote in the previous week that Phase Connect likes to play things safe in the organizational department to compensate for their sad girl talents, but perhaps it’s not the case? I honestly thought because the JP members in the 1st Gen did not do so well that Sakana left the JP market entirely, but apparently that’s not the case.
Foreign companies with a JP branch, it’s flipped from JP companies with a foreign branch. My favorite example with MAHA5 JP - which I really liked because they really had that Tier 4 aesthetic*. The problem was that there was no crossover between the ID people at all. At least Phase Connect brings the two JP members in tournaments and such, but yeah.
*Tier 4 aesthetic can best be described as going to a local bar and seeing a local up-and-comer. Like there are 30 to 100 people in the audience, it’s a crowd, but a small crowd, and there is this cozy and warm atmosphere that some people really chase after. Tier 5 is like having 5 people, which is more sad than cozy at that point, so Tier 5 is quite different.
Bonus - Once More About VTA
I am writing this in the bonus section because I talked about this before, but I wanted to have a place to put all of my thoughts about the VTA here. Most of what I’m writing has been already written elsewhere, but there will be a couple of new thoughts, like this one.
Listerine was first advertised as a floor cleaner, and then it was advertised as other things, before it became what we know today, a mouthwash. But it would be odd when people use Listerine as a mouthwash because it was first advertised as a floor cleaner.
What I mean is that if an intuition you created has better use than its stated use, then it would be more appropriate to change what the intended use is, rather than abandon what the institution was actually good for. And that is what I feel about VTA as a whole.
I wrote this above part because of a response to a section that I wrote back in November, which I will copy in full below.
Virtual Talent Academy is exactly what it says on the tin. It is an academy for raising virtual talents, or I guess the common parlance would be VTubers, and then the people can go anywhere they please after about a year’s worth of training.
Personally, I had no interest in the project, which is why I completely skipped watching the 1st Gen’s streams, at least until Ranunculus debuted. Then people realized there was a second unintentional use of VTA that I really got excited about, which is that VTA is kind of a head start of building an audience and a preview of future Nijisanji talents.
2nd Gen basically ran ahead with this idea and it was massively successful. Perhaps it was too successful. As successive generations arrived, ANYCOLOR realized people were entering for a different purpose than what it said on the tin. These new people weren’t complete newbies, but already had significant experience on the field, and they really were just entering for this second purpose, of getting that sweet Nijisanji audience before going on main or somewhere else.
Now, ANYCOLOR could just accept that’s what people were signing up for and rebranded the Academy accordingly, at least that’s what I would do considering many indies and small agencies do exactly that but using shorts and other methods instead.
Or they could just stop people from doing that second thing, which is why we are entering into phase two of VTA. There was a significant cull of people streaming and there was an announcement that some VTA talents wouldn't be streaming anymore, and at that point, I felt the inevitable was going to arrive. They were going to shut down streaming entirely.
By having the academy be done without this public face, VTA’s second purpose would be defeated and VTA would finally be like what it says on the tin. Personally, this is a great loss, but ANYCOLOR said to do one thing and doggone it, they are going to keep their word.
In this case, VTA phase 2 really would be like normal auditions but with extra steps. In some sense, Hololive basically has done VTA phase 2 since at least 2019, and I’m sure Nijisanji has done something similar as well. Again, I have no real interest in what VTA was trying to do, but whatever floats their boat, I guess. At least, VTA won’t tank so spectacularly.
Next part is just straight up copied from what I wrote in September.
VTA was created as a response to the Meiro/Roa incident and was designed to defuse the tension of bad apples like Meiro. This… did not really work, because they failed to understand how to prevent bad apples and just how education itself works, but that’s actually a problem for the general society as much as it is for ANYCOLOR as a whole.
But VTA did do interesting things that were pretty useful. You see, there are two types of auditions in VTuber agencies, they could be model-first or talent-first. Model-first auditions are good for quick turnarounds, you can commission a flurry of models beforehand and just simply hire people right out of the box so to speak, the turnaround rate tends to be a month or two. Compared to the talent model, this takes more time since, with the talent, you have to discuss the concept and lore and personality and so forth then have to get a specific designer and so on, and the turnaround can easily go to half a year or even more.
Nijisanji was famous for its model-first approach, that’s the reason they were able to pump out so many people, but with NijiEN, they actually switched to a talent-first model, and they saw the benefits for this new model. Indeed, most new agencies tend to take the talent-first model because the unity of the personality and the design was essential in the popularity of the talent.
But the quick turnaround and the relative ease of the model-first model was tempting. VTA actually solves this, because while VTA student would be given a PNG model, hence they can have a model-first audition and get that quick turnaround, but as they are streaming with the VTA, they can go through the modeling process to modify the basic PNG model into a fully-fledged 2D model, therefore the getting the benefit of a talent-first audition.
Which means Nijisanji could return to ‘19 levels of debut but the talents would be more fully fledged and able to compete in the red ocean that is the current VTuber market. Indeed, with a little push from the officials and some outside attention, 6 out of 7 Idios members were able to reach 100K within a year, and 7 out of 8 MECHATU-A members are on track to do the same.
Another unforeseen benefit was that Nijisanji was able to adopt an increasingly common strategy that was traditionally used by independent creators. Usually, they would have a model or a drawing ready and would post videos or even stream for a couple months to amass initial attention before fully debuting. V&U’s Third Gen, Oracle, had a pre-debut lead about a month, which is quite long compared to a week or two of pretty other agency, and they would create shorts and videos (with voice!) during that meantime.
VTA basically amounted to having a six-month lead time before your debut, with strict 30-minute streams making the streams feel more like videos that are easy to clip and share. Of course, Nijisanji failed to stick the landing, much to the chagrin of me and other VTA fans, but despite Nijisanji’s penchant to fall flat on their face, they have demonstrated a viable new strat.
Okay, you read or skipped to this point, and I think this is a good place to be more personal, because I think there is a personal reason why I am so focused on VTA, and it’s in the end because I somehow got really attached to this project and the members and I can’t leave this place without knowing where everyone, at least in the 2nd Gen, went. It doesn’t matter where, just that they have went… somewhere. I can’t stand these talents just disappearing, you know?
I wish they could all be in Nijisanji, but if they went elsewhere, I’m happy for them, but it’s just become the longest waiting game. Considering it took almost a year before Azusa found a place to settle, and the last of the 2nd Gen left in July. I hope by the summer I will know where everyone has gone, and how many of them made it to Nijisanji, and how many went elsewhere.
Because absence makes the heart go fonder, I guess, and I think the VTA 2nd Gen was something special and the 3rd and 4th Gen had something as well.
Bonus - Tom Scott vs. Matthew Patrick
Beginning of 2024 seems to be a turnover year, with many people leaving the business, and this seems to be true for YouTube in general, as well as the VTuber world.
Tom Scott and Matthew Patrick feel like they were on the two opposing sides of the YouTube Education spectrum, colloquially the ‘good’ side and the ‘bad’ side, but there are quite a lot of similarities between these two talents, first of all having two first names.
Tom Scott is known for his integrity and the marvelous ability of British presenters to make anything really interesting and captivating. MatPat meanwhile was all about theorizing, throwing away the integrity for a fun line of speculative thoughts and spurious conclusions. But both had this whimsy on them that would add so much into their videos, and in some sense showcased various different ways education on YouTube can work.
But I think the biggest similarity and the reason their loss is almost equally sad is that they were passionate about the world they were in and they did something about it. MatPat’s videos detailing the general YouTube statistics and looking at their trends compared to Tom Scott’s manifesto regarding copyright and advertising on various media are what I think are their most important contributions to YouTube as a whole and they shifted our perspective of what YouTube can be as a medium. To see both of them leaving (Tom for a while, and Mat for longer) feels like we are losing that guiding stone into where YouTube goes in the future.
I wish both of them the best, both in their personal lives, and their future endeavors.