Fans were surprised to learn that Neena Makurano of Production Kawaii—who was originally set to graduate on August 2nd—has had her contract terminated by the agency on June 3rd. In an official statement, Production Kawaii management has said that they discovered Neena was involved in actions causing breach of contract, such as leaking confidential information, leaking false information including slander, and involvement in VTuber activities aside from those in Kawaii which violates their exclusivity clause.
Production Kawaii talent Namiji Freesia does her best clearing up any misunderstanding in a live stream following the announcement. Nami explains in a calm manner that she, alongside other Kawaii talents and management, was completely unaware of Neena’s activities until Neena showed up as another persona. Nami, Neena and other Kawaii talents have signed an exclusivity clause which prohibits them from doing VTubing activities outside of Kawaii for the duration of their contract.
Production Kawaii’s management caught wind of the said persona’s upcoming debut, and decided to look deeper into the matter. It was later found out that Neena had sent private communications to many of her biggest followers to support her in her new persona – also a breach of contract, as Nami explains.
…and we could very plainly clearly see her fans from Neena already there in the very first days, which is highly unusual. She disseminated this information to her fans to get them to follow her there [to her new persona].
She then also … talked to those fans about what was happening in the company, what management was discussing with her for her graduation, all sorts of other things in order to tarnish the reputation of our company – and the other talents as well when she was aware that we knew of her new persona.
Namiji Freesia, describing what she had found out leading to Neena Makurano’s termination (8:44)
It is noted that Neena Makurano announced her graduation with the reasoning that she was promoted at work, which restricted her time available to stream. Nami shares that in Kawaii’s contracts, the talents are required to do at least four streams a week, with each stream being at least two hours.
Even though Neena signed a year-long contract, she had only fulfilled seven months of it. Nami explains that Neena wanted to leave her contract with Production Kawaii immediately, but she came to a compromise with Production Kawaii management: stick around long enough to see the end of the Production Kawaii 3D debut Kickstarter, and to be present for a special announcement that Nami mentioned would take place in a few weeks.
Nami assures everyone that the talents and management agree with the decision to terminate her, including Neena herself.
Kawaii talent Reina Sun became emotional as she defended the agency’s hard decision: “People view a corporate company as like a soulless, heartless corporation, you know? It’s not, it really isn’t. They all care so much.” Despite all of this, she sees this not as a black-or-white matter and wishes Neena Makurano the best in her future endeavors.
Moving forward, Nami definitely said in a tweet that any Kawaii talent who chooses to address the matter is doing it because they want to, and they haven’t been asked to talk about this by anyone.
The termination comes after Kawaii’s successful “3D Idol Project” Kickstarter campaign which saw a total of US$91,986 (JPY11,943,646) in pledges as of press time. The agency is asking backers who pledged for Neena to select another member as a reward or cancel their pledge before the campaign ends on June 6 to be given 100% full refund.
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