It is Week 9 of 2022, and VTuber news keeps coming. At this point, we’re going to get used to a lot of announcements from the fast-paced world of Virtual YouTubing. We take a deep breath and look at major events this week.
What’s in this week’s VTuber News Round-Up?
- But First: Congratulations on Your Milestones
- The Ugly: WACTOR Reveals Talent’s Real Name in a Lawsuit—Talent Responds
- Bad News: This Week’s Still Not for Hololive and Nijisanji
- Good VTuber News: Hololive’s Media Blitz Leading to Super Expo 2022 +more
- Classified Ads, Merch and Music
- News You Can Use: Interesting, Thought-Provoking VTuber News Items
- Latest Debut Announcements
But First: Congratulations on Your Milestones
Before we proceed, let us give a huge shout-out to everyone who has reached their milestones:
- Hololive’s Friend A (A-chan), who celebrated her birthday on February 27
- Dreamin Chuchu (Kiara x Ame, 1 million views)
- Momosuzu Nene who celebrated her birthday on March 2
- Sakura Miko, who celebrated her birthday with a 3D stream March 5
- Naki Kamizuki of Prism Project (9,000 YouTube subscribers)
- Multiverse Monarch (100,000 Twitch followers)
- Shoto (200,000 Twitter followers)
- Virtual Idol Yuna Itou (3D Debut)
- Reza Avanluna, who celebrated his birthday on February 29
- Fulgur Ovid (100,000 Twitter followers)
- Stuck in the Abyss Music Video (1 million YouTube views)
- Hope in the Dark Music Video (5 million YouTube views)
The Ugly: WACTOR Reveals Talent’s Real Name in a Lawsuit—Talent Responds
Now let’s get to the Ugly VTuber News: WACTOR, a brand popular with the Hispanic audience, is in hot water after posting announcing on Twitter that they will pursue legal charges against its talent Shino Laila, who was part of its second-generation roster.
WACTOR cites “problematic conduct” by engaging in VTuber activities outside of the company as one of the reasons. Aside from this, the company called foul by saying that she is acting as if she was the victim—worse, they revealed her real name in the lawsuit, an unprecedented move in the industry. For the record, Shino Laila’s activities were suspended last November 2021 due to breach of contract.
This announcement prompted a response from the doxxed talent, who is a GL artist by profession: “Am I the first in the VTuber history to be doxxed by her own company?” Here’s the thing: We learned that there was no specific detail on whether she was terminated by the company—which leaves us thinking if Shino Laila’s status in the company is still floating up to this point.
Everyone has questions on their minds regarding this matter, but one thing is clear: They will all have to lawyer up against each other. This is not the only news inside WACTOR, as they suspended activities for another talent of theirs, Kurari Rose.
Bad News: This Week’s Still Not for Hololive and Nijisanji
Nijisanji had a bad week: Eden-gumi’s Lauren Iroas was caught in 4K having illegal materials, prompting him to take a break. Moments after this, a planned Eden-gumi collaboration with NTT docomo’s Ahamo mobile service is cancelled early. Before this, Nijisanji was supposed to have a collaboration stream with J1 League is suspended. Lead organizer and huge baseball fan Maimoto Keisuke is sad knowing the news.
Aside from these, two Nijisanji KR livers announced their graduation as well: Lee On and Shin Kiru, both to graduate March 31.
Meanwhile, at Hololive, we learned that Momosuzu Nene is a huge fan of illustrator Namori (Yuru Yuri), so much that she draws illustrations based on Namori-sensei’s art style, considered as partly tracing by her management at Cover Corp. For example, we can go back to last year when she drew a postcard for her first anniversary.
She apologized formally to everyone, as well as to Namori-sensei directly. The illustrator accepted the apology, her colleague Airani Iofifteen offered to guide her as well, and all is good. This is comforting to know, and it melts our hearts to see that this sis resolved. Please continue to be adorable for us husbands, Nenechi.
Also, Hololive alerts everyone about a fake Hololive Music account which is phishing Twitter users through direct messages. The fake account no longer exists. Meanwhile, Inugami Korone’s hand got injured and so she rested for a day—her yubi hurts that bad.
Kawaii’s Aruru Gray Graduates With a Final Thank-You Video
After quite a while, it has been decided that Production Kawaii’s Gen 2 VTuber Aruru Gray will have a thank-you video instead of a graduation stream, bringing a montage of her moments. We wish Aruru Gray all the best on her future endeavors.
Ryuuki Tatsuya of Yume Reality Graduates—Indonesian VTubers React
Indonesia’s VTuber community is at a loss as Ryuuki Tatsuya of Yume Reality terminates his activities starting February 28, Monday. Muse Indonesia’s Daem attests to the dragon’s career as a Vtuber: “Tatsuya provides one of the best, if not the best, streaming content as a male VTuber.” Even popular VTuber Evelyn tweeted that he is a hard worker and a good person. His Yume Reality colleague Tsuyu Hortenshia, although shocked and sad, clarifies that he and the agency both agreed on this decision.
Indonesia’s Shard Entertainment Dissolves
In their latest announcement, Indonesian virtual streamer agency Shard Entertainment announces its closure which will happen after the departure of the voices behind its talents Matsumura Akane (March 1) and Fujioka Tomoko (March 7). Its Discord and YouTube channels will be closed on March 13. Shard said that the closure is due to the inability to continue the business operationally and financially.
Other Bad VTuber News in this Section
- MyHolo TV’s Athelia Hiroyuki takes a one-month hiatus from March 5 to April 9 so that she can have her wisdom tooth extracted and transition to a new job.
- VTubers who are also Artesian Builds ambassadors woke up to the news that the company changed rules for its sweepstakes while it’s running on stream, causing the company a huge PR disaster. We also understood that some VTubers rejected their ambassadorship offer before.
- Stellaa ends her activities with Muse Indonesia starting March 1, making her independent. The channel had a send-off party for her, and wishes her all the best.
- Please allow me to be sensitive about this one: We know a clipper who makes fun of bad situations, forcing the VTuber he clipped on (in this case, Takanashi Kiara) to clarify her side in the comments of the exact clip. We are not sure if he replied back directly at the talent, but we see a pattern where he denies the existence of her comment, even if one of his fellow clippers is waking him up. He did apologize, but his fellow Vtuber fans are quick to catch up on him.
- VTubers are advised to tread TikTok with caution as they may get stereotyped—or worse, cancelled—because of their culture.
- Fans in Israel have to wait a bit longer as Idol Corp postpones the posting of its character lineup to March 10.
- Animare’s Shiromiya Mimi announces her retirement from her activities due to health issues.
- Project Avatar 2.0’s Enishi Uka announces graduation stream on March 31.
- iDog VTuber Kei.exe graduates with a final stream Saturday, March 5
Good VTuber News: Hololive’s Media Blitz Leading to Super Expo 2022 +more
Despite challenges, Hololive is pushing through with their Super Expo and Link Your Wish concert with a media blitz featuring posters and newspaper ads plus train ads scattered across Japan. Another good news from Hololive is their collaboration with the Tokyo 7th Sisters franchise, featuring Tokino Sora, Hoshimachi Suisei and AZKi.
Also recently, CEO Motoaki Tanigo (YAGOO) is interviewed by the Mainichi Shimbun about Hololive (paywall). Here’s how he recognized fan clipping culture:
[…] In addition, enthusiastic fans have taken the lead in translating Japanese content into other languages, including English, “clipped videos,” in which favorite scenes are cut and edited from YouTube videos, are also attracting new fans. […]
Machine translation of an excerpt from Motoaki Tanigo’s interview with the Mainichi Shimbun
VShojo Charity Stream Ongoing
VShojo is not new to holding charity streams, and they are once again making history in support of Project HOPE, which provides essential medicines and medical supplies to assist Ukrainians. Nyanners is the first to host the charity stream for the group.
Other Good VTuber News
- Mythia Batford, one of Indonesia’s rising indie VTubers, gets a new model for her birthday. (We’ll get to her debut original song in a while)
- Amatsuka Uto greets Twitter with a new update—apparently, she’s doing voice actor work too, which is one of the reasons why she’s inactive for so long.
- Two new programs are now released to the public: VIRTU VTuber Camera for PC and iOS, and VRM Posing Desktop for Steam.
- Nijisanji’s Sukoya Kana hints at returning from her streaming break soon.
Classified Ads, Merch and Music
- Hakos Baelz debuts original song “Play Dice” composed by Camellia
- MyHolo TV opens its doors to Marketing and Graphic Design internships this March
- ANYCOLOR Inc. seeks new graduates to join the company
- UwU Market announces collab lineup for March 2022
- Holostars White Day 2022 goods to be available starting March 7, 2022 6:00pm JST
- Lui Takane covers Kanaria’s MIRA
- KiraKiraKat debuts original song ZERO TO INFINITY
- Mythia Batford debuts original song Cukup (Enough)
News You Can Use: Interesting, Thought-Provoking VTuber News Items
- Include a photo/video with your tweet, then link your stream as a tweet reply
- Ehem, stop making throat clearing a habit before it hurts your throat more
- JP Indie VTuber Rei Tadano shows her earnings and tax report on stream, which helps us show how other VTubers do business.
- VTuber Census for March-April 2022 is now open, statistics will be shared to everyone.
- Nijisanji’s Azura Cecillia does a Genshin Impact stream and made it into a sort-of webinar—complete with a post-event certificate.
- During her uncapped subathon, Ironmouse shares a video from the past: Jim Henson demonstrates the combination of computer graphics and puppeteering, which probably makes him the first virtual YouTuber (?).
Latest Debut Announcements
- A-chan’s junior Harusaki Nodoka joins Hololive (April 1)
- Rhea Ageha of Alterly (March 2)
- Dragon Queen Hane (March 15)
- Azuki.co’s Taro-chan (March 7)
- Emugi/PMGlory (March 13)
- Mei-en Astraphel of HoshiLive (March 5)
- VReverie Generation 1 (March 18 to 20)
- Ironmouse’s familiar, Bubi (February 27)
To close this week’s recap, Twitch clarifies what counts as a stream: Having the stream played in your browser counts. See you in the next recap—and for the love of God, do not open your Discord app on stream unless it’s necessary.
Read more VTuber News Round-Ups here:
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Banner Photo: Momosuzu Nene ©COVER Corp / Aruru Gray ©︎LOY inc. / Lauren Iroas ©ANYCOLOR Inc.
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