This week’s VTuber News Round-Up talks business: Three major stories happened in Japan—Nijisanji parent ANYCOLOR files an Initial Public Offering, VSPO and Palette Project is folded into Brave Group; and both Hololive Alternative and Holoearth gets updates. Let’s get to our main stories after the jump.
ANYCOLOR is definitely accelerating—5 years after it was formally established, it gained the trust of companies like Sony Music Entertainment Japan and ITOCHU Corporation (based on its Series B funding round). On June 8, the company behind the Nijisanji VTuber project filed an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the Growth Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under stock code 5032 (JPY 6,510 ▲ +18.15%).
So, what’s the reason for the IPO? CEO Riku Tazumi said this in a video posted the same day as the listing: “From here, we would like to grow as an entertainment company that represents Japan and plays an active role in the world.”
The company’s confidence is expressed in its Investment Highlights, which include the attractiveness of the Nijisanji brand and building a competitive advantage in the virtual world. Underwriting the IPO are Daiwa Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. Detailed information about the listing is available at the JPX Group website.
If you ask me, I still find it a bit funny that Hyakumantenbara Salome got her million-subscriber milestone before ANYCOLOR filed its IPO.
Another milestone in the VTuber scene has been made: Brave Group has acquired Virtual Entertainment Co., Ltd., and MateReal Co., Ltd. This deal adds the game-centric Virtual eSports Project and virtual idols from Palette Project into Brave’s roster of VTuber properties.
In a press release posted June 7, Brave Group CEO Keito Noguchi shares that while this is a sudden announcement for the public, negotiations for this deal took a year. The merger and acquisition will organize Brave Group into 6 business units. Virtual Entertainment and MateReal retain its management of VSPO and Palette Project respectively. Noguchi stays as CEO / representative director, Kazuyoshi Hoshi (from Virtual Entertainment) enters as a new director, and Kyuyon Kim (from MateReal) will head the group’s global business division.
The company raised 1.37 billion yen in capital from Japanese domestic companies, overseas investment funds and individual investors in order to expand their business. Their mission is to “strike wonder in 8 billion hearts.” A day before this announcement, Brave Group spun off its metaverse marketing business into a new subsidiary, MetaLab Co., Ltd. The new company will handle services based on the metaverse-building Brave Engine.
Last but not least is the release of the second teaser for Hololive Alternative. A new character is also added—her face was not seen until the release of Concept Movie Vol. 1. The new character is then revealed to be the female character avatar for the Holoearth game, and she’s already on Twitter. Holoearth TV also starts broadcasting today.
VTuber Momonya Miyui has been suspended from YouTube June 2 for breaking community guidelines. She already appealed the decision and even raised the appeal to @TeamYouTube on Twitter: “It’s probably due to the changes in ASMR rules, but I’m not breaking them,” she tweeted in English. The more surprising thing about her suspension is that a certain Kaila slid into her DMs and says she provides “account restoration services” with a fee—280 US dollars. She has then alerted her followers on Twitter about this ugly matter. For now, she’s streaming on Twitch.
CodeMiko just had a quad-whammy this week: She got temporarily banned on Twitch, then a “Tiktoker” tried to get inside their current place of residence. The reason? He used to live there. “I can’t believe the entitlement of some influencers,” Miko tweeted in dismay. What an ugly prank if it was one. The day after, she tweeted that she’ll need to take some time: “Things have been hard lately.” Just an hour before we were set to release this round-up, the architect posted a photo of her lump in the left eyebrow. Ouch.
The Bilibili Comics hashtag spam hit several VTubers. Elira Pendora tweets her concern as her art tag is taken over. There’s an explanation for this: “[…] It relies on an automated social engineering attack. The app offers rewards to users in order to convince them to post the spam.”
It has come to our attention that VTubers are testing positive for COVID-19: Nina Kosaka, Araka Luto, Yoclesh, Yuniiho, Lumi and 2win. Senz, who joined Lumi and 2win as guests at Dreamhack Dallas, asks fans who visited their meet and greets to stay safe. While Bao the Whale tested negative for COVID, she got the cold. We wish everyone gets well soon.
Over at Nijisanji, Mashiro is banned from YouTube, and management is working to have the channel restored. This alarmed VTubers who are doing ASMR streams, and they are taking measures to prevent getting suspended as well. Nijisanji fellow Hina Asuka tweeted that her ASMR videos will be made private as her channel may be affected by a change in the platform’s policies.
According to YouTube’s child safety policy page, if a YouTuber’s content has minors in it, don’t post content that features minors and meets one or more of the following: “[…] Shows activities that could draw undesired attention to the minor, such as performing body contortions or ASMR.” The thing is, the platform can mistake some VTubers as minors—and in the case of Mashiro, he looks like one.
We have more news items in this section:
It has been a tradition for some Comiket visitors to check which series dominate the doujin/indie art expo, such as Azur Lane vs Touhou vs the Fate/ franchise, but we steer away from that as VTubers will have a dedicated space at Comiket 100 this August. In Airani Iofifteen‘s tweet, a portion of West Hall 1 will be dedicated to VTubers. The Genre Code List published on the Comiket 100 website shows that, at present, VTubers are set to cover the つ (Tsu) to め (Me) booths on Day 1 and is assigned the Code 222. This arrangement is yet to be finalized.
Meanwhile, Bilibili’s global arm has successfully invited VTubers to be part of their platform, such as Polariz Project’s YanchaGoGo. There, they are called VCreators. Currently, 30 of these virtual streamers are participating in its VCreator Stars Ranking campaign where users can complete tasks to vote for their favorite, all done using the Bilibili Global app. Even the Philippines division has a promo video for the local VCreators.
Here are the other interesting VTuber tidbits:
Good news for fans of VTuber Nana Kagura: She’s working as an illustrator for a special VShojo project. There are no further details at the moment, but we consider this a collaboration between VTubers.
Last weekend at Dreamhack Dallas, Bao and xQc had an air hockey battle, and Bao won. Speaking of winners, have you heard of Oil Barons? This term we saw from anime also applies to the mega-donors in VTuber streams. Zentreya and Haruka Karibu are among the ones who have been blessed by oil barons recently.
Other Good VTuber News this week include:
We have a lot to celebrate this week, from the recent debuts to the milestones reached. Congratulations to the following:
Production Kawaii opens auditions for its third generation. Cloud Horizon based in Taiwan has also posted an open audition for VTubers (although the registration form is written in Traditional Chinese).
To cap off this week’s VTuber News Round-Up, we leave you with a VTubing flowchart from Kyou and a reflection from Hiiragi Yuu on how easily accessible broadcasting software and other VTuber tools are. Catch you all next week!
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Banner Photo: Tsukino Mito © ANYCOLOR, Inc. / Tsunomaki Watame © 2016 COVER Corp. / Cocoa Domyoji ©RIOT MUSIC