This week’s latest VTuber news round-up is a wild ride for sure. While we have fewer updates for this week, it was certainly a good mix of milestones, latest endeavors, as well as peculiar and bad updates. We are currently on the 21st installment of this article series, and we hope to reach it by the end of this year.
To kick off, we certainly have some light moments to share with, such as Haachama’s latest antics, including messaging everyone to be her ‘girlfriend’ or how this WWE mod gives us a rare glimpse of Watame delivering a powerful kick to ‘obliterate’ Subaru in the process.
Either way, let us dive now into this week’s latest update on the VTubing scene.
We’ll start off with a true ugly update: word has spread around the community about a Chinese VTuber by the name of Porin who reappeared on her Bilibili channel after six months of disappearance. In a harrowing and gut-wrenching video update, she explained that her abrupt disappearance started off when she was sold off to a middle-aged woman, possibly to be trafficked or sold to a man for a fixed marriage. Six months after that incident, she has been rescued by local police and has stated that she is now doing well and is seeking medical assistance after getting minor injuries.
Stories like this have dominated mainstream media amidst a growing human trafficking economy. In a report by the BBC, three people have been arrested in the city of Xuzhou in February this year in connection to a woman found chained in a village hut. According to the report, officials first dismissed trafficking claims, but outraged netizens had kept up pressure, with some making daily calls for investigation. We hope Porin is doing well at the moment, and for all out there, please keep safe at all times.
Meanwhile, VTuber agency WACTOR has taken to Twitter their sentiments about one of their talents Mireille Kuuma being another victim of bot spam attacks. Looks like the issue is just growing over time, and we also join the rest of the VTuber community for YouTube to take action on these malicious acts.
Speaking of issues, impostors are still on the rise, as Girl_DM has shared that a certain account named “Christine Lopez” is claiming that she wrote the lore story for the VTuber’s recent lore video. What’s worse is that the issue has ballooned, as multiple bot accounts are now claiming that they wrote the lore story.
Lastly, we have a quick COVID-19 check from Project Kavvaii’s Gwynevere Airi, as well as the sudden announcement from Production Kawaii’s Neena Makurano that she will be graduating from the agency on August 2 this year. In an update stream, she explained that the sudden announcement was made due to her recent promotion on her work. We wish Neena all the best in the future.
We kick off this segment by putting a focus on our favorite 52-hertz whale VTuber Bao, who recently tweeted a thirst tweet dedicated to Blaidd, a half human, half wolf NPC at the popular game title Elden Ring. Recently, the character’s voice actor Scott Arthur did a segment for BuzzFeed Multiplayer on YouTube where he read thirst tweets for Blaidd. There was this one instance on the video where one tweet made Arthur say ‘no way’ and decided not to read it, raising speculations on what the tweet was about. Kotaku got wind of this hilarious segment, highlighting that the tweet was from Bao herself.
Days later, a fan going by the Twitter username of @Demioh22 paid for a personalized video from Scott Arthur himself through the service Cameo, and of course addressed to Bao. As she caught wind of this update, she cut off her recent streaming of Morbius and instead watched the video on stream. If you want to know what happened, the clip below summarizes how hilarious the saga has ended up to be. On one note, good job Bao.
Meanwhile, fan initiatives in the community are going strong, as Studio Tonton has revealed that they are working on a fan music video featuring members of Hololive’s Myth unit. In addition, a fan initiative has been established to buy a billboard spot for the Korean VTuber Aoi Nabi. Fans in Korea can view the ad on the Lotte Young Plaza in Myeongdong, Seoul, South Korea.
In other news, Japanese professional translator and VTuber Kamishiro Taishi has unveiled in his latest stream that he’s starting a ‘workathon’ as a way to catch up with his pending projects piling up. He has explained that this works that for every objective he has finished for each project, 4 hours are added into the stream. We wish Taishi good luck in this upcoming stream.
Other interesting news are as follows:
Let us take a look on some of the more positive updates that we have seen in the VTubing community:
Sidenote from the Section Editor: Going back to VEE, we wonder how the term “veepigenesis” is pronounced—turns out, we’re not the only ones wondering how should it be spoken. We reached out to our contact at Sony Music to know the origin of the word.
“Veepigenesis” (read: vee-pih-jhen-ih-sihs) is a combination of VEE and the biology term epigenesis. The idea behind the term is that both the VEE project and its VTubers will gradually build themselves up over time, just like how a flower grows first as a seed and eventually bloom.
Check out these new music releases:
Also, check out these new merch releases:
Lastly, make sure to check these upcoming VTuber-related events:
Congratulations to the following VTubers for reaching the following milestones:
We would like to close off this VTuber news round-up with a tribute to a fan of Ninomae Ina’nis, Nocturn. As shared online by their brother, Nocturn has passed away after complications related to stage 4 intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Thank you for your time and dedication in this community, you will be missed.
See you all next week.
Featured Image: Bao, Tulsi-Nightmare Madness IV (©VEE), Hyakumantenbara Salome (© ANYCOLOR, Inc.)
Read the Previous Editions of the VTuber News Round-Up:
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