Yuy returns, NIJISANJI staff speaks up

Oh hi! Looks like I didn't post last week, huh?
Well, I didn't have the time and thought that maybe posting on Mondays would be better (I still think so) but huh… yeah, that didn't happen.

Anyway, let's look over some recent news!

Yuy is back, baby!

On Saturday, September 13th, YUY_IX went live on both Twitch and YouTube (that's new) with a debut of her new model after a 7-month break.

This stream had a huge attendance, the end of her stream averaged 3K viewers on Twitch and 2K on YouTube. Before her hiatus, she would be under or at 1K monthly since her July 2024 boom.

Unfortunately, changes are to be expected. Yuy made it clear that she will stream for fewer hours and if her health allows it, as she's currently having weekly medical appointments.

For context, she announced back in March that she would need to go on hiatus, after not being able to go live for almost a month, citing neck pains and having trouble eating, drinking and sleeping, which required her to get hospitalized at some point.

In mid-July, she shares that she has an esophageal tumor (likely non-cancerous), with the hope of coming back later that month. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

And on September 5th, she announces her comeback, with a trailer on September 7th.

Later today (September 14th), she'll go live on a stream titled "Health and Life Update". You can catch this stream on her Twitch /YUY_IX, or here:

Power harassment and abuse at NIJISANJI?

This took many people by surprise, and it's no wonder that the Twitter account was wiped out since then, as venting so much information about a company to the public is rare in Japan due to anti-defamation laws.

On September 2nd, a woman claiming to work (or having worked?) at NIJISANJI in their Business IP Planning department made a new Twitter account under the name of Nanashino [ナナシノ] and started to post multiple claims, along with some chat messages from other staff and talents, including Higuchi Kaede, and even posted parts of her driver's license and what appears to be a "disability certificate" issued in Tokyo.

Here's a copy of some of the tweets (machine-translated). The first one was quoting Riku Tazumi, the CEO of ANYCOLOR Inc. (the parent company of NIJISANJI), where he shared about them being approved for listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

When I experienced power harassment at ANYCOLOR Inc., the president didn't help me.
Back when it was still Ichikara Inc. (2018), I was told to take a leave of absence from university and fully commit to the company. I loved the work so much that I did as I was told. As a result, I was entrusted with overseeing the intellectual property business, but

I was subjected to power harassment (constant intimidating; behavior, verbal abuse, and violence within the workplace) by my blonde boss, who joined the company midway through the year, and I was no longer able to do my job as I wanted. No matter how many three-way meetings I had with Tasumi-san [田角さん] and Iwanaga-san [岩永さん], there was no improvement. I don't have social insurance, I can't receive unemployment benefits, and I'm still unable to work due to depression, and I'm still receiving treatment.

They have never apologized, and I met with the legal department about the Incident, but they said they would not agree to a settlement. Well, the statute of limitations has expired. There's no need to agree to it. Tasumi-san [田角さん] is still working, and I received testimony from Fumoto-san [麓さん] (who worked with me at the time), who was an executive until recently, acknowledging that there had been various instances of consideration and power harassment.

I'm in the company, but it seems they're not interested in responding, so I decided to write about it here. The reason I'm bringing this up now is because my depression has only recently gone into remission. I don't want them to pretend that the power harassment of the past never happened and say things like "it was a magical experience" or "they dealt with it with compassion".

Quoting the second tweet (paragraph here), the regularly mentioned Kusunoki Yuro [楠ゆろ] (@yuro_fusegi) added:

By the way, the types of verbal and physical abuse she experienced included:
"Why don't you guys stay overnight at the office?"
"That's why you can't do your job!"
Walking around the office (everyday) yelling abusive comments like, "Yu-san, you have a weak mental state, so you shouldn't sleep,"
Grabbed their own coworker by the collar and threatened them

And so on, too many to list.

After clearing up the Twitter account, they left this post.

Regarding the matter of workplace harassment and other issues I have been posting about recently, I am currently reconsidering legal action, and therefore, I have deleted the series of related posts.

I will provide an update again when there is further progress.

Thank you very much for all your advice.
Best regards.

This event will likely be kicking off some form of legal action, either from her or ANYCOLOR, so we might not hear anything about this for a while.

AKA Virtual EN's "Perfruor" talents are leaving

This could be seen as almost the end of the English branch of AKA Virtual, with only Sae Saotome still remaining active as of publishing (she previously left the group to be directly under AKA Virtual EN).

On August 31st, AKA Virtual EN's Twitter shared the news that the voice actresses behind Vierra Vanilla, Dolly Doppel, and Pirouella will be stepping away from their roles. Graduation livestreams were held on September 10th.

Confused about "Voice Actresses"? It's OK, there's a gap in the VTubing culture between what we're used to seeing in general EN, JP, and ID corpos (I should note that AKA Virtual is based in Tokyo, but all their main talents speak Indonesian). While many JP corpos did that in the past, it has become way more rare since VTubers are operating more and more as individual personalities that are tightly connected to the person behind them than idols, who are more controlled characters.

Whether doing this with talents targeted to a broader audience will work is still to be seen. But if we see those names in the future, we'll have to remember that those will be like a reboot of the characters.

If you want to follow the people behind them, they have shared where they were going and are creating a new indie group, "PERFERO", debuting on September 15th:

• Vierra Vanilla: Viva Violette
• Dolly Doppel: Kira Killjoy
• Pirouella: Peni Qubit

Specialite EN shuts down

… thankfully, this is not the end for their talents.

On September 9th (JST), their English Twitter account shared that Specialite EN will cease operation on October 6th. All talents will keep their IP and can continue as indies.

In a reply to this announcement, linking to the Twitter account of each talent, they also note that Specialite JP isn't affected by this and will be continuing.

🫡 for another corpo.

And in short news…

Up until now, I didn't share the news that I wouldn't write more than a paragraph on it. Well, let's try to change that and do like many other newsletters with a wall of one-liner news at the end!

(Re)Debuts
(doesn't include active talents getting new models)

• Uniraid, a small JP corpo, debuts their "Liemel" wave with 6 talents. (YouTube Playlist)
• Féileacán Cú is back to being indie and debuted on 9/1. (YouTube)
• Yukami Reiichi, an Indonesian indie, officially debuted on 9/1. (YouTube)
• Bossymoon, who was able to buy her Scarlett Flameheart IP from VReverie, redebuts as Vylett Moonheart. (YouTube)
• Marie☆FD, back to being indie, will debut on 9/20. (@MariieFD)
• re;BON, a new JP corpo made by Aoi Sakura, shares their first 9 talents who will be in four groups (roughly translated as "Cute Voices", "Music", "Monsters", and "Boys"), with the first two debuting on 9/24 and the rest on 10/1. (PR TIMES / @rebon_c)

Graduations

• Minazuki Mana (VOLs) graduated on 8/31. (@minazukimana_en)
• Prism Splay, indie, graduated on 8/31. (@PrismSplay)
• Vesper, buggy indie, graduated on 9/7 due to health issues. (She was previously featured in this blog, and I'm quite sad.) (@buggyvesper)
• Lala Alberich (AKA Virtual) graduated on 9/10, after announcing her hiatus a month prior due to depression. (@AKAVirtualOnAir)
• Mirumika Utsutsu and Fumizuki Kanna (Vebop Project) will graduate on 9/21, the day their current contracts expire. (@vebop_project).
• Hayami Kurayami (BondliveEN, Iriam US) graduates on 9/30 and will go indie. (@HayamiKurayami)
• Gwelu Os Gar (NIJISANJI) will graduate on 10/9. He reached a million subscribers on 9/12, the 11th to do so in NIJISANJI. (@Gwelu_os_gar)

Original Music

• Mori Calliope (hololive English) and KAF released a collaborative original song, "Light". This is part of KAF's ongoing "Suite 2" series. (@kaf_info_en / YouTube)
• Nakiri Ayame (hololive) released her original song "Hanafubuki" ("Flower Snow"). (@hololiveRECORDS / YouTube)
• Shishiro Botan and Tokoyami Towa (both from hololive) released "Kimi to Akashita Yoru" ("The night I revealed with you") made for the "Ashiimo-shaka" manga, currently serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine. (@hololiveRECORDS / YouTube)
• Shishiro Botan (hololive) also released a song for her birthday, "がおってこ！" ("Gaotteko!"). (YouTube)
• Pavolia Reine (hololive Indonesia) released a song for her birthday as well, "Figure It Out". (YouTube)
• Todoroki Hajime (hololive DEV_IS) released "ちゃちゃもにゃ" ("Chachamonya") for her birthday. JDON MY SOUL (YouTube)
• And to end the birthday-releases streak, Mori Calliope (hololive English) released "Orpheus", for her group's 5th year. (YouTube)
• Kobo Kanaeru (hololive Indonesia) released "Fond Memories". (YouTube)
• hololive DEV_IS' ReGLOSS will release their second album "Snapshot" on 11/12. (@hololivetv)
• Kizuna AI released "おまじない" ("Magic Spell"). (YouTube)
• Nene Amano released an original song, "3AM". (YouTube)
• Nyanners and Veibae released "B!TCH". The MV was animated by Kanauru, and the music was composed by Lord Aethelstan. (YouTube)
• Tomoe Umari released her first original song, "Fine Day". (YouTube)

And in general

• Rita Kamishiro joins Lucid Multimedia. (@welcometolucid)
• Tomoe Umari leaves V-Dere. She's also celebrating her 3 years and debuted a 3.0 model. (@UmariTomoe / @VirtualDere / @UmariTomoe)
• Saiiren leaves Mythic Talent. (@xsaiiren)
• Nerissa Ravencroft (hololive English) will collab with talents from LUVITA, a Korean corpo, on 9/17. (SOOP Post)
• Kobo Kanaeru (hololive Indonesia) is singing the OP of the Gnosia anime. The music was made by MAISONdes, along with Giga and TeddyLoid, and also features Kasane Teto (yes, the red twin-drills UTAU).
• Miwabelle (Glitch Stars) joins Sega's SEA Ambassador Program. (@Miwabelle1)
• Luca Kaneshiro (NIJISANJI EN) announces VCraft Enchanted, a limited-time modded Minecraft RP server for English speaking VTubers. There's quite a few indies and talents from small-ish corpos (First Stage Productions, VSPO!, Globie, Aegis-Link, Neoporte, Specialite EN, ex-production kawaii, ex-Prism, …) who have announced being part of it. (@luca_kanashiro)
• Chrono Gear: Warden of Time, a game featuring Ouro Kronii (hololive English) and published by holo Indie, was released. (Steam)
• To celebrate five years of hololive English -Myth-, a 3D concert titled "Fortune Spinner" was announced to take place on 9/20, streaming for free on the official hololive English channel. (@hololive_En)
• hololive DEV_IS' ReGLOSS will be having their first live concert on 12/16 at the Ariake Arena (Kōtō-ku, Tokyo, Japan). (@hololivetv / Website)

Closing words

And that's it for this week!

Consider Yuy as the featured chuuba of the week. I'm so glad she's back, I didn't notice how much I missed her until yesterday.

See ya~