The Jeopardy of VTubing in 2024

Last weekend, while Emiko Hosokawa is recovering from her age-related personal incidents, news of another incident stung her – and this time it involved a major agency in the VTubing industry:

NIJISANJI – one of the biggest VTuber agencies – recently got into yet another incident involving its EN branch’s talents. According to many fan-compiled news sources and rumors, it was alleged that a male Liver (the agency’s term for a VTuber) was accused of being a sexual predator by his fellow Livers – and days after news of the allegations got out, a female Liver announced her indefinite hiatus, leading fans to speculate that the incident is not going to end well with her possible termination due for early 2025 while leaving said male Liver intact, given that there are also allegations that she was the person who told others that the male NIJISANJI talent engaged in sexual harassment.

While NIJISANJI is no stranger to graduation / termination-related controversies, such as the agency’s infamous decision to terminate female Liver Selen Tatsuki back in early 2024, Hosokawa is concerned that if this incident ended with the graduation or termination of the aforementioned female Liver but leaving the alleged abusive Liver intact, it would leave a social stigma towards VTubers that would be incredibly difficult to heal, as well as concerns that if said scenario ever happen the VTuber industry would be at each other’s throats and their hate might spill to Ciel’s planned debut on July 2025 (earliest timeframe estimated), which would potentially force Ciel to retire prematurely.

In a personal statement, Hosokawa has stated that she is now more determined to put all her time and effort into Ciel – even if it means that she might have to abandon her studies – in an attempt to outwork the sour grapes in the industry and ultimately absolve the whole scene. “I cannot let them overrun the scene,” she said. One previously not widely-known fact about her VTuber venture is that she actually started it to “cure” today’s youths of the so-called “corruption” of TikTok-hosted memetic content, the subject matter of which has been a target of criticism from Hosokawa due to their indecency and inferior quality. “We are risking losing Gen Alpha to “brain rot” that would turn them into mindless zombies, and my mission is to bring them back to the “wholesome” media that us Zoomers and Millennials were used to during our childhoods” – Hosokawa remarked.