VTuber agency Nijisanji has come under fire for privating a stream uploaded by Pomu Rainpuff where the graduated talent opened up to her fans revealing that a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” was turned down by management.
It has been a difficult few weeks for VTuber fans with the industry seeing several major talents graduate. In addition to the termination of Hololive’s Yozora Mel, two of its biggest losses were Nijisanji’s Mika Melatika and Pomu Rainpuff.
After Pomu graduated from Nijisanji, all of her Member-only streams were made public meaning anyone can view them. In one affected stream, the ex-Nijisanji Liver stated while crying that she had missed out on a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” after it was turned down by management.
She went on to claim that management had refused to negotiate after rejecting the idea. While it isn’t certain this played a role in her eventual graduation, fans were already speculating that the two are related and the stream being privated has only made the situation more tense.
Privated Pomu Rainpuff stream leaves VTuber fans furious
As first spotted by FalseEyeD, Nijisanji privated Pomu Rainpuff’s revealing stream following criticism from the VTuber community. Pomu’s public video count dropped from 913 to 912, showing that this was the only stream affected.
Furious by the privatizing of the emotional stream, members of the VTuber community went to voice their anger on Reddit slamming the agency in the process.
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The most upvoted comment exclaimed, “These dumb motherf**kers clearly do not understand the Streisand effect. The damage from the clip getting out there was already done, privating it is just going to increase the damage by making people talk about it more!”
Others agreed with this sentiment commenting, “Yikes all around. It’s like trying to put out a fire you caused, but all you’re doing is making it worse by trying to,” and “The damage control is real.”
Even those wanting to defend Nijisanji found themselves struggling to do so, “Ouch. I know talents like Millie defend Nijisanji and perhaps the Japanese side is well run but it’s tough to defend the company when things like this happen.”
Looking to potentially explain why Nijisanji made this decision, another reply stated, “For those surprised this is standard protocol for public facing Japanese businesses. It is part of the business culture, and I’ve seen things like this in engineering, science and entertainment corporations out of Japan.”
While Nijisanji fans were positive about the ambitious “acting-focus” auditions and the success of Koshien 2023, criticism of the agency’s actions is becoming an increasingly common occurrence. Similar criticism was angled at Nijisanji after Selen Tatsuki’s latest cover song was also privated in December 2023.