General Thread v2: Enhanced Segregation Techniques!

Decided, against my better judgement, to make an account to provide some interesting information.

In short, something is happening inside of the NijiJP community that I have never seen before: collective hallucinations, unprecedented levels of copium, and a brewing distaste towards a portion of the company.

Let's go back to Nov. 1, 2021. The fledgling 'Virtual Talent Academy' initiative was launched, and with it nine students who were appropriately labelled as the '1st Gen'. Among them were some instant hits, but none moreso than one Kaburaki Roco, the 'Golden Child' of VTA.

Even though VTA was only one half-hour stream a week, and they are only PNGs, Roco's viewership often exceeded 1K+ viewers. This is impressive even by current VTA standards, and even more so given that she was achieving this before the initiative went viral with Gen 2's Kuno Orihito.

Suzumiya Sonata silently graduates from the initiative after a few months, and his archives are wiped, leaving 8 people. Ranunculus debut in March 2022 as the all-girls' unit, but Roco is noticeably absent from the group. In July 2022, the leaked Voltaction group are teased through ads displayed in Tokyo train stations, and the remaining four boys debut. In both cases, their VTA archives weren't wiped until the debut announcement was imminent (this is important).

All of the 1st Gen joined Nijisanji - all except for Kaburaki Roco.

Roco remains in VTA when the 17 Gen 2 members arrive, and she is an affixed part of the schedule. Despite the huge competition, Roco remains the most popular girl, and second-most popular student overall. She has developed a tight-knit group of Gachikoi despite the fact that no merch can be sold and no donations can be made.

In October 2022, it was announced that VTA would be going on a two-week break. Everyone assumed it was in preparation of an imminent debut, and things started to spiral out of hand. Fans started waking up early to prowl the train stations in search of ads, people started making twitter circles hunting for info, and they even found what appears to be an empty placeholder twitter handle for Roco.

The break came and went, and nothing happened. That is until the next day, where three archives suddenly vanished without a trace: Kuramochi Meruto, a soft-spoken pro dancer; Warabi Raika, a Yugo-type bishounen artist; and, of course, one Kaburaki Roco.

People start to tweet out that they've been having dreams of Roco's debut, and who their new illustrator is. Some say that they're waiting until the slew of birthdays this week are over so that the announcement doesn't overshadow the merch, and some start planning what train stations they're most likely to run ads in. However, the days keep ticking on, and every day people think that today is the day they are announced.

That optimism is diminishing each day, with fans starting to say that quietly graduating them without a statement will be a breach in trust for the VTA system. Some are speculating that Roco went to VEE's new 'Dev-d' group. Some are straight up saying VTA isn't worth bothering with if she failed because she was the best performer etc.

Whatever the case, the hunt for Kaburaki Roco is starting to turn into something far more than I think corporate anticipated. Their anniversary is next week, and if nothing happens by then, I think we might start seeing some issues.

Phase 2
The Battle for Kaburaki Roco
In the last episode, we discussed the launch of AnyColor's 'Virtual Talent Academy': it's recruitment process, the debut protocol, and the curious case of three missing members.

Before we go on: Yes, these tales are somewhat embellished as I am bored as shit, and it'll soften the blow at the end of this post when I tell people who thought Suisei and Mito's performance of 'Anti-Gravity Girl' was a new Suisei song to find the nearest gun and brain themselves. You don't deserve happiness.

Let's get on with the show.

Our story picks up on Halloween, where Nijisanji announce that they are recruiting for their Gen 3.5, and the audition is open only for those with prior streaming experience. 'Strange', you might think, given the whole M.O. of the system, and even stranger when it's noted that the x.5 recruits don't actually ever show up in VTA, but are instead considered for immediate debut into Nijisanji.

There is method to the madness, though, as greenhorns can very easily benefit from debuting alongside people with experience being left to their own devices, and may feel a sense of security beside someone like that. Whatever reasons may justify it, though, are largely undermined by the fact that VTA Gen 1's top performer is still absent - and if the scouts have determined that she didn't meet the criteria, then can VTA actually be trusted at all?

In the intervening days we have breezed past both the VTA announcement anniversary, and the first stream anniversary today, and still nothing has happened.

Displeasure of the JP fans has started to rise, with some trying to organise emails of complaint towards AnyColor demanding an announcement of either a delay or their official notice of graduation. VTA is much bigger now than it was in the 1st Gen, and this sense of foreboding extends to fans of Orihito Kuno and Kusakabe Azusa - the two current top dogs of VTA - who believe that it would be too much of a deal-breaker if their PNG oshi was terminated without notice, and considering Roco's popularity, they aren't exactly safe.

Now, you may have noticed I threw in the word 'delay' there, and that's because there's actually some weight to it. You see, the most prominent theory in the JP side right now is that this elusive VTA wave was abruptly held back from their debut, as there is a non-zero possibility that their debut song may have been composed by Hidekazu Tanaka of Idolm@ster and MONACA fame, who was recently arrested and charged with attempted stalking and sexual assault of a teenage girl.

Tanaka was arrested on October 24: one day after the archives of the VTA members went down. He has worked with Nijisanji in the past, even as recently as the beginning of last month with the FANTASIA concert. MONACA also worked on the song 'Donbura Konbura Speakers', which is the debut song of Ranunculus - the first VTA wave. It's worthy of note that Tanaka was not part of MONACA then, but it's a throughline of what kind of music they may have wanted.

So, where are we now? Well, AnyColor have given themselves a really interesting problem to have, and I've honestly never seen anything like it. VTA is essentially a public-facing audition process. We get to see the people they have in mind, we get to see the results of their lessons, and we ultimately get to see them join the company proper. But what if, suddenly, people start to not make it? What if that applies to popular people? By what metrics are these people reviewed on behind the scenes if raw viewership isn't enough? Pretending that a member achieving 1K+ viewers never existed at all isn't going down well, and it will continue to get worse as VTA legitimises itself and grows it's audience.

People are speculating that they may debut on Nov. 13, as it would line up with Ranunculus (Mar. 13) and Volta (Jul. 13) in perfect 4 month intervals. There is also a belief that Meruto and Raika did graduate due to their lower performance, but Roco may debut alongside Gen 2.5 (experienced) members.

It's all very messy, but I think a Roco debut will be worth the wait.
* Suisei slander was omitted*

Phase Three
The Disappearance of Kaburaki Roco
We sit on the eve of November 17th, what one may call the 'end of the line' in the Kaburaki Saga: a most fascinating tale where Japanese bureaucratic autism collided with the rampant ouroboros sigil of Otaku hype to unravel a capricious spindle of discord and speculation.

The girl who often vows that she will 'never lose'; gone silent for the best part of a month, with the darker side of perfect OpSec on full display as fans who have spent an entire year supporting her are now left without a trail. Is she okay? Is she continuing her activity elsewhere? The silence is deafening in a way perhaps most V-Tuber fans have come to take for granted, as their professional artists and active PL oshis 'graduate' to spaces we can keep tabs on.

But this tale won't go quietly into the night - that would be too simple - as the mystery surrounding the greatest PNG anime girl to ever grace the internet further deepens, and the chess pieces move towards a wider battle between VTA and the trust of its fans.

Take for example, the following spoken words from Seraph Dazzlegarden, a member of Voltaction and an alumnus of VTA Gen 1:

「人狼やることになりました。 グウェル先輩からお誘いいただいて楽しみにしていてください、 人狼をやります VTA1期生の現状いる組でやりますラナキュラとボルタクション、まあ新人の2グループということで

Taken from his Creators2 stream on Nov. 12, he says that Gwelu-senpai invited him to play a Werewolf game, but he curiously states that 'We will be playing with the current group of VTA Gen 1 graduates, Ranunculus and Voltaction' and then corrects it to 'Well, two groups of newcomers'. The argument here being that Seraph actually let slip that he knows about Roco, as he instinctively described Ranunculus and Voltaction as the 'current' graduates, and then course-corrected to saying 'two newbie groups' which is a very different thing.

The stream in question occurred later that same day on Saturday, Nov. 12 over on Gwelu's channel. This is interesting because Amagase Muyu, another alumnus of VTA Gen 1, also may have made something of a slip:

日曜日に 「わー」 がありますね、はい (中略) 何にもわかんないでしょ?何にも言えないの (中略) 土日はなんかどっちも凄い楽しいことあるまじで めっちゃ楽しいことあるけどその代わり土曜日のこの毎回こその時間にホラゲするのはちょっとなくなる申し訳ないけど ただすごい楽しいことある! びっくりしちゃうかもしれない みんな

This was taken exactly a week earlier, on Nov. 5, where Muyu says that there will be some kind of 'Wow!' moment on Sunday, and that Saturday and Sunday are going to be a lot of fun, but she says she can't say anything about any of it just yet.

We can reasonably assume that her reference to Saturday was the same Werewolf game happening the following week. But what about the Sunday, especially when the 13th is the day that aligned so perfectly with previous VTA debuts? Well, I'm stumped.

Nijisanji is a gargantuan company, and Muyu, as a smaller creator, is prone to falling under my radar despite my efforts to catch as much info as I can, so it's entirely possible that she WAS involved in something on one of those days, but all I could see was a Splatoon 3 collab with the same people she was teamed with during the tournament: Ibrahim, Mao, and Hibari.

In other words, to the best of my knowledge, a 'Wow!' moment on Sunday the 13th never came to pass. Unless she counts the upload of her original VTA debut as a Members-Only piece of content, it never came to pass on Nov. 6 either.

But it doesn't quite end there. Take a look at AnyColor's inquiries page now:

See that red text? That is brand new, and essentially tells people inquiring about VTA to fuck off and go home, implying that the push from fans to get answers that I mentioned in Phase 2 actually occurred behind the scenes, and was voluminous enough to force them to take note.

But why not simply give answers? After all, PNGs or no, 'Nijisanji' or 'VTA', these are entertainers with a growing number of fans investing their time into the program, and they deserve to be notified of graduations as any other fan of any other V-Tuber. Nijisanji recently wrote a graduation announcement of Holo-bound Miyu Ottavia (if their scouts actually know what they're doing). It was very warm, and probably the best announcement either of the two companies have ever done.

It could be part of the contract: keep them safe by not acknowledging their absence and let them pick up on their own terms. Makes sense given the VTA students all seem to be skewing younger and deserve to have their privacy protected as much as possible.

The other, more tantalising possibility that remains, though, is that Kaburaki Roco hasn't actually graduated at all...

Stay tuned.

Phase 3.5
Kaburaki Doko?
This will be something of an in-between post and a refresher. The amount of time this mini-series can continue is limited to the time it'll take for Nijisanji to churn out a new wave and put to bed the fate of VTA's bun-haired starlet; but with no clear gauge on when or where a debut may happen, I feel it's prudent to bring up new info as it arrives.

So first, let's take a step back and take stock of the events as they happened:




At some point in the last week or so, however, a discovery was made that could very well have busted this case wide open, and I have attempted to the best of my ability to verify its legitimacy or, in the case I couldn't do so, dig further to see what I could find, here are my findings:

Recently, three YouTube channels were discovered:
Youtube.com/@KaburakiRoco
Youtube.com/@KuramochiMeruto
Youtube.com/@KoyanagiRou

We will get to the last one in due time. From hereonout, my explanations may become a bit technical. For now, though, take a look at the creation date of the first two accounts. October 24. The day their VODs were privated.

As some of you may know, YouTube @ Handles work more similar to Twitter than they do to Discord/Steam: only you can have that name. Some sharp-eyed people may have also noticed that, when changing your Handle, your channel defaulted to the name you used when you first created the account. It is also important to note that you can customise your Channel URL as you see fit. This is why pretty much every V-Tuber you look at has their original names as their handles - it's because that's the name they used to make the account, and therefore couldn't get sniped.

So what does this all mean? Well, even though I couldn't find channels beyond the three listed above, I did attempt to change my own username to VTA members using the same SurnameForename nomenclature Nijisanji uses. KusakabeAzusa, IshigamiNozomi, TsuyuzakiTsuyu etc. All 'unavailable' to be used, even though such a handle leads to a dead end. I believe this is because VTA preemptively save all of their usernames, and then veil the channels behind random URLs so they can't be found - in short, I believe these channels to legitimately belong to VTA, though I will hold out on the possibility they they may still be fake.

There is one student whose name was available, though: Warabi Raika. I typed in WarabiRaika, WarabiLaika, WallabyRaika, and WallabyLaika. No matches. It's possible their name was changed and that's why they can't be found, but it's also possible that they may have more to do with this mystery than it appears.

But what about the third channel? Koyanagi Rou is a 2nd Gen recruit and, objectively speaking, one of the less popular ones. He's a gamer that posts VALORANT montages on the VTA channel, and his channel was created on Nov. 16 - almost a whole month later.

So my verdict is this: On Oct. 24, the channels were made in preparation for an imminent debut. It is unclear if their channels were public straight away or if that is a new development. Something happened at the same time - either Tanaka's arrest, or the sudden quitting of Warabi Raika - that froze it dead in its tracks. If it was due to Raika, then it would make sense that Rou has been given the call-up to debut in his stead, and the time needed to prepare has thrown the whole fucking schedule way out of shape.

*Timeline omitted - go to post if you want it*

Phase 5
The Sigh of Kaburaki Roco
The current date is Jan. 3, 2023. A new year has greeted us, but the scars of Oct. 7, 2022 still haunt VTA fans to this day.

For the new initiates and/or people who came here from the Homeland in the interim: please refer to my previous schizo posts to Educate Yourself on one of V-Tubing's biggest mysteries of the previous year.
Phase 1: The Mystery of Kaburaki Roco
Phase 2: The Battle for Kaburaki Roco
Phase 3: The Disappearance of Kaburaki Roco
Phase 3.5: Kaburaki Doko?
Phase 4: The Melancholy of Kaburaki Roco

Now that you're all caught up, let's unravel things some more.

In Phases 3.5 and 4, I made headway into figuring out how VTA may possibly keep their YouTube channels hidden in lieu of the new username system that came into place last year.

I came up with the theory that they are likely saving the usernames before an announcement is made, and manually spoofing the Channel URLs so that they can't be found simply by typing in their names using the nomenclature Nijisanji and Hololive have uniformly adopted (SurnameForename). The reason, I believed, that Kuramochi Meruto and Kaburaki Roco were set to public is because a debut was imminent that never came to pass. I could not come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why Koyanagi Rou of Gen 2 was publicly visible over 3 weeks later.

Now, things changed. The twitter account belonging to Kuramochi Meruto has since been deleted, and I cannot find a Twitter handle that leads me to her, meaning that the only surviving account with the ominous 'Maiden Voyage' title is the one allegedly belonging to Roco (@ kaburaki_rotty) which has 1 tweet posted despite no one being there.

So with that, 2/3 of the trio are now effectively missing, but what else is there? Well, take a look at these YouTube channels:










People missing:
• Suzumiya Sonata (Gen 1, indefinite hiatus)
• Warabi Raika (The Missing Three)
• Meano (Gen 2, username taken)
• Takiyama Gungnir (Gen 3)
• Akatsuki Reiya (Gen 3, username taken)

If you consider the fact that one of the two who can't be found is called fucking GUNGNIR and is likely spelled horribly wrong somewhere, the only person who can't be found without a satisfying explanation is Raika. Even Mera, who has had to deal with her tag being filled with chinks posting videos of corpses has an account.

More questions than answers? Maybe. The decision to suddenly make basically every account public is certainly...a decision...and given the lack of subscribers it seems like I'm one of the first to even notice it happened (and THE first for most of them). But if we were to take a step back and consider this in the context of VTA systematically setting aside days to make and store accounts, why would they make Kaburaki Roco and Kuramochi Meruto's account on the day their videos were privated?

The only reasonable answer I have is that Kaburaki Roco and Kuramochi Meruto were - and likely still are - selected to be in the next wave.

The Final Phase
The Return of Don Kaburaki Roco
On Jan. 16, 2023, Nijisanji announced the debut of seven new girls into the ranks of their JP branch. Though not the centre focus of the key visual, the presence of Kaburaki Roco with her mostly unchanged physical appearance was by far the standout moment, as the name 鏑木ろこ surged to #1 Trending in Japan.

The wave debuts without a pre-established name or song - a first for the VTA era - though it's possible this may change shortly after. Full visuals of the members below.


























Tying up the loose ends.
Shortly after her disappearance, the Twitter handle @/65_Kaburaki was found and, due to not being set to private, amassed about 600 followers. In November, two privated accounts @/kaburaki_rotty and @/kuramoti_meruto were found with an ominous 'Maiden Voyage' tag next to their name. It was unclear if these were hoax accounts or legitimate, or a mix of the two.

Today, the @/kaburaki_rotty account is unlocked with the phrase 'てんてんつ' as her name. This word is Japanese for 'Moving from place to place', which implies the account was used to either preserve a secondary username, or was used to transfer the compromised 65_kaburaki account handle to a fresh account (the current Kaburaki account was made this month, so it was 100% moved).

All accounts except Ishigami Nozomi were made on Oct. 24, 2022, implying that JP was supposed to have at least 6 people debut last year and they just added Nozomi in later.

And with that, the Kaburaki Saga is completed, and my four-month investigation and following the blood trail of VTA's every movement has finally come to an end. I'm not the best at info digging compared to other Kiwis or whatever colony this place considers itself to be, but Roco was my favourite VTA and it was a lot of fun working with JP friends to keep on top of what was essentially an accidental ARG of sorts.