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.
