I wouldn't call it a deathblow, but as a long time NijiEN fan I'm not really "attached" to the brand anymore. Pomu was my main oshi of the branch and she's (going to be) gone. I like Rosemi and Victoria but not as much as Pomu. I do hope Mint comes back from heaven though rather than try to rebrand as something else (I would hate it if she turned into a real knife-ear).
Not a deathblow, maybe, but definitely a paradigm shift. There will almost assuredly be livers who follow suit and a large portion of the fanbase will be alienated by this, as well.
Definitely a hit to more of their already declining reputation. Sales on the other hand, we'll see how they fair throughout the next quarterly financial reports and stuff.
For the speculation of people who could graduate? I think depends on whether or not their mindset is "I cannot achieve what I want to achieve in Niji". Looking at the graduates in Niji that's the pattern I've seen because:
- Mysta: Now he's doing more reacts and trying to do a stream with his actual face, he apparently reacted to his old videos with his actual face on it, things like these Niji would never allow
- Nina: Imposter syndrome, so she couldn't achieve what possibly she thought was expected of her known group of people.
- Even gonna bring that dude Yugo in here, the dude was more of a music person so being in Niji and not being able to use the resources they had, it was better for them to go indie
So if we go off of this, it makes sense that Pomu is graduating, clearly the idol shit she wants to do is not achievable in Niji with the lack of 3D stuff they were doing. And going off of that I think Selen is definitely a strong possibility on who's next, the confines of Niji isn't doing her justice now with the goals she wants to achieve.
Not sure about anybody else who feels as though the confines of Niji isn't gonna help them do what they want to do.
ive said it before ill say it again Ninji will eventually have to pull out of the EN market if they dont fix their shit fast.
NijiEN will be merging with the main branch? Ex-EN when?
There are still NijiEN talents that i like and still want to keep supporting but at this point, if they graduate i would honestly feel happy for them. I hope Selen goes to VSPO
If we're going to talk about whether or not EN would merge we would have to see, given the precedent of EX-ID,
audition cancellation. I think NijiID was in the midst of doing a wave 7? audition when the merge announcement happened and they canceled the audition. The actor-focused auditions for EN closed in early December so I think it's still a possibility EN would have waves.
I remember talking about Japanese entertainment stuff with a Japanese friend awhile back and they said big changes or big shows tend to happen around April or October, which is right around when the Spring season of content or the Fall season of content starts happening. So if we're talking about the earliest possibility of when a merge would happen, it would be in April.
Given that the announcement of the ID merge was in February 17th and that the merge would happen on April 15th, February is when we should keep an eye on announcements.
But it would be a fucking terrible blow to their stocks imo: pulling out of overseas market when there are rival companies that are doing well or smaller companies doing even better than you?
Yikes. Stockholders would definitely take note on that.