My honest take on the whole situation is disappointment.
I do not hate Niji, nor had I for the longest time thought that they were better off gone from the industry (the current situation makes me unable to in good faith state that they aren't absolutely deplorable, and shouldn't change for the better or go bankrupt, but that comes from a place of genuine distaste for their practices specifically, not some overgeneralized hatred of corpos or japan or "idol culture") in general I like Niji a lot better than many things in the modern vtuber industry. While they never followed exactly on the ideals which I view a "true vtubing" (as cringe as that is to put into words), they were still a historically important, industry changing, good rival to Hololive and an alternative which offered a distinct, but still not too dissimilar from the parameters established by the 2016-2019 era industry, form of content.
I will not claim that I haven't been tribalistic, we all are in some way as humans, I have taken unfair shots at Niji, kicked them and their fans when they were down, made REALLY bad faith arguments against them, looped and relooped on issues which in other contexts would've been rightly written off as non-problematic. But as I said before, Niji, in a content-wise assessment removed from their management practices, is an agency I would take over basically anything else on the market today. I dislike how the industry (mainly in the west) seems to be changing, something which I've made obvious through some of my less glamorous posts as of late (yes I am that painfully self aware). All of the coomer-pandering and fleshtubing and spitting on the standards of corpos as morally bankrupt as seen through a western lens by bad actors who never cared in the first place really doesn't sit well with me.
I am truly disappointed that Niji had to shoot themselves in the foot and fumble things so badly, that they vindicate all of this "vtubing-less vtubing" and the slow and gradual degradation and brushing away of everything that made the early years of the industry what it was. Now we see vtubing is just a dumb gimmick, just streamers with avatars that we can obsess over and pick the smallest one to play some perverse game of "groom the desperate girl" and nothing more, what is even the point?
I defend Niji because I do not like circlejerking in discussions, when everyone agrees then what is even the point of having a discussion anymore? I do not like it when conversations devolve into a rat-race to see who can be the most hateful or """correct""" to prove their virtue and moral superiority, when people start making shit up or stomping on the standards they once held to get a quick shot of clout, that NEEDS to be stopped. I don't like Niji, but I don't hate them either, I wish they were a better rival to Holo and kept up the legacy of the old corpo powerhouses, but at some point nitpicking their faults and laughing at them for the thousandth time gets boring. Call it contrarianism or what have you but if a point has been made I do not see the purpose in restating it.
