I never understood why Niji is the way it is. It just doesn't make sense to me why they are so self-destructive.
Were they always like this? How did nobody really bring it up for 5 years? Was all of their success just a fluke or genuine passion and hard work?
Why did EN take so long to implode if things were so horrible? Why did anyone in their right mind sign that contract?
Is Holo like this too? Is it possible to make a vtuber agency without being terrible? Why has nobody done it if so?
Who actually caused all of the issues? The talent? Management? The people at HQ? The suits? and why did it suddenly become worse? or was it always that bad?
Ever since all of the shit started coming out I feel like there is a lot of things we still don't know. Going "they're evil, that's it" does not satisfy me as a conclusion. There is this big disconnect between early Niji and current Niji, maybe there's a lot of things I can't connect to the puzzle because their JP branch never appealed to the west.
I understand Holo's fuck ups very well, they are logical and have plausible explanations. Coco was harassed and mismanaged, Rushia was menhera, Mel broke contract. Holo was very obviously going through growing pains in 2020-2021, and that led to a lot of incompetent/negligent handling of situations, that has since gotten better and is consistent with the agency's growth and number of employees. Niji just... had the world and then imploded, I feel like the root cause of the issues has never been actually revealed to us.
As the proposer of the Harry rrat:
Nijisanji has always been hands off for their kaigai branches and let they do whatever they want (except for collabing with Hololive EN/Kson). NijiEN found success because anycolor didn't touched them. But it changed after anycolor saw how successful Luxiem was, and anycolor started micromanaging EN by bringing in Harry.
While the cracks of a dysfunctional community were always there, with people shittalking others behind their back, they were held on by incredibly people like Pomu & Nina who pasted the fragments of the company together into a complete picture. Luca was also actively holding it together as you can see Scarle coming onto him for advice (though his advice aren't from his own but from his mod). The place was clique-y but there is a still sense of unity. But we see what happened, as Nijisanji shirks more responsibility into their hands and people started openly backstab each other, enabled by the new management, they crumbled under the increasing pressure and left. Pomu, the one affiliating herself with the brand the most, was legit scarred by Harry & his goons.
Sayu was clearly micromanaged by Niji and every single tiny mistake of her result in stealth suspension, harry started wielding his authority around thinking he's the best businessman ever. And it probs the same case for everyone other talents. When there is that much of a big presence of control, creativity got stifled and it shows, nijisanji stopped being interesting. Except for Selen who fought against all odds and didn't give a fuck what Harry thinks.
How did holo not land a Harry? Pure luck and not nepotism I guess.
>Why did anyone in their right mind sign that contract?
NEXAS has like 40 vtubers now, you tell me, their contract are definitely way worse.
Or just look at faze clan who takes aways 90% of all earnings, people still sign their contract.
Nijisanji is far more palatable compared to those contract wise. And niji actually has a prospect for growth.
Tl;dr they always like this. Company was held back from explosion by incredible people, whom finally got crushed from too much responsibility and left.
Holo is shockingly transparent for a JP company, to the point where their two terminations didnt leave a sour taste and their amicable graduations, even Vesper and Magni, left them not looking any terrible at all, meanwhile, Niji has the bizzare trend of attempting to justify their decisions to the public instead of just explaining them in the most milquetoast or amicable ways possible, its all just a wierd rot from the top that seemingly made everyone else fuck off.
Holo is not transparent at all. While I do shit on aviel for fake being transparent. Nothing is really know about hololive, you referenced vesper and magni but Holo never even mentioned why they left. Everything about holo is assumptions from fans. Every time they had a termination they just default into the "People leaked something they shouldn't have" excuse, yet we never see anything actually getting leaked. It's called a walled garden for a reason, while people started going back and forth from the garden, it's still walled as hell. No information can escape. There probs were frictions as well but holo managed to hide it (just take one look at mikeneko and tell me she never clashed against someone during her 3 years)
The only time we have any concrete figure from holo was because an ex-talent, Coco, vague posting about nijisanji. Hololive can survive yab is because of years of building good will, the China shit cemented that Holo will side and care about the talent, and half of it comes from Fubuki's effort, and then YAGOO planted his balls all over the IR report saying "I don't care about your opinion or nijisanji, we will continue treasuring the talents"
Why is hololive the way it is? Pure luck, landing a Yagoo and staffers who actually cares.
