Weekly NewsDrop #31—April 29, 2023

Here's the latest in VTubing this week:

• EIEN Project's Riifu Evergreen's activities have come to a sudden stop,
• Silvervale and Vei have left VShojo,
• Phase Connect terminates Phase Invader Fuura Yuri for "multiple, repeated breaches,"
• Cover Corporation revises its full-year earnings forecast just before it makes its earnings call this May, and
• Hololive City! We'll tell you what we know so far.

We start talking about the news after the jump, but first—

The Latest on NewsDrop

We are on a rrrrrrooooollll this time, as we don't expect a lot of posts to be published this week.

• Malaysia: This weekend is Anime Fest Plus, which will host Hololive Meet, Alban Knox, and the full MyHolo TV roster.
• Canada: Anime North will host 28 VTubers this year.
• Philippines: Highlights from ONLive, the Philippines' first VTuber convention.
• Indonesia: Comic Frontier 16 is coming up next weekend—and NewsDrop has teamed up with local media Nawala Karsa (NK) to bring VTuber-related stories from the said-event to the worldwide audience.
• Expect something different in Selen Tatsuki's streaming content as she solves her creative rut.
• Ironmouse's Waifu Jam will be on osu!—you decide what the beatmap will look like.
• Luxiem finally gets new outfits in another historical, record-breaking moment in VTuber history! Whose look is your best pick?
• On the first episode of Behind the Model with Ducky: Cornelius LOW from Malaysia talks about kayfabe in wrestling and VTubing.
• On the Spotlight: Zone Check One, a new VTuber consulting agency.

Here's the latest update for key VTuber players in the Japanese stock market:

Biggest VTuber News of the Week

Just as we were about to write this newsletter in time for the weekend release, EIEN Project's Riifu Evergreen's activities have come to a sudden stop, as she submits her terminal leave from the agency.

• We understand that this terminal leave is a resignation on Riifu's part. We have yet to understand the whole matter as we hear from EIEN management soon.

Riifu Evergreen’s Activities Have Come to an End

NewsDrop understands that the talent has resigned from the agency effective immediately.

VTuber NewsDropJay Agonoy

In a first for VShojo, its talents Silvervale and Vei did not renew their contracts and therefore leaving the company. As they were indie VTubers before joining, they leave the group as indies.

• We got a glimpse of Silvervale's stream following the said announcement—"[...] staying with VShojo was not the best option for me, or my business, financially or emotionally, or mentally, going forward [...]". Said stream has been taken off Twitch. Vei echoed the same sentiment on Twitter.
• TVS has an extended look at this matter, which sparked conversations online.

Silvervale and Vei Leave VShojo, Continue As Indies

The VTubers chose not to renew their contracts with the agency, will move forward as independent creators.

VTuber NewsDropJay Agonoy

As Phase Connect nears its second year of operation, it terminates Fuura Yuri for "multiple, repeated breaches," a first in the agency's history.

• Following the termination, Yuri's content will be taken offline by May 1.
• For the record, Phase Connect adopted Yuri (then known as Amaris Yuri) and Lumi Kaneko to form the Phase Invaders generation. Both went independent for a while following their exit from the then-CyberLive agency.

Fuura Yuri Terminated From Phase Connect For Contract Breaches

Phase Connect has severed ties with Fuura Yuri after a year following “multiple, repeated breaches” of contract.

VTuber NewsDropAndrew Amos

In Business: Cover Corporation revises its full-year earnings forecast just before it makes its earnings call this May:

On the other hand, amidst the continuously increasing awareness and popularity of VTuber and the Company’s IP through daily activities and various promotional measures, the performance progress for the single month in March substantially exceeded the budget as the latest measures taken were favorable and outperformed the demand projected in advance.

• Activities such as Hololive Super Expo and 4th Fes, plus merch sales and collaborations with brands contributed to the company's upward revision of its earnings forecast.
• In other words, Cover now looks forward to a gross increase in revenue this year.

We watched the Hololive City announcement stream last night, and we learned that Hololive is partnering with Tokyo Dome City, an amusement park just beside the popular Tokyo Dome concert venue.

• Hololive teams up with the Yomiuri Giants baseball team for one game happening August 1 at 6pm, as the Giants battle Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
• Themed travel tour packages under the name "Hololive Airlines" will be offered to interested tourists.

In Other News

• Canada: Series Ai's Cyber Sakura is currently happening this weekend. Selen Tatsuki, select MyHolo TV and Phase Connect talents and indie VTubers FeFe, Ririsya and Miori Celesta are set to appear this weekend...
• ...but MyHolo TV released an urgent announcement—Woozie Wannai will not be able to attend Cyber Sakura and Anime Fest Plus due to health-related matters.
• Indonesia: Nakama Virtual (Nawala Karsa's sister VTuber group) will release its set of 3D figures at Comifuro 16.
• Also in Indonesia: Voice talent for Yorukaze Productions' Shizuha Fukurou to graduate by May 15. Said character will be put on hiatus afterwards.
• Philippines: Independent VSinger group DAY/BREAK has recently concluded its anniversary mini-concert on YouTube.
• Australia: SMASH! Anime Convention will host Hololive Indonesia VTubers Pavolia Reine and HoloMeet 2023 ambassador Kureiji Ollie.
• Taiwan: Comic World Taiwan hints at the appearance of 3 Nijisanji EN talents in its upcoming event on May 27.
• Saruei gets signed to Mythic Talent.
• Rolling Stone has listed CodeMiko as one of the 20 Most Influential Creators Right Now.
• VRoid announces partnership with the game Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist.
• This Nijisanji-centric YouTube reactor shares a clip where they were raided by not one, not two, but fourteen Nijisanji EN talents!
• Speaking of Nijisanji, an unlikely Among Us game collab between agency talents is happening, where particular talent rosters must speak only English, Japanese, or worse: just sound effects.
• Fefe vs. Twitter has a verdict: Fefe wins it, and Twitter has refunded her the previous US$1,000 she initially paid for her verification.
• Some interesting tech-related update: Here is the first VTuber doing real-time movements on an old-school CRT monitor.
• Popular VTuber-centric YouTube duo Velo City recently did a collaboration with Nijisanji's Mika Melatika.
• The much-anticipated Hololive-centric Idol Showdown fighting game will be officially released this May 5.
• VTuber agency Re:Memories has announced a logo revamp.
• Synthion, whom we interviewed on Spotlight, is osu!'s latest featured artist.
• Tiffany Witcher gets nominated for the Community First Award at the BPIOC Streamer Awards.
• For Skeb users in some parts of Southeast Asia, China and Hong Kong: Good news, you can now use several payment methods to pay for Skeb commissions!
• Nijisanji VTuber Natsume Kurusu's novel A Misanthrope Teaches a Class for Demi-Humans will be distributed in English by Yen ON.
• If you run your PC with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU, consider trying NVIDIA Broadcast's AI-powered voice improvement tool?
• The first wave of users who will test out the VStream platform will be announed soon.
• As part of the launch of Hoyoverse's Honkai Star Rail, several activities are happening—one of which is a major collaboration with Nijisanji.

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Banner Photo: Vei on Twitter