Weekly NewsDrop #10—Week 46

We recognize this week as THE busiest week in the VTubing scene, if not one of the busiest.

Holostars English's Noir Vesper gets a two-week suspension "as a result of his internal misconduct" inside Hololive Production. We can only wait for Holostars EN management to tell us what that misconduct was.

• Axel Syrios and Magni Dezmond has begged off following the said notice.
• My take: The notice was written vaguely and can get lost in translation. Yours truly and Ted's reactions ended up on FalseEyeD's latest TVS episode as well.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, a VTuber talent was terminated by two agencies. Following their investigation, VTuber team Vilitera has terminated its contract with the voice talent behind one of its members Sylva Daina. Agency Digikagi has terminated its contract with the voice talent behind one of its members Astra Aelia.

• Is this a coincidence? Apparently, yes—a source confirmed to NewsDrop that the voice talent behind the two VTubers is the same person, and she's been asking for adjustments in her schedule to accommodate both roles.

Surprisingly, this has also somehow happened in Japan as Riot Music terminates its contract with Saki Ashizawa for doing VTubing activities beyond the company's scope.

• Agency SuperYellow Inc. (of Brave Group) released a full statement of events including the history leading to its decision as well as their investigation of the VTuber's activities inside and outside of the company.
• They said that Saki wants to remove the perpetual non-competing clause in her contract, which the agency declined to do so, leading to a series of unfortunate events.

We've got several top stories for you in this newsletter, so read on!

The Latest on NewsDrop

• Elle and Booster's YouTube channel is fully converted to NecroNews, NewsDrop's section on Gaming. Last week, they shed the spotlight on Momosuzu Nene's bombastic welcome to Final Fantasy XIV Online.
• The latest VTuber Music Recap lists a lot of entries—it's so jam-packed that Ted has to split the whole coverage into two parts! Here's the third issue.

ANN's Kim Morrissy reports that "VTubers Outnumber All Other Fandoms" at Comiket 101 happening at the end of the year.

• Citing Yaraon! (NSFW), a total of 1,100 circles catering to VTuber fan art on the first day of Comiket 101. Most of them are placed at East Hall 1.
• Based on the web catalog, illustrators such as Guchico, Ponkan⑧, Asagi Tousaka, Iida Pochi and Parsley will be participating. These are mamas to some of Hololive's talents. They are easy to find as they are placed at aisle A.
• Yukihana Lamy's mama Rin☆Yuu's booth is placed far away from the rest—at East Hall 2, booth A45a. She is joined by two other VTuber illustrators.
• Kureiji Ollie's mama LAM took charge of the cover for the Comiket 101 catalogue. LAM-mama will appear on Day 2 at Booth め29b (West Hall 1)
• If you're going to Comiket, make sure you read first this important ticketing-related post.

Photo Source: A Yana on Unsplash

Pixiv, Inc. announces an important update in their Service Master Terms of Use, effective December 15. This affects Fanbox, Booth and Request, where many transactions occur.

• The platform saw that some transactions violate its terms of use on transactions involving offensive content (including but not limited to incest, bestiality, non-consensual sexual behavior etc.).
• Pixiv asks all users to check for items which include such offensive content in the said websites and delete them or set to private before the said date. Items tagged as offensive content will be set to private afterwards.
• Repeated transactions of prohibited content leads to account suspension once the terms are updated.

Photo Source: Screen capture from Pixiv website

It's been a hectic week for us, especially that FIVE major happenings occured within the past few days:

Depressed Nousagi (DN) gets exposed for hiding other VTubers' information under a paywall—which he admits from the start, since he opened a Patreon page this year. He released a video statement addressing these issues and emotionally saying goodbye to the VTuber rabbit hole.

Joining DN at the exit is @NinaNekoVT, which has put some VTubers in a bad light through its drama-inducing tweets.

• The account was supposed to be handled by a trio until one of them (a minor named Lily) noticed that things are turning in the wrong direction. That's why she left.
• As the drama continues, Lily realized she can still access the account, decided to go nuclear, take over (which thankfully she still has access to), kick the other two and make amends with the community before saying farewell.

VTuber twins Yuki and Yuna Astrea flags down part-time VTuber and clipper Ardha Eustasia for imitating their debut style layouts.

• The Duo Leveling VTubers documented the whole matter in a Google Doc, which contains proof of imitation not only from Ardha but also from his colleagues at Eustasia Project.
• Four hours after the expose was tweeted, Ardha came clean, saying he was the one who came up with the idea and his friends knew nothing about this art direction. He has since deleted his debut stream.

Twitter Panic: Everyone's scared that Twitter's shutting down, after reports that its offices are closed abruptly.

• No reason was given why the offices were closed, but they said it will reopen on November 21. Employees were asked to choose to stay and work 'hardcore' or leave, prompting hundreds to choose the latter.
• The VTubing community has backup plans already, with most VTubers already joining Tumblr, CoHost or Mastodon. VT.social, a Mastodon instance, has received lots of signups that they are advising new applicants to prove they are creating an account. (BTW, me, Teddy as well as Andrew "Ducky" Amos are on VT.social)
• Meanwhile, Enna Alouette set up a Google Spreadsheet for those who rely on Twitter for their livelihood to add their contact details.

So as a joke, ...: Among all of the big stories this week, here's a slightly funny one—Pipkin Pippa made her own faux VTuber agency using AI art, called FlaVR.

• The community picked up on it so much that it made the talents "sentient," which led to Pippa being "cancelled" by a fellow VTuber for the laughs.
• Since this is a fake agency gone wild, let's consider everything about this as a joke—even though this sums up most of the misconceptions we have about VTuber agencies.
• Low Effort Clips has produced a 10-minute video and we recommend you watch it. It's a joke gone wild.
• Just in: "Pip Squad" took over FlaVR's Twitter.

Photo Source: Manki Kim on Unsplash

In Other News...

• Blu-ray of Hololive's 3rd fes. "Link Your Wish" is now on top of the weekly music Blu-ray sales rankings, says Bushiroad Music.
• Fans in Korea can purchase the Korean version of Houshou Marine's fan book and comic anthology starting Monday.
• Gawr Gura joins the YouTube Fanfest gaming collab, where she did her best to say a tongue twister.
• Usada Pekora gets a court illustrator to draw her moments on trial—and Kai-You secured an interview with the artist, who does not know that Pekora was the third most-watched female streamer worldwide.
• After Hakos Baelz, Ouro Kronii gets her own limited-edition PC case from HYTE with art from Rosuuri.
• Luxiem starts their own podcast which can be viewed on the Luxiem YouTube Channel (it's not available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify).
• Black Friday Sales are coming—and Nijisanji EN's official store will offer their set of deals.
• Vox Akuma updates everyone—"[...] Once I'm sort of on the path to recovery, I'll come back to streaming in my normal capacity. [...]"
• We consider Miyu Ottavia the first VTuber to receive a thank you message from Anycolor: "Among the Indonesian Livers, she was a big presence that brightened the group, and she was our mood maker."
• VShojo collaborates with Fakku for skateboard decks which are now open for pre-orders.
• Riot Music's Meteopolis is set to appear at the Los Angeles Comic Con on December 2.
• VReverie will set up a booth at Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2022.
• Japanese VTuber Jugoya Wan created Live2D assets of starter Pokemon from the recently released Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Nintendo knocked on his door to take those off.
• AmaLee's next dub role: Yuzuki from A Place Further Than the Universe.
• Creators using StreamElements' sponsorship feature report who are using PayPal are reporting they're losing money. Ducky reports that this is due to an error from its payment service Tipalti, which is set to be fixed by Monday.
• In General Streaming: Twitch rolls out the ability to @mention streamers in stream titles, just like on YouTube.

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