State of The VTuber World - December 2024

Hololive

The Olympian Year seems to be especially tough for Hololive.

The struggles of 2024 pales in comparison to the struggle of 2020, but I think they come from the same place. With the Western Wave of March/April 2020, Hololive suddenly became the co-dominant player in the VTuber field, along with Nijisanji.

Hololive rely on their small nature for the most part, and those parts had to be reexamined. They had to take down and re-up their streams because they were now prominent enough to have to ask for permission. They suddenly couldn’t just hang out with friends anymore.

Scuff needed to be scrubbed out and they needed to think big, really big.

And the same kind of growing pains seems to be shown for this year. All the odd twists in ReGloss’s journey and the Triple A departure both represented an agency in adolescence. Unsure of the next step but hopeful they will carry through.

Much like how 5th Gen and HoloMyth assuaged the latent fears that Hololive might not live up to the task, Flow Glow assuaged my fears about Hololive’s role in the sole dominance as Nijisanji’s rainbow slowly fades away.

Hololive needs to push much harder in the next few years. HoloEarth needs to be swept aside as Hololive needs to amp up their outreach. 2021 and 2022 was characterized by the sheer abundance of 3D lives - there seemed to be one happening every day, almost.

Well, take that concept and blow things up. Hololive now has the upfront cost to fill 30K stadiums every month with various talents at their disposal in four different continents.

Many people mention K-Pop and PLAVE when mentioning Cover, because that’s what they have to do at this point. Yagoo should study the structures and logistics of K-pop agencies and try to mold them into his own image, and I think he would be successful on that front.

Nijisanji

Two events marked Nijisanji’s fate like a bloody writing on the wall.

The Selen Incident killed Nijisanji’s chance at a Western expansion, although it was dying all through the previous year. It’s interesting to see how Nijisanji coped.

In the first half of the year, ANYCOLOR thought all the planned 3D Lives would be enough to convince the western public that NijiEN returned to business. When that failed with the humiliating cancellation of the Summer Jam, they pivoted to begging the JP fans to adopt EN.

While we would have to wait and see if the pivot worked, it’s clear that regardless of ANYCOLOR’s success on that front, EN now has merged with the main branch, either in actuality or in all practicality. What is remaining of the EN branch has to survive in that predicament, with some doing better than others.

Fortunately, the fall of the EN branch meant ANYCOLOR actually stepped forward and gave more attention to the ex-ID and KR branches. One can be wistful that the former ID talents did not get the attention they deserved, but one can probably argue it was their sacrifice that finally made ANYCOLOR step up and give some crumbs to the two failed but present branches. 

While on the JP side, NijiGTA reinvigorated people’s interest in the branch, and the 2024 debuts have been a relative success compared to non-Hololive (and possibly VSpo) debuts.

As I said before, the days of NijiHolo codominance seems to be over. Hololive is flying higher than ever while Nijisanji’s growth is starting to slow down. Personally, I think ANYCOLOR has foreseen this somewhat. ANYCOLOR has kicked their idol ambition to the side and focused on developing VTA - in some sense, Nijisanji is not competing with Hololive anymore, but trying to prove themselves as an useful venue of sorts.

Nijisanji wants to be the place where you get that first taste of the entertainment world, all the glory and the hardships included. They do not care if you end up staying or not, but they hope you have learned some lessons in surviving the entertainment business during your stay.

ANYCOLOR hopes the investors see the importance of this - although I’m not sure how many there will be. ANYCOLOR probably doesn’t expect a lot. I certainly don’t.

One last note about Nijisanji before we move on. Nijisanji Has Been, Is, And Will Always Be Black. From the very beginning, many fans of the VTuber community have been predicting the fall of the company. It seems every couple of years, there are rumors of a mass exodus.

But for now, none of this has happened. ANYCOLOR is standing, somehow. They moved forward, in a sense. Perhaps one day, the jeers and boos will have their response, but it’ll be akin to people cheering for the collapse of the pyramids when what is happening is the remnant of the last blocks slowly weathering away. ANYCOLOR is fine. For now.

There is still ChroNoiR and ROF-MAO and Nornis and now Idios and MECHATU-A too and as long they still… stream, they will be fans who are willing to support them and therefore ANYCOLOR as well. People of 2018 have gone through a lot of shit and are willing to go through a lot more shit in the future. They are going down with the yacht, and as long as they are in the yacht, the yacht’s descent will be an agonizingly slow one. All more to hate, I guess?

VShojo / EN Indies

VShojo, the other survivor of the bifurcation, has been hemming and hawing.

After they absorbed all the Niji Hate, VShojo has been twiddling their thumbs until quite recently with the debut of five new talents in the quiet JP branch.

I have no idea how they would fare, but I wish well for them.

As for the major indies, well, the same story. Those who drank Niji Hate managed to stay afloat, those who didn’t, basically left the community entirely, which is good on them.

That previous paragraph paints a bleak picture for the EN part of the world, which would be further expanded in the later section. It seems the only remaining people are people who are full of hate or at least willing to tolerate the hate. 

Streamer world is known for its toxicity and the EN indie world has dutifully followed in their steps and slowly merged themselves and to the various worlds the streamer world has been colliding with, including the political world, which is a dirty sign for every one of us.

I don’t want to dwell on this anymore. I’ll get back to this later.

Nanashi / Re:AcT / .LIVE

Since shedding their idol image in 2022 or so, Nanashi has gone through… everything.

This year, they lost their biggest talents. They almost lost a talent but then the talent said backsies. One of them literally birthed a child! And they did a lot of mahjong.

I really like mahjong so this is an improvement and honestly Nanashi 2.0 feels fun. I always enjoyed a company on its last leg throwing their hands up and letting anything happen because no one is listening and the backlash would be welcome in the deafening silence.

Similar has happened to Re:AcT, which finally stopped bleeding to a certain extent, and their Gaming group has been seeing some form of success. They majorly stepped up their 3D game and somehow announced a KR branch, for some most bizarre reason.

And .LIVE has been doing okay as well - one of the reasons one should not expect an Nijisanji implosion, considering .LIVE was the previous co-dominant before Hololive first ascended in early 2020 (that would be most of 2019, if you are wondering). They just had the long-awaited VPI 2nd Gen debut and rest of the talents are moving along… kind of. 

Yeah, that’s good enough. Let’s move on.

Brave

Oh, should I count the various agencies that are under the heaving giant?

Riot Music has been moving forward, they debuted quite a few talents, although Cocoa is currently in cryogenic stasis, which means they basically had to start fresh.

VSpo has managed to hold themselves, although they have made some odd misstep (come on, an anime without the talents as VA is like a classic post-hiatus Kizuna move and there is only one rule regarding post-hiatus Kizuna moves… DON’T DO THEM!) here and there, they have managed their strength to their advantage, including massively increasing the musical output of the girls who are just supposed to shoot and stuff.

And also the ‘stuff’ got expanded with Yuuhi focusing on LoL and two more talents focusing on SF6 and other fighting games. In some sense, they are progressing to kind of a 2.0 - with a possible mass exodus on 1.0 in the lines. But that might not happen, as I’ll write below.

Their EN offerings have been good. V4Mirai scored a Hololive promotion, so that would look good on a resume, and globie finally found some actual people looking at them after they nabbed some big UK indies in their 2nd Gen, and their 3rd gen seems to be shaping up well.

Speaking of future UK indies, Idol Group finally merged with Brave with all of the E-Sekai leaving the group along with Quite, leaving Nikki Rei as the big sister to the 2nd/3rd Gen. Personally, I don’t think this is a big of a loss as people are making out to be, but it’s lightly amusing.

There are also other JP groups like HareVare, their IRIAM group (why?) and Vlash, the 2.5D group (they are doing fine), and Uniraid or as I call it, The Hananoki Clique (no, it’s not the alternate name for The Clique, that’s Hanamori) named after Hananoki Maru, that ungrateful squirrel who was part of VSen, also known as Asano Ruri’s group but really it’s a 3D studio with some talents attached to it, and got some fame because Ruri used her precious network point to bring freaking Hoshimachi Suisei along, and decided to ditch her at the first opportunity.

As you see I have some beef with that group. Cool concept though. Another cool concept is Yumenos, which is a four man group with a manga attached… they are fine as well.

And… oh, I forgot about the Palette Project, which just renewed their 3D model so now they look… decent, and they are doing fine, I think. And what do I missing…

Oh, HIMEHINA! Yeah, they are part of the Brave Group and they really renewed themselves this year with massive cover hits and also Heart Pie Dancehall, you know the song. Their rubbing with HoloNiji is… uh, inspired, I’ll use that word, but hey, it’s working out for them.

Brave is still in the growth phase (they promise!) but their foreign expansion seemed to be dashed as the EN market seems to be collapsing and the SEA market being so-so, at best.

There is a good chance that the whole thing will actually collapse in a spectacular fashion, if things don’t let up. That mass exodus that I talked about with VSpo? Well, they might be hit with the agency being closed down entirely instead. That would certainly be something.

Sony

I guess it’s really only the VEE Project plus some remainders.

Anyway, after shunting off their EN counterpart, PRISM project, VEE has been… well, doing fine? People who have an audience have maintained their audience… kind of. And those who don’t have largely stayed, although there is a steady stream of people leaving the agency.

There doesn’t seem to be a massive second batch that I was secretly hoping for. In a way, VEE is letting the world determine its fate. If the interest in VTubing itself fades, then VEE would likely fade with them, if they rise, well I’m sure people will like their new limelights.

Reality

Reality kind of follows the HoloNiji story. Reality is also an app, but it still kind of… exists? But they also have various groups, which might or might not be connected.

First is their music group, RK Music. They kind of regrouped the various offerings and so various Live Union members entered the broader RK Music label along with KMNZ and VESPERBELL. Then they debuted quite a few solo acts afterwards, which all are doing somewhat well.

KMNZ lost Liz, which many thought would destroy the group because Liz was (and is) a popular utaite and not many could see how they would replace her, and then KMNZ re-debuted with Tina and Nero which actually went really great and everyone loves them now, so that was a pleasant surprise. Even Lita seemed to step her game with her covers, which is great.

VESPERBELL recently showcased their new 3D they got from crowdfunding and oh god it is terrible and 2024 had some terrible 3D outings from various groups… their 3D live is archived so you can see the horror in their full glory… I mean, dare I say it, it’s Concord-level bad.

Second is First Stage Production, which in Japan is called IchiPro. Their first gen all quit at once, leaving the Sio Clique, I mean the 2nd Gen, as the top dog with the 3rd and the new 4th gen following along nicely, if not somewhat disappointing. 

There’s an EN branch of IchiPro and they are all men. Avallum was the last to ride the male surge but they are keeping the men path with their 2nd Gen, which just debuted. Yeah.

Third is Specialite which is Reality's answer to VSpo, actually. They started in late ‘22 with an interesting twist, which is that they debuted JP talents and EN talents simultaneously. There were various rumors that Specialite EN would go down the path of many, detailed in the next section, but they debuted a second EN gen with an odd but okay theme, and they are doing… fine, I guess. JP is doing less well, but still kind of good… I think.

I think that’s it, although… is VeBop associated with Reality? I don’t really… it’s confusing.

Various EN Groups

Was there an EN group other than ones I mentioned above? It seemed like every EN group was closing its doors or blew up in the process. The Five English Sisters is now One English Sister as the other remaining group, Project Kawaii, blew up in late November.

Phase Connect winning feels like our own 2024 US Elections (who elected Pippa as the President of the United States, are you sick? Oh well, at least Dizzy is the chief of staff. But Tenma is the chief advisor, so maybe strike any optimism) but hand it to them. Phase is now at around 1000 average CCV with a variety of 3D events / 2D events / and friends.

I doubted Sakana’s ability to lead but I have been led astray many times.

Other than that… like, seriously, is there any other group that did not blow itself up or closed its doors? Ironically, the two that did blow up, which is VReverie and V&U, are somehow maintaining their tugboat, I guess, which tells us that enshittfication is the only way to survive.

Well, I guess there’s PixelLink. They are doing… fine. Yeah. And V-Dere, although they lost a member recently - don’t worry, it seems amicable. And I have no one else in my mind.

Man, this place really went south in 2024.

Small JP Groups

It’s the best of times and the worst of times for the various smaller agencies.

I really should have put Neo-Porte in its own section - They are the JP group with one EN member named Kuga Leo the four stuck in for no reasons - The four being Mafumafu Soraru Ojiji and Shibuya Hal, who is the face of the group along with Shirayuki Reid, although should they be face of the group, let me know in the comments…

Well, there was a successful VSaikyo this year with a photo-tie finish. And their 2024 offerings seem to go well with the audience. There is a Korean girl in the 6th gen. She’s cute.

Kamitsubaki continued with their concert bonanza, they seem to wash off all the NFT and such nonsense, which is only a good thing, and the Revolution Girl Project was interesting.

Varium is a thing. Shinsogumi rolls on in their own special way, along with Aogiri which really expanded their talents actually, including getting Etra and Yomemi. Do you remember when Yomemi was a special guest in a HoloGra, like they treated her like this celebrity cameo… and now she’s in Aogiri, just one of many who flails at any Hololive mention of them.

I don’t know. Strange times.

Oh, the new VTuber agency or something of 2024 would be Mixstgirls, which had a pretty big opening and then I forgot about it, but I’m pretty sure they are doing okay.

Major JP Indies

The JP Indie is Shigure Ui (sorry, P-maru) who despite saying she doesn’t want to sing now has a second album and a second concert and an artbook to go along with them.

I don’t know, man, the VTuber world is weird.

The singing relays continue en masse, the shorts chasers (looking at you, Million Productions, although that’s the above section, isn’t it… crap) are enjoying their new 3 minute cap, which means there will be a lot fewer long form covers, which saves me trouble.

The FPS people are struggling but finding their way, mostly in the form of STR-GRA, although even that seems to be fading recently, which is highly worrisome.

All the ASMR people are being whacked by YouTube being especially prude, although I could say that in quite a few different sections, couldn’t I?

And… well, yeah that’s it. I mean, let’s keep things short, shall we?

Outro

Unfortunately I am not omnipresent or omniscient (yet) so I have basically no clue regarding SEA, Latin or any smaller communities of that sort, so please forgive me for the geographical bias.

But overall, 2024 is a shifting time for the VTuber world, much like how 2024 was a shifting time for the world in general. Almost all incumbent parties suffered in this year’s elections, in which there was a lot. Quite a few of these regimes held power for a decade or more - signaling the end of an era.

It is also the first half of the Fifth Age of VTubers, which seems to be a transitory one. When the era is over in the beginning of 2026, what world do we find ourselves in?

Hopefully a hopeful one, one where people’s dreams are met and satisfied.

Till then, I will keep observing this cozy corner that we call The VTuber world. Thank you.

P.S. - I was browsing John Scalzi’s blog, because he’s one of my ‘guiding lights’ so to speak, but there was a comment under an announcement John made about him deleting the X account about how VTuber agencies are having a hard time switching due to permissions.

It wasn’t mind blowing, but it was still incredibly bizarre that someone who reads Scalzi’s blog cares about Corpo VTubers to make a comment about it. Like, the VTuber’s recognizability reach has been increased by a lot, but I don’t know if this will translate to audiences.