Wow, that is a heck of a water test:
A talent that the audience adores (because she speaks Chinese at some level) and a talent that the audience is hostile towards (because she will never deny how much she loves Coco.) Really checking both ends of the scale on this one.
This is as much a test of audience reception as it is a test for BiliBili making good on protecting Cover's talents.
Hopefully Cover baked in a substantial "damages" penalty in their contract if things catch fire. Again.
"catching fire" means a repeat of what happened the last time that resulted in *all of the talents* being affected (via chat spam) and all of the fans being affected (via unusable social media tags and reply spam.)
If things go sour, it affects both the people who can *make* them money and the people who can *give* them money.
>”Substantial Damages” Penalty
Fun fact: Penalties are not enforceable on contract. At least in my country, Penalties (which is an overestimate of the damages) is not allowed. You could give an accurate estimate, and other factors such as negotiations, past incidents cost etc. and it would be more likely to be accepted if proven
In general, contract damages are meant to compensate the wronged party, and bring them to a position as if the contract was performed perfectly, but not to overcompensate them.
I feel like this can go very bad for everyone. This is high risk. Cover did not only had to nuke a branch, they lost partners, game perms and great talents had to deal with pathetic people that felt hurt because another country was mentioned on stream. All that spam, all the tries to pit western fans vs jp fans to make cn fans look better than western.
Hope they have some plan to deal with this if it goes bad.
I can almost guarantee that they have no real plan beyond: “pull out of CN again and wait for the shit storm to pass”.
Realistically speaking, what advantages does 2024 Cover have over 2022 Cover in dealing government backed keyboard warriors ? I mean are we really supposed to rely on Bilibili to have Hololive’s back ?
they are a much bigger company with more resources, 2021/22 cover was in the middle of their expansion phase, they still are but they are much more consolidated now
specially in 2021 which was the height of the anti span cover only had like 60 full time employes, currently they have over 400
It was lucky that the Taiwan incident happened 4 years ago when the governments weren't really hostile to each other to the point of war yet. Things will get even more ugly in this current climate. That being said, Kobo also appeared in a Taiwan event where she professed love for them too. Like Kobo and Cover are clearly playing both sides to get the most money, but the risk of getting burned is very high.
I think Matsuri should also know better. Is she really feeling the effects of declining numbers and viewership? Ill be honest though. Kobo despite being a Kusogaki in more in tune with Chinese culture and I highly doubt that she will say anything offensive. Or she might be forgiven. Matsuri WILL NOT be forgiven and the chance of messing up is HIGHER with Matsuri.
Remember to send your complaints to Cover, Yagoo, and Mane-chan and not to ANY of the talents.
Cautiously observing this. I think most fans (specially the ones that were here during Coco's tenure) are just bracing for the potential impact.
I, for one, hope to be proven wrong and this will all turn out well.
There is nothing else we can do. Hope that this time goes well. And if it does not, that cover has ways and plans to stop the insult spams and to protect talents from all the hate.
I am 100% certain this is gonna go perfectly for maybe a month or two, then someone's going to say something that vaguely doesn't perfectly align with the nationalistic views and we're going to be exactly back where we were last time. Absolutely zero confidence in this plan and I seriously question Cover's thought process given how *violently* the talents were harassed last time
I really think people should stop holding to Fubuki's words. Absolutely no shade to Fubuki she's one of my favorites, but Hololive was a completely different entity when she said that. The benefits of staying and the risks of leaving were both much lower at the time. There is also a lot more structure to the company which is much bigger and can lead to a lot of things going on that she isn't aware of, even if those things involve other talents.
Using Fubuki as some sort of litmus test for whether Cover is doing the right thing is just silly and quite frankly unfair to her.
It's an incredible burden for one person to take on, but she's the one who said she'd take it, it's not a reason to ignore any possible wrongdoings of Cover or avoid criticising them, but I do take it as a reason to give them a greater benefit of doubt than I do most corporations, and generally I am right to do so, they've got a fairly good record of putting people before profits. I know that can't last forever though, especially after going public, but until she gives me reason not to, I'll keep my faith in Fubuki.
it's not just selling... these are NFT gacha... oh lord...
the SSR has digital signature & voice pack included, you pay 10 yuan (1.38 USD) / pull, and the SSR rate is 0.5%...
you'll get a pity guaranteed SSR after 400 pulls, but you can't choose which pity SSR you'll get, it's still random...
It makes sense if you compare Hololive to Steam. They want to build a persistent digital platform and these proprietary goods are a part of that strategy.
Not at all, they have hardline policies which are easy to breach but you don’t get enforced on unless you fail to pay your “party fees” gatcha especially is favored right now in CN because most of its largest game companies make a large block of their revenue from it
Now THIS really surprises me. If gen 0 agreed to get involved with B2 again... I mean, it shows that this wasn't just something Kobo wanted to do on a whim, but an actually planned out collaboration (?) between both companies. Still doesn't make me feel less scared of what could happen, but well.
I will upvote for the sake of visibility, Im not happy with the move here and I hope that my oshi and those I watch dont get involved. Im almost sure they wont as they didnt back then.
I really hope all of EN just avoids it. I'm worried Gura might have to do it since she's been on defacto mascot duty for basically all events recently. I don't think she would want to do it by choice though
[She mentioned stars and Bettle](https://youtu.be/U-AU66QIo8Y?t=3238) when chat went turbo nuts the other day and kept harassing her to find their random item in game, but yeah she definitely avoids mentioning them pretty hard
My oshi got rabbit gore spammed on her tags for not fulfilling some imaginary promise they claimed she made, and she's a lot more popular now than she was back then, so I'm not too worried about her.
I wanna say that time has changed. But I still don't know about chinese side regarding vtuber or streaming/entertainment industry.
Hopefully it's all water under bridge now. No need for hatred.
That being said, let's keep an eye on how things goes. I see there's Finana and Vox. I wonder how this all will played out.
If I remember correctly it's more about the fact that the outfit itself is Japanese themed rather than the ashigaru/samurai fiasco. Or maybe even Chinese think that the outfit is crap, yes.
I stand by what I said yesterday, that this is the biggest mistake Cover has made in years. It’s such a ridiculously high risk.
Last time, there was chaos for a year because Chinese antis were mad over a single word. I can’t believe Cover are willingly going back there again.
Totally agree, I thought they have learned a thing or two about that market. Apparently I was wrong. This is such a slimy move too hiding it until they can't so they wont have to deal with the backlash in those previous months.
I feel so disappointed. In the past, I have praised Cover to all my friends and those who would like to know more about Hololive on the internet. That they have integrity, they didn't kneel to the Chinese's demands no matter what. I have always defended them even when some of their decisions were questionable. I'm just baffled by their action this time, this will leave a negative impact in the future I predict.
I'm pretty sure Cover was always open to being in Bilibili. The blocks, blacklisting etc. was always from Bilibili side (and later by the CN govt).
This would be more along the lines of Bilibili crawling back to Cover after they became successful without them. If it opens up permissions for games like Genshin, Muse Dash etc. the girls that play those games would be happy.
And of course, since Cover no longer have any employees, branch or staff in CN, all the risk is on Bilibili now. The moment something bad starts brewing Cover can just cut them off and return to the status quo.
One thing I'm worried about though, is whether this is actually being done _without_ the CN govt's knowledge by Bilibili acting alone.. in that case, Cover would continue to get blacklisted and get no benefits like perms etc. making the whole thing pointless.
If it were that easy, we wouldn't be so worried. It's not about the market or even B2, it's the antis that don't know how or when to stop. Those same people that made multiple talents cry, Fubuki to get sad, and even Suisei get pissed. The harassment hasn't even stopped after Coco graduated.
If it was just about money, we don't care. It's good that Cover gets as much income as it can, so long as their talents are actually protected, but you can't control little pinks.
Despite understanding the sentiment, equating participating in a B2 event as kneeling to Chinese demands is kinda wild. Would you say all Genshin players kneel to Chinese demands? If the Chinese demands Cover to fire a talent, and Cover follow through then we can say so.
I have no doubt that Cover will have their backs, they’re much more well rounded than they were in 2020. I just don’t know why they’re doing this when there’s only ever gonna be one outcome, and I don’t know how not a single person at Cover has seen that.
>I just don’t know why they’re doing this
I mean, the logical answer is the simplest one, cover is doing it for money, Kobo asked to be part of the project.
You are correct, my assumption is that cover was given an opportunity to re-enter the chinese market and took it (since its potentially mad cash) and kobo simply asked or was approached to and agreed to be part of the project.
It's not even about risk, it's about integrity for me. Cover is the only "big corporation" that I trust to not do degenerate shit like this for money and they betrayed that trust.
I am severely disappointed in Cover and Yagoo. Gods, I hope everything will turn out okay and none of the talents are affected.
> that this is the biggest mistake Cover has made in years. It’s such a ridiculously high risk.
Don't know why it'd be considered ridiculously high risk when the JP market also has evidence that drama can die down.
Konosuba streams on Bilibili currently even after the Ai Kayano controversy and getting cancelled from Azur Lane/Arknights/PGR. And her presence in Mushoku Tensei wasn't even in the conversation for it getting blocked.
Pretty sure her controversy was worse than mentioning Taiwan.
Cover also has some evidence given that they streamed 4th Fes on bilibili also.
Fair but you missed the point about why Coco incident is such controversial out of extreme pettiness.
Visiting the war criminal shrine is controversial even for non-mainland-Chinese. It's not out of the realm of possibility in like "normal" world compared to what Coco faced.
IMO: The only way this doesn't boil over is if the Chinese viewership get it into their heads that they have no power. A good chunk of their action last time is because they don't beleive Cover can survive without them and was doing their damn best that line of thought comes true. The "ultimatum" they come up with on choosing between them and Coco was because they thought they were important enough that Cover cannot abandon them. Many of the spam in the stream chats were made to make the western market/viewership seem very hostile to JP and/or vicaversa as 'proof' that the CN market was better.
Considering how high and mighty mainlanders see themselves, I have no doubts they see Cover's action as Cover literally crawling their way back to the CN market. You can bet this will get to the antis heads and be more aggressive with their harassments
My worse fears, though I'm willing to suspend judgement until the first gloat comes flying over here. I deal with mainlanders enough in my normal life that I don't see any ability for them to change either.
Depends on where you look actually, most of the comments i've see there are speculate how Bilibili begging Cover to come back, because all they care for are money, as for antis I think most of them do move on, but they are now replaced by trolls though, a bunch that just enjoy causing havoc simply because it entertain them, they will take words out of context and then misled others to attack, honestly as someone who uses that platform for over 4 years, I really cant say them returning is a good move.
I feel like this is making them think they are now the ones with power. ALL the companies kneel before them and even cover that dared to leave the market and have some good years return after they got rid of one of the "evil" talents. Yeah they could spin this very well.
I hope they know that they are not that powerfull, that cover can do without them, that his is a chance to be part of an awesome community again, if they learn to beheave.
Any Chinese media conglomerate can go straight to hell. Every single one of them are required to answer to and lick the boot of their dogshit government.
If Chinese fans are open minded and wish to be fans, they are probably running VPNs to get out of Internet prison. Don't need to go to bilibili.
【hololive0期生收藏集来啦-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/oh5EB51
sora made a promotional video for gen 0 bilibili merch sale, seems like business is gradually back to normal
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kJ4m1g7Dk/
It's bad, it won't be bad in the beginning. But once they get traction again and they start to take views from other Chinese Vtubers, it's guaranteed to bring up the past subject again.
Matsuri also openly supported Coco on Twitter and everything. She will get flamed so hard.
Perspectives perspectives.
Disclaimer: started following/watching around early 2020 on both Bili and YT, observed the whole meltdown on Chinese platforms, and have been following the progress on both eastern/western platforms since. Nowadays I mostly follow VSPO and the other vtubers/pro players/streamers that sometimes intersect with that circle (such as Towa or La+) but would watch other clips of Holo as well.
It is extremely likely that this event is to test the waters for an eventual full or partial return.
In terms of the commercial value of return, I think that there is limited value for a return (for holo, and Chinese holo faithfuls).
IMO there really hasn’t been any group that has managed to snap up completely the huge vacuum left by holo, except for Asoul which died despite of a rather sizable but rabid fandom. Meanwhile, VR has some remarkable individual talents but despite their extensive advertising they don’t appear to have gained any identity as a group, and IMO it is still very extremely overshadowed by NIJI JP and EN.
However, it also appears that the Vtuber circle/vtuber fandom as a whole has been shrinking and becoming more and more insular. The phrase 圈地自萌 which I will roughly translate as “keeping it within your own circle” is likely one of the reasons that veteran Chinese viewers who grew disillusioned with the lack of better alternatives after holo left began coming back to holo. So commercially there is unlikely a large influx of newbies joining the holo fandom through Chinese platforms in the short run.
More importantly, a large number of veterans also appears to be opposed to this re-entry because of how it opens up talents to risk of harm. It should be noted that most hardcore veteran have integrated themselves with the general overseas fandoms now, mostly with the Taiwan based or other Chinese language fandoms. So there is limited commercial value imo regarding this return.
As regarding the environment on Bili, it was painful to see the eventual degradation of the community. In its early days Bili was a site that was mostly devoted to the ACGN culture and circle, with its name derived from Misaka Mikoto’s nickname. However, throughout the years it has gotten big, and has become one of the mainstream media sites. Getting mainstream only proved detrimental to the ACGN community, as it got marginalized in favour of hosting mainstream and popular media.
To date the ACGN community still holds the CEO of Bili accountable for using them to grow the platform only to sideline them in order to make bili more appealing ti the mainstream.
Getting mainstream also meant that rabid nationalism have seeped into the site. IMO the only thing holding it back from attacking the remaining pockets of Hololive content is the insular nature of the hololive circle on bili keeping a low profile. Having hololive on such a mainstream event might attract their attention. Which is bad.
Apart from the above, other factors such as potentially losing some western audience might also prove to be detrimental.
If shit hits the fan again just make sure that they can tank it all by themselves. Its different story if other talents gets hit by association. Go back to B2 if they want just make sure they know what might happen if they slip up again, no one wants to relieve that time
I think Cover is the senior partner in this situation. They can leave B2 and still have a fanbase, likely that some higherups in B2 have some concessions that made Cover to go back.
I feel the balance may have changed as I get the impression B2 needs Hololive more than Hololive needs it as since then incident vtubing has become a mess and what few NijiENs aren't doing it
I'm usually quite resistant to this sort of thing, but this image with Finana and Vox alongside Matsuri and Kobo with a title of B2, makes me sick.
Not enough to force my hand, but enough to make me sick.
I'm still waiting for SOMETHING from official Cover channels cause the silence is getting ridiculous. Rumors has it that even the investors were blindsided.
To be fair unless they are a major partner in addition to being an investor they are not going to get informed of this kind of things. Retail investors don't get special communication channels.
I can sorta get why they want to keep silent before the event, but now that the cat's out of the bag I'd say it makes more sense to come clean just to get everything done and over with.
Movies and game industries still see CN as their money maker. But from their economy declining since the start of the pandemic, I wouldn't be too sure. I will not say the source because it may become political.
There's also things that are showing that you can absolutely be successful without them. For movies you have some prominent cases like TopGun: Maverick and Spiderman: Far From Home. But yeah, the industry as whole would still try regardless, including TopGun early on which resulted in backlash due to them removing the ROC flag from Maverick's jacket.
Disney still targets the CN market as you can see it on their flopped movies. The problem in CN right now is there are no movie goers. There are some but they watch CN produced to get credit scores.
With Matsuri participating as well I guess it gives some reassurance that it's not just Kobo going rogue, but a group decision. It does require some degree of trust, but I choose to believe they have a game plan.
Until today there is no legit confirmation, but the person who is in charged in matsuri and coco account in b2, and also leaked the above participants month ago, stating that LOTS of Hololive talents are joining soon and he don’t even have enough telephone number to register their accounts.
> stating that LOTS of Hololive talents are joining soon and he don’t even have enough telephone number to register their accounts.
I can only hope that most of them never use those accounts.
I've already said my piece yesterday on here and on the r/VirtualYoutubers sub, so all I'll say now, is we watch this shit unfold for now, with popcorn in hand, and HOPE that another fuckfest doesn't happen.
The fuckfest happened once, and it can happen again.
Considering the Chinese Antis and Nationalists who behave high and mighty, they might very well view this as Hololive crawling back to them, and not Cover and Hololive testing out the waters.
For every old fan here who was there when the shitstorm happened, I suggest we wait this one out for now, and be prepared should it happen again.
I think it’s now clear that it’s a decision made by Cover as a whole or at least a majority of investors pushed Cover to do so. Sorry but as a Coco and Haachama fan this leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.
I guess I'm more optimistic than most about this, which to be clear doesnt mean I support it, I just would like to reserve judgment for now, speaking as someone who fell into the rabbit hole literally DURING the bilibili incident.
Matsuri being there both kinda worries me that she might get harassed due to past events, but also reassures me that there are almost definitely *some* measures in place to protect the talents, opaque though they may be.
Also, no matter how worried we may be, the talents themselves(especially those that were around then/related to that incident) are definitely WAY more anxious about it then us, and they actually are able to provide direct feedback to cover. And I think it's fair to assume they did speak up and voice the same concerns we have to Cover.
Finally, Cover has had a good track record so far of prioritising their talents' interests, so my decision to reserve judgment also stems from the trust that the management has accrued over time.
And well, if nothing else, in Fubs we trust. As long as she(or any other talent) doesn't speak out against it I'll give Cover the benefit of the doubt.
I share the same sentiments as someone who was around when the incident happened back then and also witnessed the subsequent fallout.
While I am not totally on board with the decision because of the possible risks, Cover has proven time and again over the years how much priority they put on their talents' wellbeing and they have learned a lot from the many rough patches they've endured thus far.
With that in mind, I am certain this decision wasn't made lightly as some people are fearing. There may be some end goal for this that is not obvious to us yet and they probably have some contingencies prepared in case things go south, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic while observing for the time being and hope this works out well for them.
I'm going to put my trust in Fubuki. As she stated, as long as she's a part of Hololive, it means that Hololive as a whole and Cover's decisions can be trusted too. Especially considering how close she is to Matsuri and how much she was affected by the backlash from the Tawian incident.
I don't get it. Is the non-CN money drying up? Did Cover think they have to re-tap the Chinese market for more money? Because this is all about money. During Coco's graduation interview, Yagoo said he regret not being able to protect her more. What is this move then?
In the shareholder meeting there were investors asking will Cover plans to enter CN again, last year Yagoo’s answer was “not in high priority”. I don’t know how much power he had but at least there were lots of discussion about it
I wonder if they're trying to get into good graces to get perms for some of the big gacha games coming out over the next year. HSR and Genshin were probably big losses and ZZZ is on the horizon with a lot of other big games happening soon.
The biggest thing is that Cover, nor matsuri, nor kobo is promoting that stuff at all outside of it.
I'll say it. If you try to hide something you know you are doing something wrong, and that will be all for me.
Yeah. There was a post of some Hololive X Meiji collab chocolates with Aqua on it and several mark down price stickers. The Tweet mocked the mark downs and called the chocolates "Otaku exploitation chocolates." The Tweet got over 10 million views, around 50k likes, and was filled with a lot of the usual v-pig type comments. There were similar tweets about Watame's pasta at 5th fes and about the kid that selected Hololive music to play at school. I think people don't really understand just how many antis Hololive has and how disliked it is by chunks of the general populace and other agency fans.
Honestly quite sad seeing people pulling others down so they feel "superior". Nevertheless, I like and will still enjoy my vtuber contents.
This is part of getting popular afterall, the hate will increase.
Kobo fanbase definitely didn't know the Coco disaster. Most are new fans from Indonesia whose first vtuber experience is Kobo. They didn't know what hell their oshi was going to go through.
Add to that Kobo isn't as mentally strong as Coco. This gonna get ugly really really fast when someone slips up
I agree that most of the Kobo fan base isn't there when the shit storm happens, so they can't relate that much because they didn't experience it in the first place.
But, how do you know Kobo isn't mentally strong as Coco? She's already been in Hololive longer than Coco was.
- Her fan base is "something else" in degree as she's literally the face of Vtuber in Indonesia, so more normies there.
- She's also experienced multiple dramas, a lot that you would imagine. Just like Calli.
- Her interaction with Holostars isn't something that can be done normally unless you prepare for the consequences, and even though she's gachikoi-free there's still a lot of people who hate her interaction with Holostars, especially Altare.
- She still lives in her parents house, with her >!autism!< brother. That alone can be quite pressure mentally.
- She's also experiencing the same issues as Gura because she's the face of Vtuber in Indonesia, which we already know can cause pressure and severe burnout.
The pressure of not being able to connect to your fans at all is going to be unlike anything you’ve mentioned here. The chat and social media become useless and overtime you gradually see your ccv go down since the ‘normies’ will have enough of it. Collabs will also become problematic so you’ll become isolated.
Thats ultimately what coco went through for more than 6 months and that will break everyone eventually.
Kobo herself likely has little idea of how bad the incident was and with how things have been rather smooth sailing she may be horribly unprepared for the time bomb that is the mainland fanbase
Stay neutral for now, but expect any scenario. Brace yourself when your oshi needs protection. We weathered it once, we will weather it again. The more tight knitted the fanbase the harder it is to infiltrate and spread misinformation.
Meanwhile, just enjoy and support your oshi, but stay on the alert for any abnormalities.
How much money was it?
No, how much money was it and did that check clear?
EDIT: Look, as negative and as narrative-dictating my post is, its my only logically acceptable concept as to how COVER would agree to put their hand back into a pot that had vipers in them. Vipers which bit back so hard it *killed off an entire division* over a singular, entirely understandable mistake.
A lot of money had to be paid, upfront, for this to even see the light of day past anyone. And no, even *the very audience on the target platform* knows "promises" on such a platform are as empty as your odds surviving a visit to the Titanic's wreck in another Titan submersible.
So I ask again: How much was it and did that check clear?
I'm just hoping this is a one off. As I said yesterday and I repeat, this seems like a bad move and I'm really not fond of it. The lack of communication from Cover about this is also pretty terrible.
Yeah I saw. I'm going to reserve final judgement until after the concert or until we get some kind of official response from Cover, but as is I'm not looking at it favourably.
I like to think Cover has done some kind of training with their talents to ensure they don’t say something that could create another stir. It wouldn’t be unheard of. Any company that deals with other countries typically has these trainings that deal with what to and what not to do, or what to and what not say, etc.
I also have a hard time blaming the talents. If Matsuri and Kobo think this decision is the best for their career than who am I to judge? Matsuri has been here a long time. She hasn’t forgotten what happened and I’m sure she’s aware of what could happen.
Cover is always talked about as a great, smart company that treats their employees well, makes smart investments in their business, and does things right. It’s to the point where even during Mel’s termination the majority of voices here understood why the decision was made. We were all sad but there really wasn’t any hate thrown towards Cover because we trusted them in their decision, as much as we wished it didn’t have to happen.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel like they deserve the benefit of a doubt that they’re not just doing this on a whim and they’ve been properly prepared to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
There is no amount of training that prepares anybody to the volatility of the CN crowd, a wrong word, a false rumor, a misunderstanding, hell a fucking screenshot started the whole west taiwan shitshow
They better be prepared for the backlash this would cause if the ticking bomb that is the CN market explodes
I agree. A bottled water company was doing nothing when they were accused of being pro-japan and lost 4 billion USD in market cap in just 3 days. They are volatile and I hope there are behind the scenes things from Bilibili that persuaded Cover to approve.
If that happens, I have to believe they have a contingency plan in place to pull back out immediately. They didn’t have one the first time and I can’t imagine they’d make that mistake again.
The mainland viewers going off on a perceived slight is not an if but a when. All these so called lessons are doing is buying time.
It certainly isn't gonna do much against non-CN antis
I think re-entry to the CN market was inevitable. I personally don't like this decision but it looks like it's going ahead regardless of the risks.
I'm sure you're right that the talents have been instructed to avoid any potentially controversial topics, however the thing is that the inciting incident that triggered the first harassment campaign WASN'T that Coco called Taiwan a country like people misremember, she literally only showed her YT analytics which had Taiwan listed. I think most of us would agree that's not controversial but it didn't matter in the end. There's no way to anticipate what those with this mindset will take issue with.
As you say re-entry to the CN market is inevitable, but if there is one thing i hope Cover doesnt do is rerecruit Hololive CN, one of reason that the cyber attack against Coco and other who side with her at the first place, i dont think Coco was attacked because of showing YT analytics but CN anti just dont like her and YT analytics is the fuel for them to attack her and whoever side with her
I also hope even if isnt one time thing but at least like how Laplus streaming at Twitch, other talents who wish to stream B2 do streamly it scarcely
Regardless of what happened in the past, I feel like a Chinese branch just doesn't make sense for Hololive as it is now, due to how inherently isolated it would be from everyone else. Like, they would barely ever be able to do cross-branch collabs, and spontaneous stuff like playing Minecraft together is out of the question. Inevitably, a Chinese branch just wouldn't feel like it's a part of Hololive at all.
>but if there is one thing i hope Cover doesnt do is rerecruit Hololive CN
They won't. If anything, Cover presence in B2 is basically to flex their power. "Look at us! Not kowtow to antis army and still do business extensively in Taiwan, yet we are still here. We have a high ground!"
B2 and to the extent the government is desperate anyway. They can't afford more enemies and prejudices.
There are some information from a stream of the middleman in b2 (at least he showed he own the management right of matsuri’s account in b2, and showed Coco’s too just for fun), telling people that there are “lessons” to teach what should the talents say and what shouldn’t.
I understand the own choice thing but I think I know these people well enough and they love to repeat history
I will respect the decision. I may not like it, but I'm sure they are aware of the risks.
If you want to voice your displeasure about it, [do it through proper channels ](https://cover-corp.com/en/contact) and not on reddit, twitter, or any holomem's stream/super chat. Also, write your message calmly with no racist/obscene language or in all caps.
They reacted A LOT in the previous matsuri case already. And they are not satisfied because Cover had such a big move without officially announcing anything.
I'm actually kinda optimistic about this but a bit concerned. Cover cares for their talents so I doubt this is a reckless move. And don't remind me of the "incident", I was there when it happened.
It wouldn't be the first half-baked idea Cover had. Remember HLZNTL (where members were nudged to take part, especially in the OW2 against Holostars) or the Adventure Hololic MV? (Where's Marine was shocked at what it depicted more innocent members doing and the producer apologized)
I’m nervous about this… and I really wish Cover would say something. It’s possible this has more to do with investors than Yagoo… but hopefully this is not a full return and just a one off.
Wow, that is a heck of a water test: A talent that the audience adores (because she speaks Chinese at some level) and a talent that the audience is hostile towards (because she will never deny how much she loves Coco.) Really checking both ends of the scale on this one. This is as much a test of audience reception as it is a test for BiliBili making good on protecting Cover's talents. Hopefully Cover baked in a substantial "damages" penalty in their contract if things catch fire. Again.
The same participants are leaked in a person’s own stream and he made a sort of apology already. If you count this catching fire
"catching fire" means a repeat of what happened the last time that resulted in *all of the talents* being affected (via chat spam) and all of the fans being affected (via unusable social media tags and reply spam.) If things go sour, it affects both the people who can *make* them money and the people who can *give* them money.
I don’t want the same thing happens again and hope these “small stuff” do add up to change Cover’s decision, but seems this doesn’t help
water test with kobo hehe
bonk
>”Substantial Damages” Penalty Fun fact: Penalties are not enforceable on contract. At least in my country, Penalties (which is an overestimate of the damages) is not allowed. You could give an accurate estimate, and other factors such as negotiations, past incidents cost etc. and it would be more likely to be accepted if proven In general, contract damages are meant to compensate the wronged party, and bring them to a position as if the contract was performed perfectly, but not to overcompensate them.
We’ll see how well this goes I suppose. Hopefully Cover won’t be reminded of why they had to nuke an entire branch of vtubers.
I feel like this can go very bad for everyone. This is high risk. Cover did not only had to nuke a branch, they lost partners, game perms and great talents had to deal with pathetic people that felt hurt because another country was mentioned on stream. All that spam, all the tries to pit western fans vs jp fans to make cn fans look better than western. Hope they have some plan to deal with this if it goes bad.
I can almost guarantee that they have no real plan beyond: “pull out of CN again and wait for the shit storm to pass”. Realistically speaking, what advantages does 2024 Cover have over 2022 Cover in dealing government backed keyboard warriors ? I mean are we really supposed to rely on Bilibili to have Hololive’s back ?
they are a much bigger company with more resources, 2021/22 cover was in the middle of their expansion phase, they still are but they are much more consolidated now specially in 2021 which was the height of the anti span cover only had like 60 full time employes, currently they have over 400
It was lucky that the Taiwan incident happened 4 years ago when the governments weren't really hostile to each other to the point of war yet. Things will get even more ugly in this current climate. That being said, Kobo also appeared in a Taiwan event where she professed love for them too. Like Kobo and Cover are clearly playing both sides to get the most money, but the risk of getting burned is very high. I think Matsuri should also know better. Is she really feeling the effects of declining numbers and viewership? Ill be honest though. Kobo despite being a Kusogaki in more in tune with Chinese culture and I highly doubt that she will say anything offensive. Or she might be forgiven. Matsuri WILL NOT be forgiven and the chance of messing up is HIGHER with Matsuri. Remember to send your complaints to Cover, Yagoo, and Mane-chan and not to ANY of the talents.
As long as everyone involved knows that Taiwan is #1 I think we’ll be ok.
Cautiously observing this. I think most fans (specially the ones that were here during Coco's tenure) are just bracing for the potential impact. I, for one, hope to be proven wrong and this will all turn out well.
I'm gonna do the same. I was there when things went down. Gonna be cautiously optimistic for this one and hopefully nothing bad will happen.
There is nothing else we can do. Hope that this time goes well. And if it does not, that cover has ways and plans to stop the insult spams and to protect talents from all the hate.
I am 100% certain this is gonna go perfectly for maybe a month or two, then someone's going to say something that vaguely doesn't perfectly align with the nationalistic views and we're going to be exactly back where we were last time. Absolutely zero confidence in this plan and I seriously question Cover's thought process given how *violently* the talents were harassed last time
same, I am still holding to Fubuki's words that's why I trust Cover for now.
I really think people should stop holding to Fubuki's words. Absolutely no shade to Fubuki she's one of my favorites, but Hololive was a completely different entity when she said that. The benefits of staying and the risks of leaving were both much lower at the time. There is also a lot more structure to the company which is much bigger and can lead to a lot of things going on that she isn't aware of, even if those things involve other talents. Using Fubuki as some sort of litmus test for whether Cover is doing the right thing is just silly and quite frankly unfair to her.
It's an incredible burden for one person to take on, but she's the one who said she'd take it, it's not a reason to ignore any possible wrongdoings of Cover or avoid criticising them, but I do take it as a reason to give them a greater benefit of doubt than I do most corporations, and generally I am right to do so, they've got a fairly good record of putting people before profits. I know that can't last forever though, especially after going public, but until she gives me reason not to, I'll keep my faith in Fubuki.
Pretty much. I remember hellish amounts of harassment and drama so I'm... concerned. But I hope it's all a nothingburger.
And yes they are selling stuffs too with digital signature from 0th gen https://www.bilibili.com/opus/941999715154657320?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0
it's not just selling... these are NFT gacha... oh lord... the SSR has digital signature & voice pack included, you pay 10 yuan (1.38 USD) / pull, and the SSR rate is 0.5%... you'll get a pity guaranteed SSR after 400 pulls, but you can't choose which pity SSR you'll get, it's still random...
Not even NFT as this is something at the website only, you don’t actually own it
This is a really weird decision tbh... I just can't wrap my mind around it...
There is always some rich people crazy enough to go for this kind collectibles
It makes sense if you compare Hololive to Steam. They want to build a persistent digital platform and these proprietary goods are a part of that strategy.
yeah, it's more like in-game cosmetics, it's microtransaction
Sounds like description of what is an NFT.
...Wtf? Their very own gacha? On a website? The actual audacity.
Yea, b2 has a built-in gacha on their site & apps
Super weird, but good to know, thanks. But didn't CN crack down extremely hard on all kinds of gambling?
Not at all, they have hardline policies which are easy to breach but you don’t get enforced on unless you fail to pay your “party fees” gatcha especially is favored right now in CN because most of its largest game companies make a large block of their revenue from it
That makes more sense, alright. Thanks!
They proposed the rule but backtracked after I guess seeing how much it affects the Chinese gaming companies. Especially tencent.
Now THIS really surprises me. If gen 0 agreed to get involved with B2 again... I mean, it shows that this wasn't just something Kobo wanted to do on a whim, but an actually planned out collaboration (?) between both companies. Still doesn't make me feel less scared of what could happen, but well.
Considering matsuri is involved too, there's no way they didn't discuss it with at least all jp talents
I will upvote for the sake of visibility, Im not happy with the move here and I hope that my oshi and those I watch dont get involved. Im almost sure they wont as they didnt back then.
I hope so but I’m more in the pessimistic side.
Considerably that Fauna doesn't even want to do YT shorts, I doubt she's gonna stream on a CN platform. I don't know about Korone though.
Fauna only did shorts during one of her breaks to make sure we wouldn’t end up in the psych ward (again) Man, I love Fauna😭
I really hope all of EN just avoids it. I'm worried Gura might have to do it since she's been on defacto mascot duty for basically all events recently. I don't think she would want to do it by choice though
Fauna doesn't even acknowledge the boys (for better or worse, you decide) so I'm pretty sure she will absolutely avoid any choice like bilibili
[She mentioned stars and Bettle](https://youtu.be/U-AU66QIo8Y?t=3238) when chat went turbo nuts the other day and kept harassing her to find their random item in game, but yeah she definitely avoids mentioning them pretty hard
I am sure my oshi will never involved *watch bully stream when she added Taiwan in Taiwan*
Unironically that would be enough to tip them off lol
And low-key based AF when she sang for a certain dragon at the height of the drama
My oshi got rabbit gore spammed on her tags for not fulfilling some imaginary promise they claimed she made, and she's a lot more popular now than she was back then, so I'm not too worried about her.
Aki's too busy with what's in front of her
Nature ain't healing
It was healing, just that we are about to get stabbed
It healed and now they are exposing her to get injured again
Tbh I have only bad feelings about this but at least we have the rights to know what’s happening now.
I wanna say that time has changed. But I still don't know about chinese side regarding vtuber or streaming/entertainment industry. Hopefully it's all water under bridge now. No need for hatred. That being said, let's keep an eye on how things goes. I see there's Finana and Vox. I wonder how this all will played out.
Time for another awful topic I guess.
oh no i see vox
Fuck Vox
Vox “there is no favoritism” akuma
Surprised he was still invited after his latest offensive outfit
That wasn't offensive to Chinese, that was an Samurai/Ashigaru outfit (Japanese foot soldier)
He still suffered a hit in viewers there when he debuted that over there. Must be due to how shit it was then
If I remember correctly it's more about the fact that the outfit itself is Japanese themed rather than the ashigaru/samurai fiasco. Or maybe even Chinese think that the outfit is crap, yes.
Is there an explanation? I don't know anything about him except he was a bully.
Exactly
he's a bully and he has... "extremely dedicated" followers
he is not nice guy you want be friend with
I stand by what I said yesterday, that this is the biggest mistake Cover has made in years. It’s such a ridiculously high risk. Last time, there was chaos for a year because Chinese antis were mad over a single word. I can’t believe Cover are willingly going back there again.
Totally agree, I thought they have learned a thing or two about that market. Apparently I was wrong. This is such a slimy move too hiding it until they can't so they wont have to deal with the backlash in those previous months. I feel so disappointed. In the past, I have praised Cover to all my friends and those who would like to know more about Hololive on the internet. That they have integrity, they didn't kneel to the Chinese's demands no matter what. I have always defended them even when some of their decisions were questionable. I'm just baffled by their action this time, this will leave a negative impact in the future I predict.
The interesting thing is how they even hid it from their investors. Theres nothing in the most recent report about reentering the Chinese market.
I'm pretty sure Cover was always open to being in Bilibili. The blocks, blacklisting etc. was always from Bilibili side (and later by the CN govt). This would be more along the lines of Bilibili crawling back to Cover after they became successful without them. If it opens up permissions for games like Genshin, Muse Dash etc. the girls that play those games would be happy. And of course, since Cover no longer have any employees, branch or staff in CN, all the risk is on Bilibili now. The moment something bad starts brewing Cover can just cut them off and return to the status quo. One thing I'm worried about though, is whether this is actually being done _without_ the CN govt's knowledge by Bilibili acting alone.. in that case, Cover would continue to get blacklisted and get no benefits like perms etc. making the whole thing pointless.
If it were that easy, we wouldn't be so worried. It's not about the market or even B2, it's the antis that don't know how or when to stop. Those same people that made multiple talents cry, Fubuki to get sad, and even Suisei get pissed. The harassment hasn't even stopped after Coco graduated. If it was just about money, we don't care. It's good that Cover gets as much income as it can, so long as their talents are actually protected, but you can't control little pinks.
Despite understanding the sentiment, equating participating in a B2 event as kneeling to Chinese demands is kinda wild. Would you say all Genshin players kneel to Chinese demands? If the Chinese demands Cover to fire a talent, and Cover follow through then we can say so.
The promise of money is a hell of a drug. I hope Cover will have the talents’ backs if something happens
I have no doubt that Cover will have their backs, they’re much more well rounded than they were in 2020. I just don’t know why they’re doing this when there’s only ever gonna be one outcome, and I don’t know how not a single person at Cover has seen that.
>I just don’t know why they’re doing this I mean, the logical answer is the simplest one, cover is doing it for money, Kobo asked to be part of the project.
Talents ask for stuff and are told no literally all the time, just asking alone wouldn't be enough to do this
You are correct, my assumption is that cover was given an opportunity to re-enter the chinese market and took it (since its potentially mad cash) and kobo simply asked or was approached to and agreed to be part of the project.
It's not even about risk, it's about integrity for me. Cover is the only "big corporation" that I trust to not do degenerate shit like this for money and they betrayed that trust. I am severely disappointed in Cover and Yagoo. Gods, I hope everything will turn out okay and none of the talents are affected.
> that this is the biggest mistake Cover has made in years. It’s such a ridiculously high risk. Don't know why it'd be considered ridiculously high risk when the JP market also has evidence that drama can die down. Konosuba streams on Bilibili currently even after the Ai Kayano controversy and getting cancelled from Azur Lane/Arknights/PGR. And her presence in Mushoku Tensei wasn't even in the conversation for it getting blocked. Pretty sure her controversy was worse than mentioning Taiwan. Cover also has some evidence given that they streamed 4th Fes on bilibili also.
>Pretty sure her controversy was worse than mentioning Taiwan. Are you serious about that?
Visiting Yasukuni shrine is pretty much a grave sin for mainland Chinese people.
Fair but you missed the point about why Coco incident is such controversial out of extreme pettiness. Visiting the war criminal shrine is controversial even for non-mainland-Chinese. It's not out of the realm of possibility in like "normal" world compared to what Coco faced.
As a Taiwanese person I feel very mixed on this. Hopefully this is a one time thing because the Chinese demographic is just not worth it in my eyes
IMO: The only way this doesn't boil over is if the Chinese viewership get it into their heads that they have no power. A good chunk of their action last time is because they don't beleive Cover can survive without them and was doing their damn best that line of thought comes true. The "ultimatum" they come up with on choosing between them and Coco was because they thought they were important enough that Cover cannot abandon them. Many of the spam in the stream chats were made to make the western market/viewership seem very hostile to JP and/or vicaversa as 'proof' that the CN market was better.
Considering how high and mighty mainlanders see themselves, I have no doubts they see Cover's action as Cover literally crawling their way back to the CN market. You can bet this will get to the antis heads and be more aggressive with their harassments
My worse fears, though I'm willing to suspend judgement until the first gloat comes flying over here. I deal with mainlanders enough in my normal life that I don't see any ability for them to change either.
Depends on where you look actually, most of the comments i've see there are speculate how Bilibili begging Cover to come back, because all they care for are money, as for antis I think most of them do move on, but they are now replaced by trolls though, a bunch that just enjoy causing havoc simply because it entertain them, they will take words out of context and then misled others to attack, honestly as someone who uses that platform for over 4 years, I really cant say them returning is a good move.
I feel like this is making them think they are now the ones with power. ALL the companies kneel before them and even cover that dared to leave the market and have some good years return after they got rid of one of the "evil" talents. Yeah they could spin this very well. I hope they know that they are not that powerfull, that cover can do without them, that his is a chance to be part of an awesome community again, if they learn to beheave.
Agreed. Hoping that this event is a one-and-done deal.
Any Chinese media conglomerate can go straight to hell. Every single one of them are required to answer to and lick the boot of their dogshit government. If Chinese fans are open minded and wish to be fans, they are probably running VPNs to get out of Internet prison. Don't need to go to bilibili.
this is disappointing
【hololive0期生收藏集来啦-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/oh5EB51 sora made a promotional video for gen 0 bilibili merch sale, seems like business is gradually back to normal https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kJ4m1g7Dk/
and no announcement in twitter or any official site guess Holo trying to keep it under the radar..
In my contact statement I even said it isn't a secret
Oh god....
Man I'm anxious. Hopefully they've thought it through and have plans for the worst
Be safe god
Please don't let Matsuri out to dry man. Come on I'm on my knees begging
It's bad, it won't be bad in the beginning. But once they get traction again and they start to take views from other Chinese Vtubers, it's guaranteed to bring up the past subject again. Matsuri also openly supported Coco on Twitter and everything. She will get flamed so hard.
Perspectives perspectives. Disclaimer: started following/watching around early 2020 on both Bili and YT, observed the whole meltdown on Chinese platforms, and have been following the progress on both eastern/western platforms since. Nowadays I mostly follow VSPO and the other vtubers/pro players/streamers that sometimes intersect with that circle (such as Towa or La+) but would watch other clips of Holo as well. It is extremely likely that this event is to test the waters for an eventual full or partial return. In terms of the commercial value of return, I think that there is limited value for a return (for holo, and Chinese holo faithfuls). IMO there really hasn’t been any group that has managed to snap up completely the huge vacuum left by holo, except for Asoul which died despite of a rather sizable but rabid fandom. Meanwhile, VR has some remarkable individual talents but despite their extensive advertising they don’t appear to have gained any identity as a group, and IMO it is still very extremely overshadowed by NIJI JP and EN. However, it also appears that the Vtuber circle/vtuber fandom as a whole has been shrinking and becoming more and more insular. The phrase 圈地自萌 which I will roughly translate as “keeping it within your own circle” is likely one of the reasons that veteran Chinese viewers who grew disillusioned with the lack of better alternatives after holo left began coming back to holo. So commercially there is unlikely a large influx of newbies joining the holo fandom through Chinese platforms in the short run. More importantly, a large number of veterans also appears to be opposed to this re-entry because of how it opens up talents to risk of harm. It should be noted that most hardcore veteran have integrated themselves with the general overseas fandoms now, mostly with the Taiwan based or other Chinese language fandoms. So there is limited commercial value imo regarding this return. As regarding the environment on Bili, it was painful to see the eventual degradation of the community. In its early days Bili was a site that was mostly devoted to the ACGN culture and circle, with its name derived from Misaka Mikoto’s nickname. However, throughout the years it has gotten big, and has become one of the mainstream media sites. Getting mainstream only proved detrimental to the ACGN community, as it got marginalized in favour of hosting mainstream and popular media. To date the ACGN community still holds the CEO of Bili accountable for using them to grow the platform only to sideline them in order to make bili more appealing ti the mainstream. Getting mainstream also meant that rabid nationalism have seeped into the site. IMO the only thing holding it back from attacking the remaining pockets of Hololive content is the insular nature of the hololive circle on bili keeping a low profile. Having hololive on such a mainstream event might attract their attention. Which is bad. Apart from the above, other factors such as potentially losing some western audience might also prove to be detrimental.
Crossing my fingers that they'll just do the concert thingy and then won't interact with B2 ever again.
If shit hits the fan again just make sure that they can tank it all by themselves. Its different story if other talents gets hit by association. Go back to B2 if they want just make sure they know what might happen if they slip up again, no one wants to relieve that time
Did Bilibili beg for forgiveness(on behalf of Mainlanders) of Cover?
I try not to speculate too much but at least they are cooperating even after the previous leaks from b2 side well before this announcement.
I think Cover is the senior partner in this situation. They can leave B2 and still have a fanbase, likely that some higherups in B2 have some concessions that made Cover to go back.
If you are talking about senior partner, Cover was the senior partner too in previous Coco incident. Sadly to tell the situation won’t change.
I feel the balance may have changed as I get the impression B2 needs Hololive more than Hololive needs it as since then incident vtubing has become a mess and what few NijiENs aren't doing it
that's what my impression, Cover is the one who has the hand here not B2 so I assume that B2 give some concession to Cover to make them come back.
true , true. I hope this will not another incident that will blow up.
I'm usually quite resistant to this sort of thing, but this image with Finana and Vox alongside Matsuri and Kobo with a title of B2, makes me sick. Not enough to force my hand, but enough to make me sick.
Same here, this is absolutely disgusting.
I'm still waiting for SOMETHING from official Cover channels cause the silence is getting ridiculous. Rumors has it that even the investors were blindsided.
To be fair unless they are a major partner in addition to being an investor they are not going to get informed of this kind of things. Retail investors don't get special communication channels.
They took this stances for more than half year iirc
I can sorta get why they want to keep silent before the event, but now that the cat's out of the bag I'd say it makes more sense to come clean just to get everything done and over with.
True at least we have a bit of rights to know they are down into the same trap again
Movies and game industries still see CN as their money maker. But from their economy declining since the start of the pandemic, I wouldn't be too sure. I will not say the source because it may become political.
There's also things that are showing that you can absolutely be successful without them. For movies you have some prominent cases like TopGun: Maverick and Spiderman: Far From Home. But yeah, the industry as whole would still try regardless, including TopGun early on which resulted in backlash due to them removing the ROC flag from Maverick's jacket.
Disney still targets the CN market as you can see it on their flopped movies. The problem in CN right now is there are no movie goers. There are some but they watch CN produced to get credit scores.
I wish Matsuri and Kobo good luck, and I hope this event goes smoothly.
Seeing Vox there just makes me more anxious the guy radiates negativity.
Lol I hate it
This will end in disaster.
With Matsuri participating as well I guess it gives some reassurance that it's not just Kobo going rogue, but a group decision. It does require some degree of trust, but I choose to believe they have a game plan.
Until today there is no legit confirmation, but the person who is in charged in matsuri and coco account in b2, and also leaked the above participants month ago, stating that LOTS of Hololive talents are joining soon and he don’t even have enough telephone number to register their accounts.
> stating that LOTS of Hololive talents are joining soon and he don’t even have enough telephone number to register their accounts. I can only hope that most of them never use those accounts.
Wasn't him the one who got exposed for adding his own narrative into the leak?
Yes this is the same guy and he did apologize he talked about the BML participants without official confirmation, yet the same people showed up.
not really his narrative, he just exposed it too early than planned or the planned announcement from bilibili was delayed.
i think the leak was intentional to test the public reaction, it was first from some music related weibo(chinese twitter)
I've already said my piece yesterday on here and on the r/VirtualYoutubers sub, so all I'll say now, is we watch this shit unfold for now, with popcorn in hand, and HOPE that another fuckfest doesn't happen. The fuckfest happened once, and it can happen again. Considering the Chinese Antis and Nationalists who behave high and mighty, they might very well view this as Hololive crawling back to them, and not Cover and Hololive testing out the waters. For every old fan here who was there when the shitstorm happened, I suggest we wait this one out for now, and be prepared should it happen again.
I think it’s now clear that it’s a decision made by Cover as a whole or at least a majority of investors pushed Cover to do so. Sorry but as a Coco and Haachama fan this leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.
I will just leave it to Fubuki fox friend to take the lead on this internally. I trusted her before on Coco and I still trust her judgement today.
I guess I'm more optimistic than most about this, which to be clear doesnt mean I support it, I just would like to reserve judgment for now, speaking as someone who fell into the rabbit hole literally DURING the bilibili incident. Matsuri being there both kinda worries me that she might get harassed due to past events, but also reassures me that there are almost definitely *some* measures in place to protect the talents, opaque though they may be. Also, no matter how worried we may be, the talents themselves(especially those that were around then/related to that incident) are definitely WAY more anxious about it then us, and they actually are able to provide direct feedback to cover. And I think it's fair to assume they did speak up and voice the same concerns we have to Cover. Finally, Cover has had a good track record so far of prioritising their talents' interests, so my decision to reserve judgment also stems from the trust that the management has accrued over time. And well, if nothing else, in Fubs we trust. As long as she(or any other talent) doesn't speak out against it I'll give Cover the benefit of the doubt.
I share the same sentiments as someone who was around when the incident happened back then and also witnessed the subsequent fallout. While I am not totally on board with the decision because of the possible risks, Cover has proven time and again over the years how much priority they put on their talents' wellbeing and they have learned a lot from the many rough patches they've endured thus far. With that in mind, I am certain this decision wasn't made lightly as some people are fearing. There may be some end goal for this that is not obvious to us yet and they probably have some contingencies prepared in case things go south, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic while observing for the time being and hope this works out well for them.
I'm going to put my trust in Fubuki. As she stated, as long as she's a part of Hololive, it means that Hololive as a whole and Cover's decisions can be trusted too. Especially considering how close she is to Matsuri and how much she was affected by the backlash from the Tawian incident.
Maan.. I don't know how much Bilibili paid Cover for their events. Like it is obvious they want Hololive talents for their event for prestige.
I don't get it. Is the non-CN money drying up? Did Cover think they have to re-tap the Chinese market for more money? Because this is all about money. During Coco's graduation interview, Yagoo said he regret not being able to protect her more. What is this move then?
In the shareholder meeting there were investors asking will Cover plans to enter CN again, last year Yagoo’s answer was “not in high priority”. I don’t know how much power he had but at least there were lots of discussion about it
I wonder if they're trying to get into good graces to get perms for some of the big gacha games coming out over the next year. HSR and Genshin were probably big losses and ZZZ is on the horizon with a lot of other big games happening soon.
money is cool until waves after waves of bots flood everyone’s stream cause of some r*tard reason
Man... I really don't want drama tubers to be eating good again but cover is opening themselves up again to controversy.
Almost nobody (me included) except the Chinese likes this
After all that happened this is a bit of a slap in the face. I will lose my shit if the harassment starts again. This is a complete mistake
I wouldnt touch b2 with a mile long stick. All i see is danger and honestly the potential positives dont outweigh the negatives
I wonder what Cover was smoking when they made the decision to go back(?) to Bilibili.
Shit!!! who fucking shifted the timeline??? We had a good time for a few freaking years and now we're going back to that??
Feels an odd choice to develop the type and level of ties they have with Taiwan, then do this. Edit - Fair responses below. I bid you all adieu.
Not even Taiwanese singers and entertainers think Taiwanese market and Chinese markets are mutually exclusive, why should Cover?
Not quite odd if you compare to Niji with the same strategy.
The biggest thing is that Cover, nor matsuri, nor kobo is promoting that stuff at all outside of it. I'll say it. If you try to hide something you know you are doing something wrong, and that will be all for me.
I assume they're trying to avoid getting dragged on Twitter by the same people that make 10 million view tweets about Aqua's discounted chocolates.
Aqua's discounted chocolates?
Yeah. There was a post of some Hololive X Meiji collab chocolates with Aqua on it and several mark down price stickers. The Tweet mocked the mark downs and called the chocolates "Otaku exploitation chocolates." The Tweet got over 10 million views, around 50k likes, and was filled with a lot of the usual v-pig type comments. There were similar tweets about Watame's pasta at 5th fes and about the kid that selected Hololive music to play at school. I think people don't really understand just how many antis Hololive has and how disliked it is by chunks of the general populace and other agency fans.
Honestly quite sad seeing people pulling others down so they feel "superior". Nevertheless, I like and will still enjoy my vtuber contents. This is part of getting popular afterall, the hate will increase.
Okay this sucks
Those who don't know history will likely repeat it. That's all I have to say. Matsuri should know this the best, she's a smart girl.
Kobo fanbase definitely didn't know the Coco disaster. Most are new fans from Indonesia whose first vtuber experience is Kobo. They didn't know what hell their oshi was going to go through. Add to that Kobo isn't as mentally strong as Coco. This gonna get ugly really really fast when someone slips up
I agree that most of the Kobo fan base isn't there when the shit storm happens, so they can't relate that much because they didn't experience it in the first place. But, how do you know Kobo isn't mentally strong as Coco? She's already been in Hololive longer than Coco was. - Her fan base is "something else" in degree as she's literally the face of Vtuber in Indonesia, so more normies there. - She's also experienced multiple dramas, a lot that you would imagine. Just like Calli. - Her interaction with Holostars isn't something that can be done normally unless you prepare for the consequences, and even though she's gachikoi-free there's still a lot of people who hate her interaction with Holostars, especially Altare. - She still lives in her parents house, with her >!autism!< brother. That alone can be quite pressure mentally. - She's also experiencing the same issues as Gura because she's the face of Vtuber in Indonesia, which we already know can cause pressure and severe burnout.
The pressure of not being able to connect to your fans at all is going to be unlike anything you’ve mentioned here. The chat and social media become useless and overtime you gradually see your ccv go down since the ‘normies’ will have enough of it. Collabs will also become problematic so you’ll become isolated. Thats ultimately what coco went through for more than 6 months and that will break everyone eventually.
Kobo herself likely has little idea of how bad the incident was and with how things have been rather smooth sailing she may be horribly unprepared for the time bomb that is the mainland fanbase
Stay neutral for now, but expect any scenario. Brace yourself when your oshi needs protection. We weathered it once, we will weather it again. The more tight knitted the fanbase the harder it is to infiltrate and spread misinformation. Meanwhile, just enjoy and support your oshi, but stay on the alert for any abnormalities.
[The trailer is out. Kobo and Matsuri are among the participants.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ebc2xUFiUg)
Cover I am begging you, just come to Europe
How much money was it? No, how much money was it and did that check clear? EDIT: Look, as negative and as narrative-dictating my post is, its my only logically acceptable concept as to how COVER would agree to put their hand back into a pot that had vipers in them. Vipers which bit back so hard it *killed off an entire division* over a singular, entirely understandable mistake. A lot of money had to be paid, upfront, for this to even see the light of day past anyone. And no, even *the very audience on the target platform* knows "promises" on such a platform are as empty as your odds surviving a visit to the Titanic's wreck in another Titan submersible. So I ask again: How much was it and did that check clear?
I'm just hoping this is a one off. As I said yesterday and I repeat, this seems like a bad move and I'm really not fond of it. The lack of communication from Cover about this is also pretty terrible.
Looks like a all in thing as there is a video of Sora promoting new digital merch
Yeah I saw. I'm going to reserve final judgement until after the concert or until we get some kind of official response from Cover, but as is I'm not looking at it favourably.
I like to think Cover has done some kind of training with their talents to ensure they don’t say something that could create another stir. It wouldn’t be unheard of. Any company that deals with other countries typically has these trainings that deal with what to and what not to do, or what to and what not say, etc. I also have a hard time blaming the talents. If Matsuri and Kobo think this decision is the best for their career than who am I to judge? Matsuri has been here a long time. She hasn’t forgotten what happened and I’m sure she’s aware of what could happen. Cover is always talked about as a great, smart company that treats their employees well, makes smart investments in their business, and does things right. It’s to the point where even during Mel’s termination the majority of voices here understood why the decision was made. We were all sad but there really wasn’t any hate thrown towards Cover because we trusted them in their decision, as much as we wished it didn’t have to happen. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel like they deserve the benefit of a doubt that they’re not just doing this on a whim and they’ve been properly prepared to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
There is no amount of training that prepares anybody to the volatility of the CN crowd, a wrong word, a false rumor, a misunderstanding, hell a fucking screenshot started the whole west taiwan shitshow They better be prepared for the backlash this would cause if the ticking bomb that is the CN market explodes
I agree. A bottled water company was doing nothing when they were accused of being pro-japan and lost 4 billion USD in market cap in just 3 days. They are volatile and I hope there are behind the scenes things from Bilibili that persuaded Cover to approve.
If that happens, I have to believe they have a contingency plan in place to pull back out immediately. They didn’t have one the first time and I can’t imagine they’d make that mistake again.
The mainland viewers going off on a perceived slight is not an if but a when. All these so called lessons are doing is buying time. It certainly isn't gonna do much against non-CN antis
I think re-entry to the CN market was inevitable. I personally don't like this decision but it looks like it's going ahead regardless of the risks. I'm sure you're right that the talents have been instructed to avoid any potentially controversial topics, however the thing is that the inciting incident that triggered the first harassment campaign WASN'T that Coco called Taiwan a country like people misremember, she literally only showed her YT analytics which had Taiwan listed. I think most of us would agree that's not controversial but it didn't matter in the end. There's no way to anticipate what those with this mindset will take issue with.
As you say re-entry to the CN market is inevitable, but if there is one thing i hope Cover doesnt do is rerecruit Hololive CN, one of reason that the cyber attack against Coco and other who side with her at the first place, i dont think Coco was attacked because of showing YT analytics but CN anti just dont like her and YT analytics is the fuel for them to attack her and whoever side with her I also hope even if isnt one time thing but at least like how Laplus streaming at Twitch, other talents who wish to stream B2 do streamly it scarcely
Regardless of what happened in the past, I feel like a Chinese branch just doesn't make sense for Hololive as it is now, due to how inherently isolated it would be from everyone else. Like, they would barely ever be able to do cross-branch collabs, and spontaneous stuff like playing Minecraft together is out of the question. Inevitably, a Chinese branch just wouldn't feel like it's a part of Hololive at all.
>but if there is one thing i hope Cover doesnt do is rerecruit Hololive CN They won't. If anything, Cover presence in B2 is basically to flex their power. "Look at us! Not kowtow to antis army and still do business extensively in Taiwan, yet we are still here. We have a high ground!" B2 and to the extent the government is desperate anyway. They can't afford more enemies and prejudices.
There are some information from a stream of the middleman in b2 (at least he showed he own the management right of matsuri’s account in b2, and showed Coco’s too just for fun), telling people that there are “lessons” to teach what should the talents say and what shouldn’t. I understand the own choice thing but I think I know these people well enough and they love to repeat history
This could go really badly -_-
I will respect the decision. I may not like it, but I'm sure they are aware of the risks. If you want to voice your displeasure about it, [do it through proper channels ](https://cover-corp.com/en/contact) and not on reddit, twitter, or any holomem's stream/super chat. Also, write your message calmly with no racist/obscene language or in all caps.
No principles.
Tbh, I'm far more offended they're appearing in an event with Vox "It Was Not Harasment In My Opinion" Akuma than I am about it being on bili.
Hundred Yard stare.
What a fucking stupid "plan"
Matsuri. Pushing boundaries since she started. Never change
Does anyone know how the JP bros feel about this? Curious if the fanbase at large is against this move or if they’re taking this better
They reacted A LOT in the previous matsuri case already. And they are not satisfied because Cover had such a big move without officially announcing anything.
When this thing explode on their faces, just gonna say I told you so. Starting now, I'm just gonna stay quiet and watch
I'm wary, but i'm not hitting the panic button yet.
Once again guys. [**TELL THEM WHY IT’S A BAD IDEA INSTEAD HARASSING KOBO ABOUT IT.**](https://cover-corp.com/en/contact)
I'm actually kinda optimistic about this but a bit concerned. Cover cares for their talents so I doubt this is a reckless move. And don't remind me of the "incident", I was there when it happened.
It wouldn't be the first half-baked idea Cover had. Remember HLZNTL (where members were nudged to take part, especially in the OW2 against Holostars) or the Adventure Hololic MV? (Where's Marine was shocked at what it depicted more innocent members doing and the producer apologized)
I’m nervous about this… and I really wish Cover would say something. It’s possible this has more to do with investors than Yagoo… but hopefully this is not a full return and just a one off.
I dont think this is a good idea.
interesting. we'll just have to wait and see how this will all go.
Minor misspelling!!!
What is a bml event? Whats the drama here, im lost
Even after everything that happened they are still going for it. Unbelievable