#4: The Orca Swims Away

Updated on 2024-12-01 to add Ceres Fauna's graduation

Sakamata Chloe will end her 'streaming activities' this year. She will remain as a talent of Hololive, as was the case for Amelia Watson. Ceres Fauna has decided to graduate (fully retire her identity, in addition to cessation of her activities) in the early days of 2025.

For idol agencies like Hololive, this is to be expected. Some talents will want to leave because they are unable to find an arrangement that satisfies both parties. This is more the case for talents that prefer to stream content more than dealing with musical or other affairs, especially now that the primary focus of Hololive was (and is) about being an idol group. (Note that this is also dependent on the talents themselves - some are better at time management than others, and are thus able to eke in marathon gaming sessions between idol-related activities.) And, inevitable as it is, people will have a change of heart. Who doesn't? It's human.

Certain quarters of the community are calling on management to reduce the workload of their talents. Here's the unfortunate reality: this is how much of the entertainment industry works. Not every day do you afford to rest and recuperate, even if you're able to somehow be at Monaco. There's always work to do behind-the-scenes, and it's that work that rarely gets appreciated by their fans even in the age of hyper-visibility and an age where privacy is scant, if not non-existent. If anything, management are trying their best to reduce the workload of their talents in every possible manner, but there's a limit to how little a talent can do things, and how much management will work for them.

And about the 'shift in direction': Some talents have acknowledged the fact that Cover have been changing the balance of streaming and idol activities to favour the latter. This is normal and expected of any company in the industry. Within a few years, their directions and strategies change, in order to stay relevant to as much of the audience as possible. Cover must try to form an acceptable compromise to placate the talents, the older fans and the neophytes. Alternatively, they can do a Jaguar and change their direction so profoundly that they deliberately abandon their older audience if it means that they can catch a new audience that may be more willing to pay. Clearly, this is not what Cover wants. They want to retain their older talents but also make them adapt to the new normal of Hololive. Not being aggressive and taking risks will mean losing the competitive edge to rival agencies.

I'm not here to paint Cover as saints, either. Sometimes they feel like an overly ambitious company that's prone to making many errors. See the various technical gremlins on both streams and concerts (which is a nitpick), the bungled international release of Holoplus (their own social networking platform), general brainfade moments with management (remember when Ina had to fly from Canada to Japan and back multiple times all because her visa was screwed up by Cover and them not even compensating for her travel fees), and being publicly reprimanded by a national government agency for failing to pay commissioned artists on time. I'm probably asking too much (I'm just an ordinary fan), but learning from those mistakes is one thing, but continuing to look amateurish is another even when your projects are a success. Hiring more people may help a little with their operations, but in the long-term, maybe it's time for them to look for a strategic partner, like another entertainment outfit within Japan to assist Cover with the necessary resources and skills to match their aspirations? But as said by Yagoo himself ages ago, he chose to make Cover publicly tradeable because selling the company was too risky for everyone involved. I know that he wants Cover and Hololive to thrive independently, but I think it would make sense to form some more concrete partnerships if they want to look like respectable go-getters.

And I'd like to provide some explanation as to why a significant portion of the Hololive community are upset at Cover: they're stuck in the Covid-era mindset that Hololive has to be specifically both an idol group and streamer group in equal measure. During the pandemic years, it was hard to commit to doing idol activities, so the talents resorted to streaming as the primary means of entertaining people. Most of the Hololive community joined during those years, and were comfortable with this status quo. Unfortunately, status quos are meant to be broken, and in the post-pandemic era, Cover have realised that, because of the changing social landscape and Covid no longer becoming a significant worry, they can return to prioritising idol activities over streaming as they wanted to before the pandemic. Naturally, this will put many veterans of the community at a bind. Do they want to accept this new reality, or will they have no choice but to grasp the remnants of an era long gone - an era when they didn't have to worry about going to work on a 9-to-5 job or going to school, and instead stay at home and have ample time to do their hobbies and discover new things like VTubers? Nostalgia presents itself as a spectre that haunts the new, and as a prophet to the uncertain and the vulnerable. It has hijacked much of the community and has reared its ugly head in full view of the public. Only sticking to the 'good old days' would make outsiders think that Hololive - and VTubers in general - are a Covid-era phenomenon that has since faded back to becoming a niche, and that does not bode well for Cover's international expansion. Do they want to cling to a niche audience instead of sticking to the original vision of becoming a mainstream entertainment company? Most of the community are not necessarily part of the mainstream, and pandering to them, as they did in the pandemic, will only make VTubers a niche and not mainstream.

Before you come in and demand the resignation of Yagoo or any of Cover Corp's top brass, or to put blame on any stock-holding entity that only ever wants a ROI, think about other entertainers that you support, VTubers or not. Don't be surprised that the entertainment industry at-large is ruthless - after all, it is a caricature of an ever-turbulent society. Enjoy every moment you can with the people and groups you support, because any day can be their last. And don't be surprised when one of them decides to let go. Who knows, maybe one of them will acquire their own identity and IP from Cover and continue as an independent talent?

The Hololive of 2021 is in the past. This is the Hololive of 2025, and you'll have to get used to it, for as long as they continue to have a working conscience and a warm heart. If not, then you are free to respectfully leave the community.