Latest news with #VTubers
Time of India
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'Been few days… f**k, can you, like, no?': Ironmouse fires back at rushing orgs, trying to sign her just days after VShojo drama
(Image via YouTube/MouseyDawg) Just days after the high-profile VShojo drama that shook the VTuber world, Ironmouse is already facing an overwhelming wave of recruitment attempts. The streamer, who is popular for her unfiltered and vibrant personality, is quite furious about it. She, during one of her recent streams, showed her frustration and issued a blunt response, calling out the organizations for the lack of respect and patience. Her entire message was loud and clear, and she wanted all of them to back off. Ironmouse bluntly rejects opportunistic organizations During one of the live broadcasts, VTuber powerhouse Ironmouse revealed that she had been receiving countless DMs and emails just days after leaving the former agency VShojo. All these organizations reaching out to her aggressively pitched her to join their VTuber corpos, content creator agencies or even help her in starting her own. She is clearly irritated and couldn't hold back any longer. VTubers Companies Tried to Recruit Ironmouse "How about don't do that? How about no? How about do not?! Don't f**k with me, bro! You think I'm f**king around?! I ain't joking b***ch!' said Ironmouse as she delivered her outburst. She further added that she needs a 'tiny bit of break,' and 'time to be indie.' As per her, 'it's only been a few days! Like, what the f**k, can you, like, no?' and she needs time for just being independent. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Brain tumor has left my son feeling miserable; please help! Donate For Health Donate Now Undo Ironmouse's message is loud and clear. She is not interested in jumping into any other corporate commitment anytime soon. After Ironmouse outburst, fans even praised her for setting the boundaries, especially after the recent fallout of VShojo. Fans' reactions to Ironmouse response The raw reaction of Ironmouse instantly resonated all across social media, particularly on X. The VTuber community started showing support, condemning the nature and timing of the approaches. Their sentiment was just clear—this is wildly inappropriate. A user on X wrote, 'I can respect the hustle and striking an iron while it's Man trying to recruit a person who just revealed one of the largest scandals of the year? Yeah she's been burned bad and she needs space xD' 'Good, she needs to take her time and figure it all out. Maybe get Mythic to help,' added another. A user even slammed the opportunist organizations, wanting them to give Ironmouse a break. The comment read, 'Good grief… Give her a break." Echoing the feelings of fans, followers, and even Ironmouse, a user criticised the organization's lack of regard for VTubers' feelings during such a stressful major event. The comment read, 'I can understand you want to grow your business, but People can really be too opportunistic at times and forget about the vtuber's own personal feelings on the matter.' Comments like, 'Orgs are a cancer,' even dominated the conversation. 'Is anyone really surprised?' read a blunt comment showing this entire event was not at all surprising, and organizations are making such disrespectful attempts that it's not for the first time. Many fans even praised Ironmouse's stance. They agreed on the fact that she needed space to recover after processing things independently. It means the organizations must back off and allow Ironmouse to breathe before she goes ahead to make any moves. VShojo controversy led to a major impact and explosive exits The aggressive VTuber recruitment push by the organizations is coming at a time when Ironmouse made an exit from VShojo. Ironmouse's departure video accused VShojo of not just financial mismanagement but also failing to donate the promised funds to the Immune Deficiency Foundation. The scandal further snowballed and led to many high-profile exits. It ultimately brought VShojo to its shutdown, just days after the CEO announced bankruptcy. While the industry is still reeling in so much, and being one of the independent VTubers, Ironmouse is giving priority to just well-being, the immediate attempts of orgs are just insensitive to the VTuber. But the best thing is that Ironmouse is not allowing opportunistic organizations to pressure her into a deal with one another. As of now, she is just focusing on streaming freely, without any corporate strings attached. Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!
Express Tribune
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
VShojo accused of offering hush money and legal threats by Camila and Veibae after agency shutdown
VShojo has come under renewed scrutiny after VTubers Camila and Veibae shared claims of mismanagement, legal intimidation, and opaque hiring decisions following the agency's closure on July 24. Camila alleged that in 2022, she participated in VShojo's open auditions, making it to the third round before being abruptly dropped with no explanation. She claimed to have later learned that finalists were rejected so the agency could hire someone already known to them. According to Camila, those candidates were then allegedly offered 'hush money' to stay silent about the outcome. 'The girls were devastated. Just like the rest of us who got dropped without warning,' she posted on X. In addition to these claims, Camila said other VShojo members confided in her about unpaid work and a lack of communication from the company for extended periods. She also linked a cover of Billie Eilish's "Your Power" in what appeared to be a direct message to former CEO Justin 'GunRun' Ignacio. Separately, Veibae has also spoken out now that her NDA has expired. The former VShojo member stated that in 2023 she was pressured into signing a contract she described as 'predatory.' She claimed the company demanded over half of her sponsor revenue and 60% of merchandise sales. After hiring a lawyer, she was allegedly threatened with legal action and surveillance for any critical comments made in her streams or Discord server. Veibae further revealed that she was not fully paid for sponsorships after her exit and said VShojo coordinated her departure with another VTuber, Silvervale, to manage public perception. The agency's shutdown has triggered a wave of disclosures from current and former talents, raising broader questions about contract practices, transparency, and creator welfare in the VTuber industry.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Anime Stars' Pioneer Talent Firm Shuts Down
The top US talent agency for virtual anime stars shut down this week, with clients saying the company withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars. VShojo Inc., which represented popular so-called VTubers — charismatic anime avatars operated by real people — closed its doors on Thursday, according to a posting by Justin Ignacio, founder and chief executive officer of the San Francisco-based company.
WIRED
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Anime Girl VTubers Are Selling Out Concerts, but Are They ‘Real?' Depends on Who You Ask
Jul 25, 2025 7:00 AM Virtual anime streamers are selling out live venues, singing at pro sports games, and launching record labels, with fans showering them with presents and suspending disbelief in service of the bit. PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ I'm at a sold-out concert in Hollywood, and I'm the only one in the 1,200-plus-capacity venue who doesn't know any of the songs. One of the acts has just finished, and everyone around me begins chanting and waving their light sticks. We don't have to wait long: Kou Mariya, one of the headliners, appears. Not on the stage itself, but on a massive screen spanning the entirety of its length. (She will never appear on the stage, because she is a sexy 6,669-year-old blonde vampire anime girl who exists only in virtual reality.) Mariya starts singing in Japanese. A grown man next to me seems like he's on the verge of tears. Welcome to Fantastic Reality, a mini-festival at the Vermont Theater that brings eight main VTuber acts—all anime girls of varying eye and hair color—to a live venue, accompanied by IRL musicians. I'm here to find out more about why fans are willing to pay up to $180 (the cost of a VIP pass) for the privilege of watching these acts in person, rather than on their screens from the comfort of their own homes. PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ If you've never seen a VTuber before, it's probably just a matter of time. VTubers have been around for about a decade in Japan, hosting everything from online weather stations to iPhone launches, but they surged in popularity outside Japan during Covid quarantine. If you like watching anything online—cooking, gaming, history—there is a VTuber version of it. The name is a portmanteau of 'Virtual YouTuber,' and as it suggests, it's a livestreamer or video creator, but instead of showing their face, the audience sees a virtual 2D or 3D avatar. Technically, a VTuber could take on any appearance or theme (my favorite: an ex-Yakuza in prison stripes who talks about real-life organized crime), but the most popular ones are anime girls with cute voices. Some of these VTubers also sing, and output ranges from simple karaoke streams to full-on music videos. If the VTuber is big enough, fans can also listen to their music on most major streamers. The market is growing: Last week, major VTuber agency Hololive launched a record label. Which brings us back to the concert. For most of the roughly three-hour show, there are three human musicians on the stage: a drummer, a bassist, and a guitarist, who play accompaniment for a parade of anime girls that appear on the massive monitors (one in the center, two hovering over the right and left side). The two DJs, Mono Monet, a VTuber with purple hair who hops from filter house to gabber, and JOENN, an actual human DJ who appears physically on stage to close out the night with an even more frantic set, easily could blend in (musically) at any rave. But the meat of the show is what a casual listener would probably just call 'anime music,' veering occasionally into songs that ranged from goofy memes (Issa Corva: ' I hate cilantro, baby / I hate you almost as much / as I hate cilantro, baby ') to equally goofy link-in-bio rap (CottontailVA: ' Shout-out to my gooners / that showin' my Fansly love '). Mariya, the aforementioned sexy anime vampire, started VTubing in 2020, just in time to ride the surge of quarantine-fueled popularity when everyone was looking for a parasocial friend. Her content ranges from gaming to chatting to (occasionally members-only) ASMR videos to karaoke, and she's also released a single to streaming services. 'Just imagine Paramore, but Hayley Williams is an anime girl.' I've watched some of her streams, but I didn't know what to expect at her concert. Promotional material for the event promised that there would be a live human band, but how exactly would she be interacting with them? So I arrange to speak to her remotely, a couple days before the show. The video call starts, and she appears just like she does in her streams. I mean this literally: I am speaking to the avatar that her fans see. 'I am a vampire born thousands of years ago,' she tells me as an introduction. 'And you, and all of my viewers, are mortal humans. And my goal is: Every time you die and reincarnate, I will find you. And this is the way I found you in this lifetime.' Now that I understand what cosmic forces led me to this blessing of an interview, I try to figure out how the concert is actually going to look . I ask Mariya how she would explain her show to a complete newbie, and she offers: 'Just imagine Paramore, but Hayley Williams is an anime girl,' and laughs. This doesn't answer my core question: How, from a technical aspect, are they going to achieve this? Will it be a hologram? Will the artists be streaming in to the venue from home? From backstage? These are not good questions. At least, not according to the internal rules of VTubing. VTuber culture is often compared to professional wrestling, because of a common internal rule: kayfabe , a term for presenting a fictional story as reality. Most people who have heard the word know it from wrestling, where the athletes in the ring are performing a sweaty soap opera for the entertainment of the audience. Everyone knows it's fake, from the match itself to the shouty post-match interviews. VTubers take this to another level. When Mariya tells her fans she is a vampire, that lore is now fact . It is generally inappropriate to directly ask a streamer how they 'made up' their backstory or who they 'really' are. People have put effort into finding theoretical backing for this. In a book titled The Philosophy of VTuber ( VTuberの哲学 ), a recent PhD graduate of the University of Tokyo references the philosopher John Searle to argue that a VTuber is an 'institutional being': VTubers 'exist' in the same way that money exists, because people agree to believe in it. Some VTubers take their kayfabe more strictly than others (Mariya has occasionally shared some details about events in her life), but in general, audiences follow their lead and will ostracize anyone who breaks the fantasy boundary, especially in the livestream chat. Fans are protective of their oshi (a term borrowed from Japanese idol-music culture that literally means 'push,' but in fan context roughly corresponds to 'favorite artist'), and they feel a responsibility to promote and encourage them in a way that nobody ever would for Dwayne Johnson. There is no fourth wall: As Searle's rival Jacques Derrida might say, everyone is always-already on the stage with the VTuber, building the fantasy together. So my repeated attempts to get Mariya to answer questions about how she and her co-performers would all appear in the venue are a non sequitur. She will just be there . The closest she gets is telling me what she wants people to experience: 'We don't want it to feel like, 'this is just virtual,'' she says. 'This is just reality . [The idea is] … how can we mix it all together where you can't tell what is virtual and what is real anymore?' PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ Outside the venue, I see a group of people in matching Kou Mariya shirts, and I try chatting up a friendly looking guy in a backwards ball cap and glasses. I ask him if they all came as a group. He tells me no; they just grouped up here because they're Mariya fans. His IRL friends wouldn't come. 'A lot of my friends are just kind of regular guys,' he tells me. 'They wanna watch like, UFC fights, and I'll go watch that [with them]. We just do the basic stuff, like watch sports. With them I just kinda do my normal stuff, and then I just kind of do my own thing out here with these guys,' he continues, pointing to the crowd. I ask him what sort of shows he usually goes to. 'I usually do a lot of hardcore concerts. Metalcore, hardcore, like a lot of mosh pits and stuff like that. But my latest one was a V4 concert,' he says, referring to a larger VTuber agency group called V4Mirai that Mariya is signed to. Then he pulls up his sleeve to show me a massive tattoo covering his forearm—a cutesy batlike mascot, a reference to Mariya's fans. 'She's my kami-oshi ,' he says, proudly. Kami-oshi: literally, ' god-push,' your ultimate favorite amongst your other favorites. Worthy of ink on skin. Other than him, though, I don't meet many 'conventional' music fans. Almost everyone else I ask about recent shows they've attended name-drops conventions, VTuber fan meetups, or other anime-related events. For most people I talk to in between sets, the music seems to be a bonus aspect of a VTuber they watch, not necessarily the main draw. Being at the show is a way to 'see' and support their oshi, and to be around other people who are into the same thing. Pretty similar to what brings most people to Anime Expo, which was also running that week in Los Angeles. Putting this on during Anime Expo is a smart move, and not just because it's convenient (one fan says they chartered a whole party bus to shuttle people from the convention to the concert). The cultures are very compatible, as there's a good amount of crossover from anime and idol-music fan culture in VTuber fanatics. One of the more obvious ones is the flower stand: a sort of collaborative display between independent fan groups and the artists themselves. Fans will pool money to buy elaborate flower arrangements; at the entrance of the venue is a life-size cutout of Mariya with a wreath of roses, complete with a message to the VTuber herself: 'Congratulations for making your Fantastic Reality dreams come true!' Underneath, there's a list of online handles of people who've contributed money or art to the display. This is the sort of thing you'd see at a J-pop concert. Fans independently deciding to form communities isn't unique to any music scene; but not every genre sees the artist management setting aside official space at a concert hall for these fans to display their enthusiasm. In general, VTuber fans are known for heavy spending when they like something. If you really want to show your support, you'll need a pair of light sticks so you can wave them in unison with the crowd when your oshi takes the stage. It simply won't do to bring your own from home—when Mariya takes the stage, you want to be glowing in the precise hue of deep red that everyone else is. So you want the official pair. A merch booth sells them at the front—about $60 per stick. A music purist might scoff at all this; to say that VTuber fans don't even like music, they just like anime, and that the whole scene is fake. Full disclosure here: I will admit that I walked into the venue with a touch of this mentality, but that slowly turned into an existential crisis: Who can say that their favorite genre isn't also fake? Hip-hop, despite being a commercial genre obsessed with 'reality,' has always had at best a tenuous relationship with the concept. Rick Ross took the name of an actual drug dealer and has tried to downplay his past job as a correctional officer. He still has fans. So does Drake, despite the fact that there is a televised record of the fact that he did not 'start from' anywhere near what a reasonable person would consider 'the bottom.' Lil Tecca gleefully admitted, on camera, that his first breakout single was full of fibs (he doesn't have a gun, doesn't own much designer fashion, has never been to Milan), but so what? It's a fun song, and I still like it. Punk, hip-hop, folk, and so on—fans continually foist 'authenticity' purity tests on their artists and each other—partially because we all know that our fandom is ultimately based on a mutually constructed fiction of what we hope or imagine the artist to be. But it's fun to pretend! And sometimes, it's nice to be in a room of people who want to pretend along with you. VTuber fans are just more straightforward, and less pretentious about the whole thing. PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ One of the more impressive things about the Fantastic Reality show is that it happened at all. As Mariya tells me, she simply decided she wanted to do a show and started hitting up other VTubers she liked and asking them to participate. She knows the audience: If you're into this sort of thing, the presence of acts like Japanese stadium-filler KAF and Indonesian virtual girl group JKT48V on the lineup would have been reason enough to buy a ticket. And Mariya herself has a big fan base as well, but she's nowhere near as well known as perhaps the most impressive name she got on the bill: Ironmouse, who once broke Kai Cenat's record for the most paid subscribers on Twitch. 'It isn't silly to be an anime girl on the internet.' Others have more resources. Hololive is able to put on multicountry tours easily, and unlike Mariya's show, they don't need to call in favors: They have their own stable of in-house VTuber talent who are able to speak and sing in English and Japanese. A couple days after Fantastic Reality, Hololive—whose parent company, Cover Corp, brought in over $140 million in merch alone last fiscal year—make their second appearance at Dodger Stadium, with three virtual anime girls singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' in cutesy voices during the seventh-inning stretch. Not everyone is a fan: 'Oh, so that's why we lost', one commenter says on a Dodgers fan Instagram account. 'God was punishing us.' But the fact that the event happened at all shows how much investment is already happening in hopes that VTuber culture can make money in the mainstream. Mariya's ventures are on a much smaller scale, but for her fans, Fantastic Reality is a huge deal. So much so that one of them helped her tell the world that it was happening— by putting her in their private plane and flying her over Los Angeles, so that she could livestream the announcement from 2,000 feet in the sky. (Out of respect for kayfabe, I did not ask how this was accomplished.) 'This project is a challenge to myself,' Mariya tells me. 'How can I make all those connections and prove to not just myself, but to a lot of other people, that you know, it isn't silly to be an anime girl on the internet?' PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ VTuber artists probably don't signal the end of music any more than the Gorillaz heralded the end of concerts when they started putting cartoons on stage in 2001. I'm more concerned that VTuber musicians are going to be replaced, and what that could mean for the rest of music. The stage seems pretty well set already: Timbaland has co-launched a startup that wants to use AI-generated 'artists' to help create music. Velvet Sundown, an apparently AI-generated psych rock band with over a million monthly listeners on Spotify, has been twisting music journalists' brains for a few weeks, mostly because it sounds pretty decent. And that's only the most recent high-profile case: The lo-fi beats scene has been struggling with AI for a while now. Then, there's Bloo, an AI-generated VTuber created by a popular YouTuber who voluntarily replaced himself because he was getting burned out, but realized if he wasn't onscreen, he wouldn't be able to continue his business. As he told CNBC: 'The flaw in this equation is the human, so we need to somehow remove the human.' Bloo's creator says it's already brought in seven figures. Put the two together: Couldn't we 'remove the human' from the equation of VTuber music? An AI VTuber singer wouldn't need to take breaks. 'She' could endlessly entertain 'her' fans with an unlimited stream of cozy chat and cute tunes. There is an obvious financial incentive here, if not for individual creators, then for corporations; venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz posted an article last year in which it put AI companions and VTubing together on an 'Anime Market Map,' signaling an obvious interest in figuring out how to make money more efficiently off fans. It also doesn't help that xAI's Grok just dropped a sexy 'AI companion' that looks like it could be Mariya's little sister. Whereas conventional hip-hop or rock audiences have largely turned up their nose at AI creep, VTuber fans are already used to an abstracted version of music entertainment—wouldn't they be the earliest adopters of AI? Mariya disagrees. 'I think that the culture in VTubing is that if you use AI, it's really looked down upon,' she says. 'In our sphere, we're pretty safe from that.' She does understand that AI is starting to encroach on everything, though, as do the show's promoters—the press release for the concert promises none of the performers will be AI. 'One of the things that I was very vocal about for this concert is that I did not want AI involvement in it,' she says. 'I think that it would be a little bit insulting.' 'VTubing has grown because of artists, you know, our visuals are made by human artists. Our rigging is made by human riggers. Our songs are made by humans. A lot of the fan art that's made, like the people who watch us, are humans. I think we should do our best to make sure that they always have a place here.' Mariya has a point. Maybe because of the spillover from anime fan culture, which geeks out about the voice actors of their favorite anime almost as much as the drawings themselves, VTuber fans are also interested in the behind-the-scenes artistry of their oshi. Some agency pages for VTubers include credits for the person who designed the avatar—one of the few exceptions made in the kayfabe rule. At the end of the Fantastic Reality concert, the screens show a long credits roll, including artists and names of the writers of each song. People actually stick around to watch it and cheer. I want to believe Mariya—that VTuber culture has spent so much time close to the edge of the human-created and the machine-generated that they've figured out how to draw boundaries and protect the human side. Maybe she's right: They have had longer than the rest of us to think through these problems. Three weeks after the show, Fantastic Reality's closing singer, Ironmouse, posted a video explaining that she was leaving her agency, Vshojo, alleging that it withheld over half a million dollars in payment, not to her, but to the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Ironmouse has previously shared that she has a 'low to near-non-functioning immune system' that forces her to be isolated for long periods. (Vshojo has since announced that they are out of money and are shutting down. WIRED reached out to Vshojo for comment but did not immediately receive a response.) In the days after Ironmouse's post, her fans not only expressed support but have helped raise over $1.2 million for the foundation. VTuber fans still care that there are humans involved. Everyone is pretending in the same room together, and perhaps more importantly, they want to support the humans who keep the story going. If the corporations are able to ruin VTuber culture, I don't think the rest of us stand a chance.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'You did not deserve this' says CEO Gunrun, announcing 'VShojo is shutting down' and taking full responsibility for collapse
The virtual talent agency VShojo is shutting down. Its CEO and co-founder, Justin 'Gunrun' Ignacio, after the long ongoing controversy, has finally delivered a raw and emotional statement, announcing the agency's closure. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now In it, he explicitly stated that the agency's talent did not deserve it. He took on the blame for the failure of the company and all its financial concerns. The closure, after weeks of tensions, high-profile departures and unpaid dues, marks the end of an ambitious yet flawed venture. Justin 'Gunrun' Ignacio takes complete blame for VShojo's demise In a public admission, the CEO and co-founder of VShojo, Justin Gunrun Ignacio, popularly known as Gunrun, declared an immediate termination of the agency. His message was full of personal responsibility. He unequivocally stated, "VShojo has failed, and I've mismanaged the company into the situation you're all witnessing.' He further took "full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point." As per his statement, despite efforts to secure funding, the financial state of the company worsened, leaving talents unpaid and the projects abandoned. He acknowledged, "We are in a worse position, and those I care about are now paying the price," expressing regret for the impact on those who were caught under the situation's impact. In Justin Ignacio's statement, the most heartbreaking line was, 'You did not deserve this.' He directed it to all VTubers, staff members and fans who believed in the vision of VShojo. His post by no means backed off from taking accountability. However, for many, this apology from his end came too late. VShojo financial mismanagement , charity funds controversy and more It was clearly disclosed by Ignacio that VShojo was able to raise approximately. $11 million while championing the "talent-first approach." The model helped give priority to creators via significant splits in revenue, investments within events and debuts. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now It quite crucially, allowed the talents to retain the ownership of their IP. Despite all, as admitted by Ignacio, such a high-support structure proved to be financially unsustainable, as they were not able to generate enough revenue. It ultimately drained resources, entirely. The CEO's statement even addressed a critical controversy, which was related to the talent that raised funds for the charity's alleged misuse. Ignacio ensured to acknowledge that the company spent funds "in connection with talent activity," which later they got to know was for a charitable initiative. As per his claims, he believed that fundraising would cover the costs, but the efforts failed. It directly follows the allegations made by Ironmouse, the former talent, about a missing $515,000 donation, which was meant for the Immune Deficiency Foundation.
