According to ancient lore, Niji beat the Kizuna Ai gen, which was almost exclusively video, and was very popular in JP before the rise of Hololive.
But why do we not know almost all of them JP Livers?
For example, we can recall the Vtubers of the Kizuna Ai generation.
Himehina, Weatherroid, Fuji Aoi, Nekomiya Hinata, Tenjin Kotone… and even Tokino Sora and Robocosan.
However, JP Livers is only known to us as Tsukino Mito. At best, I only know of 2 JKs who debuted at the same time as her.
Even though the Vtuber industry at that time was the same as the JP local one, the Ai generation was already known worldwide, and Hololive was recognized worldwide as a new industry ally, despite Asacoco's influence.
However, Niji, which flourished between the Ai generation and Holo, is surprisingly little known outside of Japan.
Almost all of JP Livers here were apparently very popular in JP during the period between the Ai generation and Holo, but were almost completely unrecognized abroad.
https://prtimes.jp/i/30865/38/resize/d30865-38-899260-3.png
Why is this?
I have been researching the JP Vtuber situation at the time and have yet to find the answer to this question.
They were and still are JP local, but that was the same for other agencies back then, so I don't think Niji is the only reason why they have not spread abroad and continue to be closed to JP.
I would like to give a wide range of thoughts, opinions and discussion on this matter.
by Hot-Note4036
6 Comments
Because people outside of Japan don’t speak Japanese. Hololive had more dedicated clippers compared to niji jp that helped bridge that gap.
For a while, the Nijisanji EN YouTube channel actually did highlights of their JP talent before the EN branch became a thing. That stopped happening once the EN branch began.
It’s a shame, too, because it was showing off the talent the new EN fans may have missed.
Because niji didn’t have a legendary dragon.
They don’t collab with EN, or make any real effort to have international appeal. There are also just so damn many of them and they come and go like the wind that I have no desire to get invested. I dunno, just my 2p there. No effort made by the company to push JP overseas and a lack of a dedicated clipping community as well.
There’s too many of them. That means clips of them are too spread out, western fans can’t get a proper handle on personalities and group dynamics, and so they don’t gather much interest.
firstly, many of them do, especially in other Asian countries, like China, Taiwan Korea, vtubers are more recognized and in the main stream. but i assume you are talking about the West.
as for the West English speaking countries, there are not enough translation teams working on clips. also, there are not many members try to reach out to the West, and this is not a niji issue but a overall Japanese vtuber thing. i believe it’s unfair to compare everyone else to Holo, even yagoo didn’t plan everything out, they were actually following niji’s steps, holo still has a holokr and holo india Twitter account, but stopped activities after the first post. he repeatedly said the timing of the vtuber expansion, he just hired right people and debut at the right time.
edit: holo en was the only time where holo entered a new market first before niji, they were behind in every market, China, Indonesia, holo kr and india was only on Twitter, only had posts for hiring. to be honest, i do believe that niji was the first one tried to reach out, but they just didn’t have the patience and the right people (management and talents) to make things going.