Since its launch in 2019, HOLOSTARS has been active for almost seven years. With the debuts of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gens, followed by UPROAR!!, it has grown into a group with a total of 12 currently active members and over the course of seven years, their activities went beyond streaming on YouTube, as they joined events, exhibitions, collaborations, and live shows on site.
However, the current state of the HOLOSTARS business has forced us as a company to have repeated discussions about how to maintain HOLOSTARS in a sustainable manner. We considered the future direction of the group’s activities from various perspectives. Ultimately, we have arrived at the conclusion that changing the management structure in a way that fits the current status of HOLOSTARS’ activities is unavoidable.
As a result, the company-led activities of the group, which have progressed alongside the individual activities of each talent, will be coming to a close. From this fiscal year onward, activity policies will shift to mainly focus on individual activities. Moreover, as we will reallocate certain resources, some of our support will be limited or conclude entirely.
Male VTuber glass ceiling moment.
This is basically Cover “quiet firing” them. They are putting them in a corner hoping they quit on their own, which is extremely common Japanese business practice.
They just don’t make enough money. Outside of maybe the top 2 or 3 stars, basically everyone else will probably have to stream while working a part time job if they want to stay in holostars, which will inevitably lead to many just quitting which is exactly what Cover wants.
I mean, at this point I doubt Cover shareholders care if they quit or not, they basically removed all the expenses from the branch already.
Also, more than “male VTuber glass ceiling”, I’d say it’s market saturation. Male VTubers can get enough gachikois to be profitable, but all the “whales” in the market are probably already following Kuzuha, Kanae, Vox and the other big Niji ones.
Cover shareholders probably do care, and probably do want them to quit. Its a dead weight the company is dragging along. A liability. What happens if there is legal trouble with a HoloStars IP? Thats a alot of legal fighting and money being spent on something that the shareholders would rather not even bother with. Its all about money to shareholders, they couldnt care less if someone was starving on the street dying.
Most male VTubers will just never be able to make enough money to please shareholders, especially when compared to female VTubers. Even the top male vtubers like Vox or Roberu likely make less than half of what the top female vtubers make. The more or less reliable data I saw on just superchats from 2023 had like ~13 female vtubers before they got to the first male (it was Bettel I think) and then it was a huge gap to the second. Its just down to a matter of time, and how long someone in the company fights to stop this from happening. This is only one step away from just ending HoloStars completely.
And this isnt even considering competition from outside companies. Stars just doesnt bring in the money, and they are absolutely getting dropped hard because of it.
The more or less reliable data I saw on just superchats from 2023 had like ~13 female vtubers before they got to the first male (it was Bettel I think) and then it was a huge gap to the second.
I’m looking at the 2023 Playboard ranking and I see 4 males in the top 10 VTubers. It’s just that they’re all from Niji (and on the other hand, 5 out of 6 females are from Holo). There is a market share for male VTubers, it’s just already full (and probably more geared towards BFE than what Holostars ever was).
In summary, all events, AGF, live shows, Osha Festa, Stacolle, company-led projects, studio usage (including simple 3D), sales of birthday and anniversary goods, new goods, voice sales, and original song releases will all be gone. Everyone, I’m truly sorry.
Sad day for all Stars fans. I wish the best to all of them, whatever path they might choose to take.
It’s unfortunate but not too surprising. I’ve seen people talk that “it makes sense because they don’t bring enough money” and it’s like… yeah? You give them very little support as a company and then pikachu face when they don’t explode.
Funny how Nijisanji (and I hate to use them as a positive example) managed to figure it out and has no problem having both male and female talents but when it comes to Cover, guys are pretty much siloed into their own little corner and left to fend for themselves.
Sure, it’s not all Cover’s fault but I really think they dropped the ball on this one.
I’m curious if this will lead to any graduations or if everyone will stick around for now. I heard EN was already pretty much treated this way and I’ve seen Roberu talking that he’ll keep doing his thing but being pretty much indie while still paying the corpo tax and playing by their rules sounds like a pain.
Whatever happens, I sincerely wish them all the best. It’s a crappy situation, no matter how you slice it.
Vesper somehow knew something was up. I wonder if Vesper (now Randon) had an inkling something was going to happen in this regard. I think he did, knowing his senses as an older gentleman (now an older gentleorc).
I wonder if Vesper (now Randon) had an inkling something was going to happen in this regard.
That seems unlikely. He left almost 3 years ago now.
Holostars doesn’t make that much money to begin with right now, so they have to stop it. I can’t entirely blame Cover for this, as they operate at a loss with the way Holostars was doing things in the past.
That sucks and is pretty shitty from Cover tbh. They’ve never really given Holostars the same attention and promotion as Hololive and now they’re basically putting the blame on Holostars for not living up to their Hololive counterpart.
Effectively making them indies will probably only make the “current state” worse. Just give them a severance package or something and let them actually go indie while the boys keep their characters. Giving them little to no support, but still taking a cut of their income is fucked up.
Cover can probably easily subsidize the costs of keeping Holostars going properly with the profits from Hololive too. They’re not short on money. It really boils down to Cover’s willingness to actually make something of it.
They’ve never really given Holostars the same attention and promotion as Hololive and now they’re basically putting the blame on Holostars for not living up to their Hololive counterpart.
To be honest, for how little profit they made, their treatment wasn’t even that bad. Especially in the early days, Miyabi said a couple times how Yagoo was very supportive even when the branch had extremely little following. They even had a countdown live for a couple years, and I felt like it had the same effort put into them as the girls’ side.
Cover can probably easily subsidize the costs of keeping Holostars going properly with the profits from Hololive too. They’re not short on money. It really boils down to Cover’s willingness to actually make something of it.
I can’t say for sure, but I personally think if it was 100% Yagoo’s choice to make, things would’ve stayed like this. Unfortunately he doesn’t own all the stocks and he probably can’t justify spending that much on a low-income project to the other shareholders.
Just give them a severance package or something and let them actually go indie while the boys keep their characters. Giving them little to no support, but still taking a cut of their income is fucked up.
I’m not that knowledgeable about it and my source is Reddit so take it as you will, but it probably still has to do with shareholders. Their characters are company property and they can’t just give them away for free, even if Yagoo wanted to.
Hopefully at least the income cut is massively reduced since otherwise it’s basically “being indie, but worse”.
for how little profit they made
Yeah, but why is the profit low? Female vtubers definitely are more popular, but Holostars performing badly is unique to Holopro in the vtuber industry. There are tons of succesful male vtubers. I doubt the talents are the issue here.
They even had a countdown live for a couple years, and I felt like it had the same effort put into them as the girls’ side.
Idk, it felt always way more janky to me.
but it probably still has to do with shareholders
Yeah probably, as always. Selling shares was never a good idea.
Their characters are company property and they can’t just give them away for free
I mean, they totally can. Other companies have done so before and so have they with the whole HoloCN thing IIRC (or at least, offered).
Yeah, but why is the profit low? Female vtubers definitely are more popular, but Holostars performing badly is unique to Holopro in the vtuber industry. There are tons of succesful male vtubers. I doubt the talents are the issue here.
I’d say it’s more that male Vtubers performing VERY well is almost unique to Nijisanji. Pretty sure every other male corpo VTuber is less popular than Stars. My theory is that at Niji they lean more into the BFE side, while Star streams are more “gender-neutral” and as a consequence attract less gachikois, but I haven’t really watched enough Niji to form a concrete opinion.
Yeah probably, as always. Selling shares was never a good idea.
I’m pretty sure Cover started with Venture Capital and they were 100% forced to sell either shares or the whole company. It was bound to happen since the foundation of the company, they didn’t choose to do it later.
I mean, they totally can. Other companies have done so before and so have they with the whole HoloCN thing IIRC (or at least, offered).
I personally can’t remember of a company that did that without closing down (outside of VShojo where their IPs were their property from the start), and the HoloCN disaster happened when they weren’t publicly traded yet. If you know of a situation where that happened in a public company I’d be interested in knowing, my argument on this is just based on hearsay and anecdotal evidence so if it’s a misconception I’d be glad to be corrected.
If you know of a situation where that happened in a public company I’d be interested in knowing
Specifically publicly traded companies I don’t know, but Vtubers like Nene Amano (production kawaii, after it shut down) or Rin Penrose (idol corp, after being merged with Brave Group they were given the choice to leave or stay) are examples, though probably not for free.
But yeah, being publicly traded would make things harder (though the largest shareholder is still Yagoo and another Cover employee comes in 2nd)
