On Tuesday, Riku Tazumi, CEO of AnyColor Inc., which owns the virtual YouTuber agency, Nijisanji, posted a six-minute video to address fans’ concerns. The company has been heavily criticized recently for the way it treated its former Obsydia member, Selen Tatsuki. Last summer, Nijisanji blocked the popular Liver* from hosting international events. Then in December, her cover song, “Last Cup of Coffee,” was privatized by the agency three hours after it was released.
Several fans took to social media, urging her to quit the company as they felt she was being undermined. So did a few independent livers, including one who wrote on X, “Please Selen, I’m begging you not to renew the contract. You deserve so much more than a company that actively sabotages you every chance they get.”
Nijisanji Announces That It is Cutting Ties with Selen Tatsuki
On February 5 of this year, Nijisanji EN announced that it “made the difficult decision” to terminate the contract of Selen Tatsuki “due to repeated breaches of contract and misleading statements on social platforms.” As well as being removed from the website, all her YouTube videos disappeared, and she was locked from her official X account.
Tatsuki responded the same day on her alternative X account, under the name Dokibird, stating that she would “not be silenced anymore.” She claimed she was “hospitalized” as a result of “bullying from within” and “being in a toxic and poor environment for numerous months.”
On Tuesday of this week, Livers from Nijisanji — Elira Pendora, Vox Akuma and Ike Eveland — took part in a live stream to refute some of Tatsuki’s claims. “I felt threatened and scared of speaking out about the situation because of the risk that could pose to, not just my own safety, but the safety of those around me as well,” said Pendora.
An Apology from AnyColor’s CEO
Shortly after their feed, Nijisanji EN posted Tazumi’s video. He began by apologizing for stating to investors on February 7, that the decision to terminate Tatsuki’s contract would be “negligible” in terms of financial results. “Our wording lacked consideration,” he said, before adding, “we made it sound like our company does not value the hard work of our Livers.”
He went on to address the distress that recent events have had on Livers, with some possibly taking a step back from social media. “We will be implementing several new internal systems to ensure that the Livers can resume streaming activities while maintaining their well-being,” he said. “Also, by establishing things such as better reporting systems, we aim to create an environment where we can better identify and resolve issues more quickly.”
The Rise and Possible Fall of Nijisanji
One of the youngest billionaires in Japan, Tazumi founded AnyColor (formerly Ichikari) in 2017, when he was just 21. A year later, his company launched Nijisanji with the aim of promoting the use of Live2D models. The Nijisanji EN VTuber project debuted in May 2021 with the aim of reaching more overseas fans. It has proved extremely popular, with a couple of English-speaking Livers attracting more than a million subscribers. In recent days, however, numbers have reportedly been falling as the company faces a backlash following its decision to cut ties with Selen Tatsuki.
A Liver is the combined essence of a character and real world persona in Nijisanji’s system.
