>>84358508they ruined a great thing, and I'm gonna
vent a bit (mucho texto warning)
even before I got into EN, the ones that put niji on my radar were Roa, Gibara, and Lulu, who were all fumbled by management before EN even took off. 4 years later, Roa's still in some legal battle, so just as a company I think they had more shortcomings than average. all of this before trying to launch an overseas branch and IPO.
I spoke to a pomudachi who got to see nijifes in person and he described the attendance as all women. like massive crowds and lines for chronoir and voltaction standees compared to anyone else. when I was in town a few weeks ago, I went to a bunch of merch stores, and niji was always next to all-boys gachas like enstars. the other people browsing the aisle were always girls, so I really got the impression this hobby/group is for fujos/yumes. or at minimum, their business is centered on anime boys.
in other words, the EN girls were never meant to pop off. they were ready to capitalize on anime boys with goods, another channel, group songs, etc, but supporting stuff like branch unity songs, tournaments, and vrchat worlds was totally out of the equation. whoever was in charge had no concept of them being popular as content creators or having passionate fans or anything. it's not that they failed trying to support the girls, but instead that they had no intention to.
I don't blame Vox or whoever for playing their characters well, but the business model is terrible for someone wanting to see a group of streamers having fun, cool projects, and performance opportunities. I just hate that the higher ups never saw what made the branch good, and stifled it all to make more animeboy.jpg tshirt merch.
