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Sleeping indefinitely, graduation, or whatever you want to call it is pretty weird. I'm not sure the industry as a whole has really figured it out yet. Or maybe they have and this is just what fans will have to accept as reality. When vtubers retire it's akin to death or worse. Yeah you can follow the real person or hope they reincarnate, but the vtuber is fundamentally different.
In most cases there's little chance of them coming back. No life to lead beyond what's on the screen. No "where are they now?" after they've gone. From the time they show up they're already on full burn until the person behind the curtain calls it quits or they're removed.
There's so many ways she could have gone out, but I think AI-chan made a good decision that keeps the hope alive. Everything she's done leading up to her last live gives strength to the idea that she can defy the odds and that she'll come back. We're lucky she's able to retain her legacy through her youtube channels, her fans have an anime to look forward to, she can "stay connected" through producers that can use cevio ai kizuna, and she's perpetuated the idea that even though her sleep is indefinite she can still wake up.
And she closed it out by giving us the best live the industry has ever seen. Even up to the very end she sets the bar for what is possible and inspires others to do better. So with great sorrow I wish her well, but with greater optimism, and like so many of the vtubers she's touched, I await her return.
