>>88708112That would be the second part of my textwall. Let us assume you are right and that there is indeed a divergence.
Is it inherent? Nijisanji from early on offered a content model not derivative of the Japanese idol culture. Nijisanji, however, has failed and left Hololive with its "traditional" model the sole big entity in the Japanese market. Was it exclusively or merely inclusively of the reason of utter incompetence that Nijisanji has failed? In all likelihood, unknowable.
In the meanwhile, Hololive had seemingly been settled into an idol culture-derivative business cycle: debut streamers to obtain initial visibility, then gradually increase "idol activities", inclusive of concerts and external collaborations to drive sponsorship and merchandise income. ReGLOSS, for the reason of their positioning and implied TA, is arguably their latest attempt to skip on the streamer part.
VTubers come in many shapes and forms. Brotuber, GFE, CGDGT, virtual idol, gamer, e-whore, you name it. The West out of all of those seems to care less about the virtual idol facet. My personal supposition is that it is because of the particularities of VTubing's Japanese heritage that corporations and a number of passionate individuals push for it.
The bottom line is, in Japan the trajectories and happenstances unfolded into VTubing that is rather adjacent to the idol business. Whereas in the West the natural shape of it would have been closer to flesh streamers. However, because of Myth's extraordinary success, it came to be overinfluenced by the aforementioned Japanese model, which itself might not be inherent.
Clearly, there is demand for streaming VTubers seeing Hololive English's numbers. A new phenomenon has emerged: the strong post-corpo indies. Perhaps, also a new (not so new in the context of twitch streamers), looser type of association networks as an alternative to the all-or-nothing nature of the classical corporation.
Still, I think years are likely to pass before VTubing in the West, on the path of search for self, can grow out of both its heavy Japanese heritage and the predisposition for the undesirable in the shape of the loathsome lows of flesh streaming.
