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Just stopped in to give my unsolicited opinion.
Vtubers are empty husks. They're animated by the person providing them with a voice and personality. Rather than being a scripted performance like standard anime characters, the vtuber themself lives and dies based on their own abilities as a streamer. For that reason, I don't see hollowing one out as defensible.
Rather than an IP the company owns, a vtuber is more accurately an investment bestowed upon someone they believe is worthy. Clawing back that investment and maintaining control over it seems pointless and greedy, as an already inhabited vtuber can't simply be repurposed without controversy. And the greater the notoriety of that vtuber, the more backlash there'd be.
A certain company might've gotten away with it, and I actually have a favorable opinion of the current Cocoa. But ideally the only reason a vtuber should ever be forced to part ways with the character they invested themself into is if they themself don't plan on actually continuing to vtube as that character, in which case rescuing that character from abandonment and irrelevance by giving it to someone else would be the humane thing to do. However, whether or not to continue living as their character is a choice the vtuber themself should be making.
