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I’ve been having these cloudy feelings for a while and I’m finally able to put them into words. I know some of you out there are true fans too and I wanted to try and have an open discussion. Pic related since everyone's posting their plushies, and to show I was actually at BD unlike that schizo who always pretends he was to shitpost.
I feel like they are drifting away. People always say “just skip streams you don’t like” but that’s the thing. I have been. As a result, I’ve been skipping more and more of their content. And I don’t like that. Because I liked being a hardcore fan of FUWAMOCO. I liked responding to all their tweets, commenting on every stream, being able to catch as many as I could live. I liked the interaction, and yes the community. If you’re being honest, I think a lot of you like being hardcore fans too it too.
It is the hardcore fans who are the ones who will spend thousands of dollars at Round 1 for multiple copies of the same plushies, the ones who will travel great distances to see them in concert, the ones who don’t mind dressing up in silly outfits and wearing happis and hachimakis, and shouting BAU BAU at the top of their lungs out in public. FUWAMOCO looked out into the streets and saw a bunch of gross old men traveling together in a group, dressed in blue and pink, and they had tears in their eyes because to them it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. At Breaking Dimensions, Ruffians were the second loudest group, consistently, behind only KFP. That’s a result of FUWAMOCO enabling and developing a hardcore fanbase. You think any of Kronii’s fans are going to do call and response idol chants?
The other thing people always say is that oshikatsu is something to be enjoyed. That you shouldn’t “force yourself”. Yet in the beginning, I never felt forced. I looked forward to every single stream. Even the ones people were kind of neutral about like River City Girls. I'm certainly not forcing myself now either, as I said, I’m skipping streams. But more and more of their streams are a skip and that makes me sad. The streams are at 3 AM and they’re in Japanese. And they don’t always have a TL and even when they do, FUWAMOCO make a conscious effort to ignore English chatters, in a way they don’t with Japanese chatters in English streams. Or the streams are a large collab event in English except they don’t really know how to play the game and they don’t interact a lot with other members, which is the whole point of large collabs. Before I didn't have to force myself, I was genuinely excited for everything they did. Now I would have to force myself to even feign interest in a lot of what they do. I'm not excited for the Nth voicepack or another stream that I can't watch because I have work in the morning or can't understand.
What I don’t get is why FUWAMOCO seem hellbent on changing everything that hardcore fans loved about them. If you wanted to show someone what you loved about them, chances are most or all of those moments would come from before the move. FWMC Morning used to have natto, misunderstandings, confessions, random cute stories about them or genmates, dreams diaries, and that was just the normal ones, to say nothing of the special episodes like Halloween. Now it’s just nonstop shilling for the latest merch. The VN streams and retrogames should be much more frequent, it’s one of the few things they do that are unique to them and they actually enjoy it.
FUWAMOCO’s content has changed drastically since the move. I believe half of it is because they started chasing numbers hardcore, even more than they did before. The goal to get 1 million definitely weighed on them. The vertical streams, FOTM games, and increase in Japanese content are all a symptom of this. But the other half is themselves. They are now always tired. Always sick. And that definitely affects them in ways both tangible and intangible. Some people have noticed that Fuwawa is less teasing and playful than she used to be. I would guess this is probably due to her being tired and her fluffy brain needs to be at maximum power for her to say something clever. Something I personally have noticed is that they sync a lot less since the move, I think this is also due to their physical health. I miss that. I miss the comfy and cozy streams, and when we get streams like that, it’s still not the same because they’re usually up against a deadline or thinking about homework. They’re less “present” and never seem to be in the moment. What is the point if they lose themselves and everything that made them unique? Everything that people loved about them?
The worst part is, there are no good alternatives to FUWAMOCO. There are no good ENs in Hololive that fill the gachikoi and idol niches well. I wish I could bring the FUWAMOCO I loved back, but I don’t know how to do that. I haven't changed. But they have.