>>31294893Here's some context regarding how the ban came about.
Prelude : Most holofans assumed that the collab ban was from HoloEN side for a long time, because Myth was quite isolationist during their first year.
But once Myth started doing vshojo, indie and 3DPD collabs(TT), people slowly started to notice that they were avoiding NijiEN, despite a lot of the talents (Pomu and Kiara especially) being on good terms.
1. Ollie collabs with Gundou from NijiJP on 28th July 2021 (
https://youtu.be/Ghzt6N1WB14). This was around 2 months after NijiEN debuted.
2. One day before this collab, Pomu and Kiara have their first of many on-stream (chat only) interactions (
https://youtu.be/ZRb4HsiQXc8?t=6497).
3. 3 months later - on October 25, 2021 - Kiara reports that her collab request for Pomu has been rejected (
https://youtu.be/eMQF7VPADI8).
She did not specify who did the rejecting. Considering that she had been quite candid about shitting on HoloEN management at the time, but avoided blaming any party in this instance, it indicated that the block may not have been from HoloEN management. But since there was no confirmation and Myth had precedence in isolationism, most casual fans simply assumed that the block was from HoloEN.
4. On Nov 23, Selen reveals on stream that she finally was allowed to collab with "the zombie" soon, which most people naturally assumed to be Ollie (
https://youtu.be/K9Z6N3p-5XU?t=20813,
https://youtu.be/qH_lYfNNw78).
5. 3 days later, on Nov 26, Selen announces that the collab was cancelled (
https://youtu.be/tfIGSTTuauI?t=26323). Summary : "In the end, it had to be cancelled. Both of us were looking forward to it. I can't say too much about it, we both tried their best to make it happen. But the decision was out of both me and my collab partner's hands."
> In both of these instances, Selen did not namedrop Ollie even once.6. The very next day (Nov 27), Overidea + Bilibili announce a VTuber singing festival that includes Lazulight as guests (
https://old.reddit.com/r/Nijisanji/comments/r3koxh/half_of_2434_international_will_be_attending_sing/,
https://twitter.com/OverideaHQ/status/1464532414512828421).
> Speculation is that Selen's manager got permission from Cover's side for the collab and so Selen thought it was fine to announce it on stream (since once Cover's side was clear, obviously she assumed NijiEN would be fine with it). But the Lazulight Bilibili announcement may have caused NijiEN higher ups to veto it so that Lazulight could still attend the event.7. Event itself happens 1 day later (Nov 28), streamed on both Youtube and Bilibili. Lazulight timestamp :
https://youtu.be/Md2HAlsr3_Y?t=12947. Side note : 3 chuubas (including Hana) from NijiID also participated in this.
8. December-January : Luxiem debuts and gains a humongous audience from China, inclining the entire branch and becoming the most successful NijiEN wave to date.
> Pomu - Kiara interactions - both on-stream(YT chat) and off-stream(twitter) - are still happening in the middle of all this.9. March 5, 2022 : NijiEN discord leak. Irreparable damage to NijiEN perception in the eyes of hololive fans - specifically Fulgur. Damage is far more to NijiEN fans' reputations thanks to their reaction, but the livers' behavior was also frowned upon since they were outwardly friendly towards Holo. Pomu didn't have any major involvement, so her reputation is still relatively clear.
10. May 1, 2022 : Luxiem officially get Bilibili channels (
https://twitter.com/nijisanji_world/status/1520712132718964736).
11. July 13, 2022 : Pomu Birthday stream, when starting to read pre-recorded messages, reveals that there was "one more" but asks her fans to pretend that she read it on stream. Highly likely that this was Kiara's birthday message, but Pomu explicitly avoids confirming it despite freely being able to namedrop Kiara in prior streams (
https://youtu.be/zkAecWb_yTs?t=10401).
12. July 21, 2022 : Kiara SC reading stream, SC references Pomu collab. Kiara reveals that she had been hopeful for a while, but looking at "recent developments", it felt like it was never gonna happen (
https://youtu.be/qEPw2vxjTaw?t=15873).
13. Aug 06, 2022 : Pomu sends the contents of her bag for Kiara's bag reveal stream (
https://youtu.be/wtRj5RGlMHA?t=6371). Indicating that Hololive management has no problem with Kiara involving Pomu in her streams.
14. Pic related is the latest clue we have, where the post discussing the aforementioned incident was deleted from the Nijisanji subreddit with no explanation, but was not deleted from the Hololive subreddit, which explicitly has a Rule against "advertising VTubers outside of Hololive". Even the Hololive mods commented on that post, telling people to chill, but did not lock the thread, delete the post or otherwise prevent discussion.
All evidence we've seen so far indicates that the collab ban is from NijiEN side.
And very likely due to NijiEN's appeasement of China.
