NijiEN debuted as an obvious counter to HoloEN's very great success.
What many people don't know is that Nijisanji had an EN branch before, which was actually created out of the failed remnants of the IN (indian) branch. Those people were all graduated to management roles for the income EN branch.
Lazulight debuted as the first gen (or wave as Nijis call it, but fuck that lmao), and was characterized by excellent friendship dynamics and open VC fun. Many people forget that Pomu was actually the weakest member at the start, and lagged significantly behind the others because of her monthlong break for major surgery. Though that would soon change as over time she grew into the pillar of the branch.
Funny clip here that she wants you to forget about:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6-1o6iZE50&t=6160Obsydia was the sister gen to Lazulight, they were actually hired as part of the same batch, deciding amongst themselves who would debut in gen 1 or 2. The star talent of this gen was none other than Selen Tatsuki, whose brash personality quickly made her the top talent numberswise. Unlike Lazulight, Obsydia was characterized by a complete lack of unity and poor team dynamics. However they were smarter, and better gamers, and would win competitions.
All was well, the time of peace and tranquility. Perhaps the best group in all of vtubing was right here.
But it couldn't last. Unfortunately as people feared, within 2 months another gen was rushed out called Ethyria. Unlike the previous gens, they joined with firm expectations of success. When these expectations were not met, they started to leech however they could. They didn't show their true colors until a bit later.
In December, Luxiem debuted. This is really when things went south. They rocketed into extreme popularity, especially with chinese fans and asian fujos generally. Suddenly they were getting 10k+ streams, something the branch had never seen before. Smelling money, management instantly pushed out the next male gen Noctyx. It received a somewhat lesser reception, especially because it included a woman.
The popularity of these male gens had a profound impact on the branch. The fanbase was flooded with the most disgusting people on earth, fujos, who completely ruined it for everyone else. Also Ethyria, with dollar signs in their eyes, threw themselves at the males and became nothing but male-orbiters, each taking a male ship for themselves. This prompted the Lazulight and Obsydia girls to follow suit, tenuously because of extreme backlash from their core fans. It was probably the darkest times, a time when almost all of the original fans were purged.
>It had a side effect of ruining HoloEN as well. The NIjiEN formula was shown to be successful and was making gigatons of money, they quickly announced auditions for Holostars EN.
These previous waves were supposed to normalize mixed-gender content.
Next, NijiEN would debut some mixed-waves, but this proved to be a catastrophic mistake. The branch was already falling into scandals as the mixed-gender interactions caused feelings of anger and betrayal (on both sides, with luxnoc fans too). The mixed waves proved to be an absolute disaster.
ILuna debuted to a massive reception, 120k+ watching, and 2 months later they were all 3-views. At that time nobody in NijiEN was a 3view (well except Petra of course), this was shocking.
XSoliel was somehow even dumber, bringing aboard 2 japanese talents who never streamed in English, and a girl who was fired after 2 months.
The abominable hiring decisions, the extreme drop in quality, the loss of any soul for twitch memes and pog emotes. It was catastrophic.
Quietly behind the scenes, the core fans were moving on this entire time. But in early 2023, the male talents started bitching about their concert getting cancelled and throwing tantrums and protests. This, combined with new regulations in china, caused the female fandom to start rapidly collapsing. Numbers were imploding extremely badly, and everyone was freaking out. They started creating drama after drama to get their numbers back, but this just dug their grave deeper.
By late 2023, TTT debuted. A half-assed, low-effort gen that didn't even have a proper name, debut song, or anything. Their debut would soon be completely forgotten, as Selen experienced a breakdown and was terminated from the company. Being the leading female talent by a huge margin, this was shocking. The details of the bullying scandal and her suicide attempts emerged.
After this point, everyone's already-collapsed viewers were immediately cut in half. Luckily Pomu graduated just before the disaster and went on to become a darling of the indie world. Perhaps one of the greatest moves a vtuber has ever made in history (she was going to work in a library! are you kidding me?)
Today the branch is in its death throws. The most recent gen barely scrapes 100 viewers, and already has a termination.
