>Peeking at the potter’s field
I have no expectation or a premonition of such when it comes to how well or dire local corpos were when starting 2024. It seems that they were still capable of operating independently, especially since I saw some news on how ZodiacStars and Genesix were planning to debut their new talents. By the end of the year, they both ended up dead, with one of them causing quite a stir when one of their talents was accused of embezzlement and criminal activities. The allegation turned out to be false, and a counter statement was addressed to said agency that basically said that management was purposely protecting a guilty staff. There is also a small agency founded in 2023 that I noticed has some nice branding, but also ended up dead because (allegedly) there is one incompetent staff that brings the whole organization down. You would think that people who enter this field and try to do business in this industry will at least learn from the previous failure of past small corpos, but I guess the localized nature of this coordination makes them oblivious to the looming threats.
In hindsight, I probably should have looked a bit from small EN corpos, since I certainly did not expect that Kawaii is closing its door this year. I used to think that for a corpo, if you already passed the certain years in the scene, you are essentially self-sustaining yourself and there is no way you will fail to the point of closure and/or bankruptcy. I was wrong, especially wrong, since a very similar case happened right here under my nose all along.
DigiKagi as a concept is really a good company. Good business plan, nice diversified products, and helmed by those who already had years of experience in digital agency. Sure their first VTuber might hit a snag, but they struck gold with Alenka Inventra. I guess this was the moment that they thought they could make it big, by bringing another group of VTubers under their management. They tried that and, well, it didn’t end well for them. After losing Astra Aelia (2 times) for various reasons, eventually they have to let their other talents go, and pivot their focus outside of VTubing gigs. This makes it one of the high profile closures of the year, and what’s frustrating about them is, I don’t really know what was the ultimate reasoning for their closure, or since when they’re preparing for their eventual demise. All I know is a bunch of talented individuals were let go, and every man was for themselves. Sure, there is a colleague/friend circle among them, but it took quite a while to find all the talents again. There are also a few tips that reach me, but they’re just a fragmented point-of-view between different staff members, and it’s not my place to talk about it and criticize it, so let’s just leave it as it is.
The other one, well, I certainly didn’t expect it either, but for an entirely different reason. AOI was one of the old agencies who had their big break in 2022. One of their talents, Gita Melodia, was clearing metrics left and right. Her presence was also one of the more memorable ones, especially with her numerous covers, and her singing ability, making her one of the most notable VTuber that year. Sadly, her journey was cut short, and she (along with her genmates) graduated in the same year she got all of the attention. Later, a whistleblowing post revealed that their graduation was an indirect result of the CEO's unprofessional manner that endangered their business as an agency. Long story short, said CEO was sacked and replaced by someone else, and we didn’t hear about them for quite some time. Until several weeks ago, when they announced their closure, all hell broke loose. Every bad experience, both from talents and staffs, were told in detail, and it’s finally revealed that the new CEO also ran away from his responsibility. From withheld payments, until non-existent support, let’s just say that after the incident and replacement of said CEO, things did not improve. On the contrary, it just got worse, and it costs them the agency. Such a shame really, because there was hope that the agency could be saved, according to one of the former staff that I talked to. It’s just that said hope was placed on the wrong person. So let's just mourn their death, and move on to the next topic.
Scratch that, Yumelive has also imploded, and MAHA5 just lost their anchor. Maybe I’ll write about them next time, but not today.
