Forum - View topicINTEREST: Former hololive VTuber Uruha Rushia's Online Alter Ego Racks Up 900,000 Yen in Superchats
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RodyMelon
Posts: 2 |
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Ok, first of all, Mafumafu, one of the most popular utaite singer, barely had anything to do with this. Sure, his message with Rushia is what started the drama, but he didn't really have much role in this. The one who Rushia had spilled the information to is Korekore, a Japanese drama youtuber, and this wasn't the first time either, apparently she's been doing so last year too. She's also been spilling info to Narukami, another drama channel who's depised by vtuber companies and communities. Who knows how much has she spilled, seems like it's bad enough that the company had to fire their biggest moneymaker. As for her personal messages to fans, that didn't really have anything to do with drama, they're just a thank you messages for her biggest donators. |
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aereus
Posts: 574 |
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I think the thing people need to keep in mind is that nobody knows the whole truth of what happened. From my outside perspective, it appears like the Mafumafu incident was the tinder, and then Cover found out she had been discussing/sharing internal matters with Korekore and possibly Mafumafu among other things. Given she was their top grossing talent, you have to imagine they did not make the decision lightly. They gave up a lot of future revenue by letting her go.
For some more context: Rushia features the so-called Girlfriend Experience (GFE) content, which leans very heavily into the Japanese idol/being single and pretending to be your girlfriend sphere. It's basically career suicide in Japan idol circles to be found dating in most cases. Mafumafu is a real life male singer who features what amounts to the Boyfriend Experience for his fans. There have been rumors Mafumafu and Rushia were going out/living together even before she debuted with Hololive. A number of social media pictures from the both of them showed a lot of identical home goods, for example. So seeing Mafumafu messages as Discord toasts during her stream only added to those rumors. This is not only disastrous to Rushia because of her GFE activities, but even more-so for Mafumafu who sells himself as BFE. Regardless of any truth to the rumors, it's not surprising that Mafumafu would vehemently deny the rumors no matter what. As for Rushia's behavior after the incident: She pulled a similar stunt when leaving her previous group before joining Hololive. I'm not going to make a judgment call on that, since nobody knows the whole situation, but it is curious to have the same vein of behavior and accusations occur twice in a row. My personal opinion: Given she announced she was moving out of Tokyo "immediately" and looking for a new apartment, along with the Discord messages and previous rumors/pictures of similar home goods; they were probably going out and Mafumafu dumped her for fear of his career being in jeopardy. That is the gamble you make when going with Girlfriend/Boyfriend Experience: It's very lucrative and can make you a lot of money, but you either need to stay single or hide your relationship very VERY well. Apparently they were not careful enough. I don't wish ill on either of them, but view it more as the result of playing with fire in a particularly demanding career niche. |
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Meongantuk
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Cover still own the character Rushia. They can sue Mikeneko if she outright use Rushia or say she's Rushia in public (since it'll count as using the character without permission). And she's not the only one, unless stated otherwise like Kizuna Ai, most corpo vtubers don't own their character, and the NDA still apply after termination. Even PMaru can't directly say she's Kaguya Luna in public despite everyone in the industry know who she is at this point (and is much more popular than Luna). Same with Kson and she parted with cover in amicable term. Mikeneko can stream all she wants, make money in however she wants, but she isn't allowed to use Rushia's characters in any way, and the fans too shouldn't mention her alt in public as it can lead cover to think ANN trying to infringe Cover's copyright or cover thinking Mikeneko use their character without permission. This also doesn't help Mikeneko's image as NDA breaker. Last edited by Meongantuk on Tue Mar 08, 2022 10:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Casval Rem Deikun
 Posts: 268 |
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I saw the stream and honestly glad she's back and doing something. I do feel bad for her. In the end it was all a mistake her just trying to clear her name. Anyone would want a chance to defend themselves. It's hard leaving it up to a company while fake news and slander are coming for her on all sides.
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aereus
Posts: 574 |
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To be naive and young... She knew she was playing with fire by dating while doing GFE activities. I don't feel sorry for her since she's been incredibly well compensated and will be just fine. Remember Cover gave up their #1 revenue source. They wouldn't have done that unless she did some really unacceptable things to be terminated. We will never know for sure, and that's fine. |
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ChiilongCha
Posts: 37 |
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ANN isn't bound by Cover's NDA so it has no obligation to hide the fact of who Mikeneko was. Cover also cannot control public opinion so there are no problems at this point. |
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Tenebrae
Posts: 488 |
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[quote="Meongantuk"]
Copyright law does not cover speculating - or outright claiming to know - who is the voice of a character. That is entirely outside the scope of what copyright means. Well, they could try suing but they'd be laughed out of court day one. (Or rather their lawyers would immediately say let's not embarrass ourselves.) |
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Meongantuk
Posts: 355 |
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[quote="Tenebrae"]
Who said cover gonna sue ANN? There's easier target that they can 100% win, Mikeneko. They still hold all her dirty laundries. Even if they can't sue ANN, I feel like this article is lacking ethics and respects towards the culture itself. Even if it's the most obvious thing, she still hasn't said who she was. Nobody make any articles with speculation about Kson's other self when she "returned", but somehow it's okay for Mikeneko. because she somehow only made a slightly less money than her other self despite the fiasco? |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
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You realize you're describing Cover as a gods damn mob outfit here, right? NDAs that prohibit the performer from actually acknowledging they portrayed the character are already a questionable-at-best practice if not outright exploitative, but insisting everyone outside of the company conform to kayfabe for a performer/character they've already un-personed is borderline psychotic. If this streamer now has to tiptoe around the issue and leave the truth as merely implication in order to avoid exploitative legal action by Cover, then so be it. Good luck to her. But nobody who doesn't directly work for Cover is obligated to do the same. |
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TheCanipaEffect
Posts: 52 |
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[quote="Meongantuk"]
It is absolutely beyond sad that the idea of the "Vtuber culture" is just corporate bootlicking and listening to whatever the big company tells you to do. Beyond "NDA breaking" apparently now being an unspeakably awful action, the idea that you shouldn't mention a formerly corporate Vtuber's new independent ventures is kind of gross. Of course, she's stuck with the curse of being unable to talk about her body of work, but it doesn't mean anyone else should have to zip it. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2880 |
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in a practical sense, has a voice actor ever been sued for using the characters voice outside of the contracted series?
tho i remember the Mexican actors for Goku and Vegeta got paid to use their Goku and Vegeta voices for the Tokyo olímpics and nothing happened.though the rumours said they were clever and Tori cheap and they negotiated being Able to freely use their voices way back. |
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NormanS
 Posts: 167 |
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I feel ANN would have a nice article in the future to have a Japanese expert in Japanese law regarding labor and copyright law in the Vtubing sphere. Especially right now in the comments when it seems none here including me know the specifics are pretty much speculating and throwing things around.
On another note, theres a side or aspect in Vtubing where the performer and the performance are separated. Often attributed and agreed upon is that it benefits the performer with a sense of anonymity. And there is a portion of the consumers/fanbase tend to respect the distinction by not dragging mentioning aspects of the performer's life into the performance. And even mentions of the performer's life is to be kept vague and mentioned as little as to protect their anonymity as much as possible and to prevent as little drama as possible. Especially in the case of the talents under Cover where anti-fans of vtubers and Cover suffered harassments or even left the company because of it. "Doxing" a talent is definitely frowned upon and even the folks at 4chan's /vt/ section moderate that aspect to some degree. Vtubing is pretty much a place where many cares about the character and the performance, and that sort of thing is appealing to the performer. This article by ANN is already out. But i'd like no more future articles in a similar vein where the article links the performer's name to their vtubing performance. After all, Mikeneko performed as Rushia instead of additionally livestreaming as Mikeneko for one reason or another in these past years. That said, ANN having more focus on Vtubers is nice. But not this kind of focus. It'd be nice to see more focus on other Agencies like Cyberlive, Re:ACT, Tsunderia, PRISM Project and more. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
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Alright, so I want to take this sentiment in good faith, but I think it's important that - especially in this situation - we really interrogate the assumptions behind this idea. It is certainly possibly that the various performers behind Cover (and other corporate) Vtubers do enjoy the aspect of anonymity - or at the very least pseudo-anonymity in the case where it's an open secret that they had a previous career as a streamer. BUT let's not pretend that the idea of completely devesting the performer from the character they portray is an altruistic move made by Cover (and other management agencies) to protect their talent. The reason they set it up that way is so that the company owns the character's likeness, trademarks, etc and can make all decisions involving the character's public image. As a side effect it may provide a layer of anonymity for the performers, but it also imposes one onto them, and actively prevents them from connecting their existing online (and real-life) identity with their main form of employment. You mention "doxxing" here, but it isn't doxxing when the person in question is getting as close as they can to saying it outright - and only stop short because they presumably have a non-disclosure agreement with the agency to NOT publicly reveal that information. She is - through innuendo and implication forced upon her by the company she no longer works for - trying to make her identity known. She explicitly says it's because she doesn't want her fans to forget her. This is not some fan or hater or anyone else digging through private info to expose an anonymous creator's real-life identity. This is said creator directly trying to make her story known when she's legally barred from doing so publicly. So think for a minute which party, in this situation, benefits from trying to ignore or pretend this story didn't happen. Is it the creator who was essentially dumped by her agency and is trying to make her side of the story known? Or is it the company that quite literally controls the conversation through NDAs and industry euphemisms like "graduating" for people who leave or are fired, and prevents creators from formally laying claim to months or years of work they did as online personalities? To me, the answer seems pretty simple, and insisting people play by Cover's rules out of "politeness" is doing a very rich and powerful company's PR dirty work for them. |
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aereus
Posts: 574 |
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Also it's not like Mikeneko is her real name. It's still a pseudonym.
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NormanS
Posts: 167 |
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Very well. We each have strong stances and your view is a valid one. That said, i do think the psuedo-anonymity has its benefits, as Coco's performer almost got onto Playism's TGS 2021 as a guest without the Chinese event organizers knowing that she was Coco. https://www.reddit.com/r/VirtualYoutubers/comments/ppxky9/kson_was_supposed_to_be_a_guest_in_the_playism/ However i must make the distinction. Cover's graduation with Coco is in the positive because her channel is still up, and got a full send off. Mano Aloe's graduation is up in the air but she was given a 2 week suspension for leaking confidential information, and she feels that she wasn't prepared mentally and physically to continue activities. https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/ijogcy/important_announcement_regarding_mano_aloe/. Rushia's termination is outright stated as terminated, and not graduation www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/t03p7x/notice_regarding_termination_of_our_contract_with/. And not much is known about Hitomi Chris. But Rushia is the second talent to get terminated.
Isn't that the purpose of a NDA in essence? Because the only other source of information is through drama channels like Korekore which many say that its the JP equivalent of Keemstar. And i can't go any further in discussion about Japanese NDAs because i know nothing about Japanese laws, application and the company culture of it. And i dont think Cover benefits from this as well, since Rushia is the companies' top earner. Nor do they care about their performer's private lives. https://cover-corp.com/news/detail/20220214b/. This particular response from Cover is seen to be positive in the community. So whatever they dug up during the investigation process must be severe to prompt this response. edit: Also her Japanese co-workers and even Fubuki seem to understand Cover's decision. And Fubuki is viewed as the Canary mine if theres anything wrong going on. https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/j20k9j/ill_believe_in_fubukis_words_and_that_hololive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/nww221/a_reminder_that_friend_said_she_would_quit/ Last edited by NormanS on Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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