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INTEREST: Cover Corp. Announces Termination of VTuber Uruha Rushia's Contract

This reeks of a corporation victim blaming and cutting ties with someone not for the stated reasons, but because they didn't want to deal with the mess brought on by purity fanatics. Glad to see that ALL aspects of Japanese Idol Culture were absorbed into Vtubers, from the obsessive fans to the vile management.

Mafu dude made it worse by having a twitcast and Rushia's old persona did the same trying to show DMs and stuff. It doesn't look like those twitcasts are still up anymore but there are also clips out on youtube about this already. If anything, it clearly shows that Mafu guy is also an unaffiliated party of Hololive and shouldn't have had access to those DMs which also contained many business info unless he was provided with it. So again, NDA was broken.

Hoppy800 wrote:

What a bad time for Cover to terminate Rushia, while said offense (Leaking confidential information) is incredibly bad; doing this right now with her condition and mental state is downright dangerous without offering some level of therapy, that will get someone killed in the future. They could've waited a bit before doing so.

Dude, she already has a new yourtube and twitter account and is twitchcasting, she'll get her gachikois back and start making small fortunes before winter is over.

Banning someone from dating is so stupid.

I didn't know but I guess vtubers are like kpop idols who are also banned from dating?
So basically they are pandering to some obsessive people and their fantasies(I know not everyone is) Seems like a truly miserable line of work and community.

maquarch wrote:

The company had stand by Rushia and then she betrayed that trust. Not only did she leak stuff to Korekore but now it's also in the hands of Narukami Sabaki who is a known paparazzi in the JP vtuber community. It's the internet, people will eventually find it. From what the JP bros found, the stuff she leaked also included personal info of other members and their relationship status to justify herself in which Korekore shared to his viewers while blurring out the faces on top of business emails and messages between staff and management. There are clips of this on youtube. Now they have information they should've never had access to unless they were provided with it. So yes, NDA was broken. Also, the worst part is that this was trending on internet news over in Japan.

The thing is - what was the actual cause of leakage first? If it's whole continuation of the story with Mafu - then fudge, Cover management is actually at the same fault and probably worse than Rushia, cause they don't even try to defend her at all - but only tried to swipe it under the rug by the time like a lot of times before (like with Mana Aloe before the contract got terminated, or with Coco and Haachama - before Coco graduated).

Literally everyone knew that Rushia got through a major mental breakdown after the situation with Mafu, and a lot of people actually knew the fact that she is in fact have mental issues - even before she took the Rushia persona. You do not expect a person in the sane mood to go desperately clean your name by doing the interview with the major yellow journalism scammer who is known for exactly that either, especially when your management also knows about the situation and suppose to take the measures to prevent the situation getting even worse.

If it goes exactly like that - then Cover management betrayed one of their top talents by mishandling her situation poorly and not even trying to treat and support her at the time when she need that, which makes her completely desperate and easily used by all kinds of yellow media at that point - only to get betrayed even more.

Banning someone from dating is so stupid.

I didn't know but I guess vtubers are like kpop idols who are also banned from dating?
So basically they are pandering to some obsessive people and their fantasies(I know not everyone is) Seems like a truly miserable line of work and community.

I actually saw the video, last week, from the person that Rushia talked too and what he said was nothing bad at all. Rushia even told him not to mention the info but he did anyway, just simply trying to defend herself, but what was said was not awful. If this is the only info they are running off of and their is nothing else then this is just corporate bullshit; not knowing how to deal with the issue and figured this was the best way to deal with the problem.
If this was the majority of the info from the false relationship to then the defending herself, then the way Cover handled this was horrible. Bad management.

ThinksTooMuch#934809 wrote:

Banning someone from dating is so stupid. I didn't know but I guess vtubers are like kpop idols who are also banned from dating? So basically they are pandering to some obsessive people and their fantasies(I know not everyone is) Seems like a truly miserable line of work and community.

Everything you said is probably true, but the fact remains it is an industry that is solely marketed to obsessive fans. An industry that solely exists due to its obsessive consumers. Without those obsessive fans, there would be no market, and thus no industry.

We do the same thing too, but in different forms. Actors in children TV programming aren't allowed to get caught publically doing adult things. PeeWee Herman is the most glaring example of this. Then there are the female teachers, whose second job to support themselves, don't meet community standards.

For Japanese Idols, you are not hired solely for your dancing and signing, but rather to perform a role. That role is to separate your Japanese obsessive (whale) fans from their money. You do anything that endangers your performance of that role or hurts the industry as a whole, well, you have outlived your usefulness.

As I said, you aren't wrong, but this is just another way of getting into the greater entertainment industry, getting a name, and another way of "paying your dues". You might not like it, but they don't seem to be running out of aspiring hopeful applicants. It is not a secret what the job/role requires.

maquarch wrote:

The company had stand by Rushia and then she betrayed that trust. Not only did she leak stuff to Korekore but now it's also in the hands of Narukami Sabaki who is a known paparazzi in the JP vtuber community. It's the internet, people will eventually find it. From what the JP bros found, the stuff she leaked also included personal info of other members and their relationship status to justify herself in which Korekore shared to his viewers while blurring out the faces on top of business emails and messages between staff and management. There are clips of this on youtube. Now they have information they should've never had access to unless they were provided with it. So yes, NDA was broken. Also, the worst part is that this was trending on internet news over in Japan.

The thing is - what was the actual cause of leakage first? If it's whole continuation of the story with Mafu - then fudge, Cover management is actually at the same fault and probably worse than Rushia, cause they don't even try to defend her at all - but only tried to swipe it under the rug by the time like a lot of times before (like with Mana Aloe before the contract got terminated, or with Coco and Haachama - before Coco graduated).

Literally everyone knew that Rushia got through a major mental breakdown after the situation with Mafu, and a lot of people actually knew the fact that she is in fact have mental issues - even before she took the Rushia persona. You do not expect a person in the sane mood to go desperately clean your name by doing the interview with the major yellow journalism scammer who is known for exactly that either, especially when your management also knows about the situation and suppose to take the measures to prevent the situation getting even worse.

If it goes exactly like that - then Cover management betrayed one of their top talents by mishandling her situation poorly and not even trying to treat and support her at the time when she need that, which makes her completely desperate and easily used by all kinds of yellow media at that point - only to get betrayed even more.

maquarch wrote:

Mafu dude made it worse by having a twitcast and Rushia's old persona did the same trying to show DMs and stuff. It doesn't look like those twitcasts are still up anymore but there are also clips out on youtube about this already. If anything, it clearly shows that Mafu guy is also an unaffiliated party of Hololive and shouldn't have had access to those DMs which also contained many business info unless he was provided with it. So again, NDA was broken.

Well, the mafu DM showing up on stream was already proof that she had been using her corporate discord to be in contact with at least one person with zero business connection to Cover, so who knows what else they may have found when looking through the account. Based on her actions these past couple of weeks, Rushia doesn't exactly come across as someone who is good at separating her personal and professional life. It's entirely possible that what got her fired was something she said to someone several months back.

They were close enough that his channel had a video where Mikeneko spoke openly about her romantic relationship with (Watanabe) Mahoto, an infamous Youtuber who was arrested for soliciting child porn.
In 2019, he mocked her during her Twitcast by commenting with cicada noises, as a reference to her admission that she killed cicadas for the hell of it. She threatened legal action for this, which Korekore points out is something of a habit for her.
After that falling out, in Nov 2021, Mikeneko contacted him out of the blue and said she was falling for Mafumafu but it wasn't going well because she was too nosy about Mafumafu's previous relationships. Mikeneko contacted Korekore trying to dig up any gossip about Mafumafu.
She followed up with Korekore, saying she'll talk to him with the expectation that he'll publicize everything "if she were to disappear." "I don't want to be the only one to be hurt and treated so poorly like this." Screenshot of DM at 13:20: "There's something I want to discuss. I want to die. I'm tired of work and of interpersonal relationships."
Mafumafu sends Mikeneko a screenshot of a deleted tweet of hers, about a previous relationship she had with a well-known comedian. To prevent further drama, she asked Korekore to delete the Mahoto video, which he agreed to.
Mikeneko says she's been arguing with a senpai Hololive talent. She also expressed dissatisfaction for how her manager was dealing with it.
In Jan 2022, Mikeneko sends a happy new year LINE message to Korekore. Korekore namedrops her during a stream to flaunt how he's connected to well-known people.
Her manager finds out about her contacting Korekore (implied as a result of his namedropping). Mikeneko tells him to not mention her name, which annoyed Korekore since she was the one who's been coming to him.
"I'm being harassed by my agency and by other VTubers." Korekore emphasizes he has no direct evidence of this.
Chatlog at 20:22: "Happy new year! I couldn't contact you because I was so busy last year. But the person who I had a meal with told me before December that he won't see me any more because I was snooping around too much. I'm sorry for not responding sooner, I was too much in shock. Just an FYI. I hope I'll be in a proper relationship someday." "I see. Happy new year to you too." "Thank you. I want to fix my menhera..." Korekore considers this proof that Mafumafu/Mikeneko aren't dating.
Chatlog at 22:05: "I'm not going to my recording session in two days, either. I don't have a loyal fanbase like you so I'll lose them quickly, and that's when I'll quit. I don't know why I'm even still doing this, I think the reason for this drama is because of a senpai. I tried to tolerate it at first, but I think that's why I'm in this mess now." "Hierarchy sucks. At least I can just vent whenever I want." "Well this person was feeding lies to a friend of mine, and things got messy. I don't know what their goal was, but I can't forgive them. I spoke to them three days ago, they pretended to not know anything. It was shocking. I really want to disappear, if I disappear--" "You've just gotta cut them out of your life. It must be hard, since it's not your style to get back at them." "I want you to publicize it. But not if I'm still alive. I want to disappear and make everyone [who did this to me] miserable."
I'll omit much of the rest of the discussion because he covers things which are already public, namely the various tweets and streams that Mikeneko/Rushia did on her social media accounts, some hinting at self-harm, which are later deleted. Also the secret clips that she reportedly sent big-superchat fans. One thing to note is that she emphasized in her DMs that these private clips should remain a secret.
Korekore points out Mikeneko is threatening legal action yet again. Discusses his role in the drama: he claims she came to him because she felt neglected by management (they didn't respond quickly after the Discord incident) and wanted to clear things up with her fans. Korekore admits he's partially at fault but given Cover's reasons for her termination, doesn't take full responsibility.
Korekore starts trolling. Points out Mikeneko and Mafumafu use the same color iPhone. Brings in an imposter voice for Rushia.

Summary taken from here of this Kore Kore stream:

Quote:

So the first thing he claimed is that Rushia was always the one to initiate contact, primarily because she seemed to care a lot about her (alt) image. She told him that Cover is very strict about "branding", which apparently means that they have a principle of not saying anything publicly unless absolutely necessary, which Rushia apparently disagreed with. In fact, back in November 2021, there was already a hidden from the broad public incident with mafumafu for which Rushia contacted Kore Kore and asked him to speak "for her", and afterward her manager bluntly questioned her about this and she then told him to be more careful. The second thing that he claimed is that he might have technically egged her on in that he told her stuffs like "that sounds rough anything you want to tell me" etc. but that's not coercion by any means since again she's always the one to initiate contact. He showed a screenshot wherein she apparently spoke freely and he just chimed in occasionally, even for really juicy stuffs like how she had fights with her colleagues and how she supposedly didn't have many/any friends in Hololive. She also even went as far as to tell him scary stuffs like she tells him (every)things so that if she disappears then she wants him to speak for her. He then spent a decent amount of time presenting a factual(ish) timeline to the present by showing deleted tweets from both her two accounts before showing the Japanese version of Cover announcement and especially the reasons given (e.g. breach of NDA, activities resulted in loss of trust etc.) to really emphasize that he might be at partial fault but it's not 100% because of him that Rushia was fired. Then he dropped a huge bomb by playing a recording supposedly of Rushia telling the Fandeads to stop harassing Kore Kore and he even asked for help from one English-speaking woman and one Chinese-speaking woman to translate that message. And that is basically the end of his prepared presentation. He then moved on to interact with/address some comments/superchats through his two English and Chinese interpreters. A couple things of note are: (1) He claimed that the only thing Rushia explicitly told him not to share was a picture of her room, so only that one was his fault and even then he just talked about it and didn't actually show the picture; (2) He explicitly but reservedly apologized for being partially at fault (or rather for "not being blameless"); (3) He emphasized that people who were making comments were clearly not just his listeners; (4) He claimed that the only reason he talked about her room picture was because he thought that could help clear up the misunderstanding about cohabitation; (5) He said that this will be the last thing about this incident on his channel; (6) He apparently tried to lighten up the situation by telling people that "Rushia" got her alt channel up and running so just go support her there (and stop bothering him it's not like she's gone for good, presumably)

I love how folks keep saying she did all this and never show anything but a vague she talked to a damatuber point like also remember that her numbers were likely to tank with the drama stuff happening or at least an idol company like cover would think so