×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
NEWS: VTuber Kizuna Ai Goes on Indefinite Hiatus Next February


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Blazaking



Joined: 04 Apr 2012
Posts: 249
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:06 pm Reply with quote
End of an era...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
karyuudo0127



Joined: 28 Nov 2011
Posts: 143
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:44 pm Reply with quote
It's funny that I am reading this. I just downloaded the game on the Oculus quest 2 this morning and was most impressed. After I hit up the YouTube channel for some of the high-def versions of her music videos. It was quite something to see. Hopefully they will bring her character back once they figure out how to further develop her.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
sourpatchthekid



Joined: 20 Dec 2016
Posts: 64
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 4:21 pm Reply with quote
Was a big of her videos from early in her career. I stopped really following after the voice actress changed tho
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MagicPolly



Joined: 26 Nov 2020
Posts: 1566
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:13 pm Reply with quote
Apparently "future activities with the goal of further developing Kizuna Ai" includes pushing NFTs
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
tsog



Joined: 16 Sep 2017
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:56 pm Reply with quote
Not sure what more they can do.

hololive has become the de facto leader in VTubers, and other smaller agencies have slowly carved out niches for themselves. Shutting down your most popular (re: most profitable) VTuber for an indefinite amount of time to reposition her feels like a desperate move.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
ThatMoonGuy



Joined: 13 Oct 2017
Posts: 364
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:58 pm Reply with quote
MagicPolly wrote:
Apparently "future activities with the goal of further developing Kizuna Ai" includes pushing NFTs


Jesus Christ, this NFT stuff really ought to stop. I still can't fathom how people fall for such a thing.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NormanS



Joined: 15 Aug 2014
Posts: 167
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 6:33 pm Reply with quote
sourpatchthekid wrote:
Was a big of her videos from early in her career. I stopped really following after the voice actress changed tho


Her voice actress never changed though. The original actress still voices the original Kizunai AI. Its the clones that had different voice actresses.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
wmderemer
It...it's not like I post for you or anything!



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 302
Location: Stroudsburg, PA
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:35 pm Reply with quote
This sounds to me like they want to take a step back to figure out how to grow the brand more, since subscriptions on her main channel have leveled off & she has been overtaken in subs by a VTuber 4 years her junior in Gawr Gura (and Gura's sub count keeps growing, while Ai's main channel can't seem to hit that 3M mark herself)... perhaps her actress or others at Kizuna Ai Inc feel stagnant and need to take some time away to 'freshen up' Ai...

I admit I haven't been watching her stuff since I discovered Hololive, but whatever the reason, after Feb, 26, 2022, I will respectfully wait the return of the Godmother of all VTubers.I just hope they don't change her characterization/appearance too much, I think she's fine as-is (and hope we don't lose Ai Black when she returns Smile ).

BTW, I love that Ai's tweet about this not only got a reply from the Queen of Hololive, Tokino Sora, but that Ai responded to Sora-chan...just beautiful to see VTuber royalty acknowledging each other.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 480
PostPosted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:03 pm Reply with quote
ThatMoonGuy wrote:
MagicPolly wrote:
Apparently "future activities with the goal of further developing Kizuna Ai" includes pushing NFTs


Jesus Christ, this NFT stuff really ought to stop. I still can't fathom how people fall for such a thing.


Wouldn't be the first time, they also apparently had Kizuna Ai as the ambassador for some crypto-coin or other a while back. Ai has bad taste in projects, it seems.

Regardless: tough to think of a world without Kizuna Ai. She was a real trailblazer, and I hope that she comes back with lots of fun stuff for everyone. Preferably that aren't cryptocurrency scams.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
XerneasYveltal



Joined: 09 Jun 2015
Posts: 667
Location: Philippines
PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 1:30 am Reply with quote
Despite having jumped into the VTuber rabbit hole last year with the debuts of everyone in hololive English, I have actually known about Kizuna AI four years earlier.

I'll be looking forward to her return even if the wait ends up lasting for a year or more.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 1:53 am Reply with quote
She was probably the only VTuber a lot of people were aware of for quite a while, myself included.

Two years and two weeks ago, I remember seeing someone in Azur Lane in-game chat asking "What is Hololive?" regarding the then-upcoming collab event; Hololive at the time weren't well known in the west. The reply they got was, "A bunch of Kizuna Ai clones."
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14744
PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 7:41 am Reply with quote
Kizuna Ai's face expressions and body moves are the most energetic. She also interviewed the Hollywood actors in Japan for the live-action Alita: Battle Angel - with Christoph Waltz hitting on her



Though some of the funnier uses of her CG set was with a Filipino comedian group's "Everybody" by The Backstreet Boys, and her "Hej Monika" duet with PewDiePie Laughing

Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
omegafinal



Joined: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 125
PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:17 am Reply with quote
Not exactly graduating/quitting, but still sad nonetheless. Hope she makes a grand return. She was my first VTuber, and I think she also had subbed most of her videos from the start, helping drive her reach as wide as possible.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
FlyingOrange



Joined: 29 Apr 2021
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 6:47 pm Reply with quote
FinalVentCard wrote:
ThatMoonGuy wrote:
MagicPolly wrote:
Apparently "future activities with the goal of further developing Kizuna Ai" includes pushing NFTs


Jesus Christ, this NFT stuff really ought to stop. I still can't fathom how people fall for such a thing.


Wouldn't be the first time, they also apparently had Kizuna Ai as the ambassador for some crypto-coin or other a while back. Ai has bad taste in projects, it seems.

Regardless: tough to think of a world without Kizuna Ai. She was a real trailblazer, and I hope that she comes back with lots of fun stuff for everyone. Preferably that aren't cryptocurrency scams.

I'm guessing it's the company getting desperate and not her own idea, not that she didn't sign off on it. I know some of the other VTuber agencies that used to be popular but have fallen in popularity since have done the same thing.

nDroae wrote:
She was probably the only VTuber a lot of people were aware of for quite a while, myself included.

Two years and two weeks ago, I remember seeing someone in Azur Lane in-game chat asking "What is Hololive?" regarding the then-upcoming collab event; Hololive at the time weren't well known in the west. The reply they got was, "A bunch of Kizuna Ai clones."

Not to get off topic, but I think hololive was more inspired by Love Live.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4404
PostPosted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 2:43 pm Reply with quote
It's sad to see, but also not unexpected. It's risky to not have Ai out there indefinitely since it's pretty easy to get lost in the shuffle without consistent content. But then again, they probably recognized that was already happening to some extent with large agencies, large individual vtubers, and the sheer number of vtubers out there in general.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group