You can add Mint to the extensive list of people not paid by Vshojo, along with nearly all of the artists, musical and otherwise, who have done things for them.

FalseEyeD went through a bunch of the fallout yesterday, with extensive coverage of kson's interview/interrogation of the Vshojo JP "CEO" (Who was really more middle management due to how the company was set up).

It wasn't *entirely* doom, since he mentioned Nimi's upcoming marriage, too! But man that almost highlights the terribleness of absolutely everything else yesterday.

Wow.

CdrMike said:
>[Kson] closed out the stream by saying
>she's stealing Mane-chan
>on her way out the door.
>
>Other folks take stationary, pens, coffee cups, and other small stuff.
> Kaichou walking out the front door with her manager under her
>arm/over her shoulder.

Sasuga, as I believe they say.

--G.
"and I'm gonna start my OWN agency, with blackjack and hookers"
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Aauuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Not Mint.

For goodness' sake, it's like some kind of dokibird curse-by-association.

>For goodness' sake, it's like some kind of dokibird
>curse-by-association.

Remember when Doki got ripped off by the first person she hired to direct her merch-and-whatnot operations, and people in the chat were telling her "dude, just join vsj and let them do that part"? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

--G.
-><-
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Jesus christ, apparently Mint had been signed with VShojo for a year??

So apparently there was going to be a monster girl gen. The girls are going to be doing their first collab here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv4ul9uzQvw

LAST EDITED ON Jul-23-25 AT 11:16 PM (EDT)
 
FalseEyeD with even more about The Troubles, including talking about secret VShojo member Mint, talking about somebody who was offered the entire company for two million(!) back in 2021, seeing documents about how they were making $500K but spending $3 mil, etc.

EDIT: THERE'S MORE TO COME. False currently streaming now with new updates just hours after posting the above video. Apparently it involves Dokibird, because of course it does.

So it seems we're now in the part of the collapse of a company where everybody comes forward with their story about just how bad things really were.

- Shylily, Quinn, Shxtou, and CyYu have all said they were either approached to join or showed interest. Lily backed out because she (through her lawyer) kept asking for changes to the offered contract and the response back was "trust us," while Quinn says that they initially wanted him to join and then pushed him aside because Matara had scouted Michi and she had a bigger fan base.

- Geega apparently spent a lot of time before and after joining to offer suggestions and tips to management and her general assessment is it was a typical tech start-up, i.e. poorly managed and operating on the "spend money to make money" principle.

- And Nyanners streamed (with Veibae participating in chat) about her time at VSHojo and it's...yeah, it's not pretty.

Overall picture? Tech bros managed to spend themselves into bankruptcy...again.

o/~ Tale as old as time o/~

>Lily backed out because she (through her lawyer) kept asking for
>changes to the offered contract and the response back was "trust us,"

One, smart girl. Two, every time I see shit like that regarding contracts a part of me cringes in dread.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

U-san dodged a bullet by dint of poor mental health.

Vshojo has failed, and I've mismanaged the company into the situation you're all witnessing.

So today I am sharing the difficult news that VShojo is shutting down, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point.

I've been doing everything I can to fundraise and right the ship these past few months, but despite my efforts, we are in a worse position, and those I care about right now are paying the price.

Over the past few years, we raised around $11 million to pursue a bold, talent-first approach in VTubing, prioritizing creators and community over short-term profits, to achieve long-term sustainability. Our funding went directly to our creators through generous splits, debut investments, infrastructure, concerts, events, and staffing, all designed to support them. WE also wanted our talent to own their own IP, which we knew was a unique creator-first approach for an agency. However, despite all our efforts, the business failed to generate the revenue we needed to sustain that model, and eventually, we ran out of money.

Additionally, I acknowledge that some of the money spent by the company was raised in connection with talent activity, which I later learned was part of a charitable initiative. At the time, we were working hard to raise additional investment capitol to cover our costs, and I firmly believed, based on the information available to us, that we would be able to do so and cover all expenses. We were unsuccessful in our fundraising efforts. I made the decision to pursue funding, and I own its consequences.

I am sorry to all the talents, staff, friends, and community members that believed in our brand. You did not deserve this.

- Justin (Gunrun)

---

My comments in a reply.

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

I hand-transcribed that from the image in case it gets taken down, so it's not lost.

This is my censored reply.

"I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point."

You fucking well SHOULD. You should have done it MONTHS ago, before it got to this point, so that your talent didn't get completely blindsided by it.

"those I care about right now are paying the price."

You know, this is the kind of sanctimony I'd expect to hear from a politician or a televangelist.

" a bold, talent-first approach in VTubing, prioritizing creators and community over short-term profits"

And you weren't great at that.

I do not understand the second-to-last paragraph. He drops the ball big-time explaining where the charity money went to. Just gone.

"I am sorry to all the talents"

Tell them to their faces, you sniveling weasel. PRINCE HUMPERDINK WAS MORE COURAGEOUS THAN YOU ARE!

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

LAST EDITED ON Jul-24-25 AT 08:05 PM (EDT)
 
Computer, play "Take the Money and Run" by Steve Miller Band.

--G.
-><-
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zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

What money? According to one person they were overspending on everything. Geega mentioned the subway ads, nd Connor translated the pricing, which ran about a quarter of a million US for a week for all of the pillars. For a nearly entirely English-speaking group of vtubers. In fecking Tokyo. As geega said, they could have done a concert for that!

Just massive overspending and spending on the wrong things.

The merch supplier debacle couldn't have helped matters. ....assuming that wasn't caused by vshojo being broke.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-24-25 AT 08:34 PM (EDT)
 
>What money?

Possibly fair. I'm cynical enough that I'd be surprised if someone didn't come away from the situation with some really expensive toys, though...

>Just massive overspending and spending on the wrong things.

The last tech company I worked at did something like that. It was a colocation/hosting startup in 2000, so their timing was already unfortunate, but to be fair, not many people could have known that at the time. But even if the bubble hadn't been about to burst, they went about it completely ass-backwards. They built a fantastic data center with all the top-drawer infrastructure--racks and racks of "thin" servers, integral fire suppression system, a huge battery bank, not one but two on-demand diesel generators big enough to require their own CONEXes out back, bleeding-edge security system. The office was decked out with Herman Miller chairs for everyone, a full Mission Control-style showpiece NOC, all the bells and whistles.

They didn't have a sales department.

At all.

That was going to get paid for with the upcoming third round of VC, because they had blown all of the first two rounds on the facility.

There was no third round of VC.

However, I have to give the late, unlamented U.S. Data Centers its due in one respect: when it tanked, it left a whole bunch of people (including me) unemployed, but unlike VSJ it didn't take giant heaps of our own money with it.

--G.
well, apart from stiffing me on a couple days' worth of PTO
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I fucking hate Herman Miller chairs. They're not just uncomfortable to me, I find they take very little time to become actively painful. After getting into a fight with my manager about it (he insisted that the NOC had to Look Consistent during business hours, and used to whine about how expensive the chair that hurt to sit in was, as though that were somehow relevant), I used to wait in resentful anguish until the day shift finished pissing off for the day, then go steal one of the plush executive chairs from the conference room for the rest of my night shift.

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

kson's direct reply
> Why didn't you let us know the moment you realized this situation?
> Why did I get the information 2weeks ago not from the company
> but from my home girls??
> Why did you lie to the JP branch A WEEK AGO that everything
> was good and taken care of?????

GEEGA's direct reply
> VShojo didn't just fail, many staff and leadership failed VShojo.

> Instead of using talent money on operating costs, the company should have
> shut down or at least informed us, but you used us as cash cows to keep
> things afloat while keeping us in the dark.

> You chose to keep the (expensive) sinking ship going and felt that it was
> fine to keep paying out to staff you were friends with instead of putting
> talent first. You've made it abundantly clear that you are okay with not
> prioritizing the debts owed to the talent who MADE this company what it is.

> While saying you will take full responsibility is the correct thing to do,
> I also think there are many others in the company without the same positive
> intent as conveyed in this message. In every leadership or staff call I had,
> you sat back and didn't say much while you had other staff members that were
> clearly the ones doing the actual work be the ones to speak.

> We know which leadership worked on our contracts. We know which leadership
> constantly sat in vc playing games with staff instead of working on time-sensitive
> tasks for our events and debuts. We know which staff consistently leaked
> information about talent. As the CEO, you are the final check, yes, but this
> means that all checks before you failed too.

>GEEGA's direct reply

She also spent time on her stream today going over both Gunrun's statement, her reply to said statement, and explaining what she saw and experienced. And it's like listening to stories from folks who worked at Ion Storm or WeWork: Lots of money was getting spent on things that weren't needed or on projects that went nowhere, stacks of redundant staff who were just there, management that pretty clearly did not know what they were doing, and just the general sense that the company kept waiting on another round of investment funding that never came.

And yes, she all but confirmed my suspicion that this went on for so long because nobody was talking about their financial issues or that they just lumped it in with the general mismanagement rather than a deliberate choice to short them.

Sounds like the core idea of VShojo was essentially workable, it just needed someone at the helm who was better at looking at things the company shouldn't be spending money on and saying 'no' to them. Which makes me wonder if anyone will try.

But I gotta wonder who'd even have a chance of pulling it off. At this point, I don't think just having the backing of a well respected vtuber will be enough, whoever is going to be directly running the show would have to be someone the community trusts and who has a rep for business management... and who would actually want the job. Doesn't seem like an easy combination of requirements to meet.

-IA.

(received information not interpretable)

>Sounds like the core idea of VShojo was essentially workable, it just
>needed someone at the helm who was better at looking at things the
>company shouldn't be spending money on and saying 'no' to them. Which
>makes me wonder if anyone will try.
>
>But I gotta wonder who'd even have a chance of pulling it off. At this
>point, I don't think just having the backing of a well respected
>vtuber will be enough, whoever is going to be directly running the
>show would have to be someone the community trusts and who has a rep
>for business management... and who would actually want the job.
>Doesn't seem like an easy combination of requirements to meet.

In retrospect, VShojo's failure ultimately comes down to two flaws in its creation: it was more of a vanity project than a serious effort to create a successful vtuber agency and it's marketing buzz of "talent first" led to a sales pitch that sounded great to existing vtubers (0% streaming cut and free IP) but left them with nothing to use as incentive to potential investors. End result was what we just witnessed, where the established vtubers they signed had no loyalty to the company once the checks stopped and bailed because the company lacked any leverage over them.

VShojo started out as a rebellion against the big corpos that were abusing their talents and promised to create a home where they could find all kinds of success being themselves. And then they became a big corpo and (based upon what we're hearing now) abused their talents if in new and different ways than Hololive or Nijisanji.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-24-25 AT 10:32 PM (EDT)
 
The president of the Immune Deficiency Foundation released a short video reacting to how Mouse's community just up and threw down far more money than VSJ stole in, like, a day. "Startled" just about covers it. :)

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The thumbnail makes it look like Mousey is outside of her house with a gigantic pile of money and a shotgun telling her to come out to collect it and she isn't sure if that's a threat or not.

Random observation, but with the implosion of VShojo pretty much overnight, Phase Connect is now the largest EN vtuber agency.

Who knew that the keys to success in the industry in 2025 would be sad girls and coffee?

>Phase Connect is now the largest EN vtuber agency.
>
>Who knew that the keys to success in the industry in 2025 would be sad
>girls and coffee?

Sometimes in this life, all you have to do is not fuck up as much.

--G.
or, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun Earl."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Amazingly, even WITH Pippa they've managed to evade any real controversy. Aside from that guy who did the thing at a con recently but that really had nothing to do with her.

"You know what, no, I don't think I have to hold myself back on this one. What a fuckin' shitshow, Jesus Christ."
- Rin Penrose on The Situation

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>"You know what, no, I don't think I have to hold myself back on this
>one. What a fuckin' shitshow, Jesus Christ."
> - Rin Penrose on The Situation

Ah Rin, as elegant and witty as ever. /s

"Don't play the fuckin' Wii music while I'm having a serious talk!"

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0NCOP6ax-Q Mousey addresses some things and maybe mending a few bridges with old friends.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-31-25 AT 11:36 PM (EDT)
 
Sooooo Kuro, Geega and Amalee are hinting at something seriously bad with their old merch deals with Vshojo....and Mousey hinted that some older songs are copyrighted to Vshojo. So yeah. Not great news for the girls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTGZ8ct5Usg

>Sooooo Kuro, Geega and Amalee are hinting at something seriously bad
>with their old merch deals with Vshojo....and Mousey hinted that some
>older songs are copyrighted to Vshojo. So yeah. Not great news for the
>girls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTGZ8ct5Usg

So the company owes the talents thousands if not millions in unpaid sponsorships, merch sales, and other financial obligations. They stole over $500K from a charity that they told Mousy that they paid out. And now they have the gall, the utter cheek, to tell those same people "Yeah, so if you want your merch, you gotta pay us for it."

Did anyone ever imagine we'd see a company that made Kurosanji look respectable by comparison?

So, disclaimer, I have no idea who "Cotton(tail)" is - other than a vtuber, obviously - but this video showed up in my feed today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttPn1kB8ExM

... and apparently she was on vacation and "unplugged" while all of this was going down, and came back to find (depending on who you ask) either everything on fire like that one Community gif, or the fire already extinguished and just a big crater where VShojo used to be.

Dang.

CottontailVA is a vtuber who is also a voice actress mainly in the adult spaces. I believe she's one of Melody's friends.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-04-25 AT 06:50 PM (EDT)
 
The merch situation has now got worse.

Here's Henya explaining how.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

>The merch situation has now got worse.
>
>Here's Henya explaining how.

As one of the replies very rightly notes, they stole half a mil from a charity and who knows how much cumulatively from the talents, of course they were going to stiff the viewers too.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

So, some okay news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyXUQGvqHE8

>So, some okay news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyXUQGvqHE8

In a related story from two days prior, Michi reached out to an artist that VShojo commissioned just before the collapse to do art for some summer merch...and paid not only for herself but all of the talents.

To quote Kson on the news, "Sasuga Michi!"

Kson found out about more Vshojo perfidy

LAST EDITED ON Aug-21-25 AT 10:44 AM (EDT)
 
So apparently Vshojo as an organization is so broke they can't afford to pay their lawyer (so he quit) or declare bankruptcy. And they state the contracts the talent had haven't been officially terminated, either.

KSon has the deets.

This is apparently part of the merch issue now, too - they spent the money they should be using to send out the merch sales, and now they want the talent they screwed over to buy the merch and send it themselves.

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

LAST EDITED ON Aug-21-25 AT 02:37 PM (EDT)
 
>they spent the
>money they should be using to send out the merch sales, and now they
>want the talent they screwed over to buy the merch and send it
>themselves.
>
*Johanna Mason "You know what I say to that?" intensifies*

>>they spent the
>>money they should be using to send out the merch sales, and now they
>>want the talent they screwed over to buy the merch and send it
>>themselves.
>>
>*Johanna Mason "You know what I say to that?" intensifies*

My first thought was Dee Jay in the live-action Street Fighter movie. "Are you totally demented, mon?!"

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

So they don't have the money to pay anybody, they don't have the money to file bankruptcy paperwork, and they don't have the money to fulfill merch orders...but they still have the money to enforce NDAs?

They’re trying to enforce NDAs?

>They’re trying to enforce NDAs?

It's hard to tell whether they are or the lawyers are just playing on the side of caution, but most everybody's said aloud since this all began that they're legally restricted on what they can say publicly.

Though at this point, I think Kson's one more truly toxic revelation away from throwing caution to the wind and dishing out a few tons of dirt.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-22-25 AT 04:43 AM (EDT)
 
Legally restricted goes both ways; if you’re bringing suit against someone you can’t - well, shouldn’t - just blab about everything.

That is, during legal proceedings - and oh boy is this a scrummage of them - neither side can/should talk publicly about stuff until cleared to by judge/lawyers.

>Legally restricted goes both ways; if you’re bringing suit against
>someone you can’t - well, shouldn’t - just blab about everything.
>
>That is, during legal proceedings - and oh boy is this a scrummage of
>them - neither side can/should talk publicly about stuff until cleared
>to by judge/lawyers.

Fair point, one can't say with any certainty if the NDAs are actually being enforced or the legal necessity of avoiding any statements or divulging of sensitive information that could prejudice a case brought against the company effectively serves the same purpose.

Personally, I think the BS about the coffers being bare and the company lacking funds to even make basic legal filings is going to evaporate as soon as Gunrun starts getting served court papers.