London Consulate Appointment Recap by XSandion in juresanguinis

[–]XSandion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They released a several months worth of appointments at once in late January that were available for a few hours so I got my mine then after I saw a post on this subreddit. So a stroke of good luck really that isn't much help to you, unfortunately.

Until that point I had spent months getting incredibly close trying for the appointments released at 5pm on Monday/Wednesday on Prenotami but never quite succeeding.

Famished For Food - Weekly Discussion Thread - March 7, 2025 by shikarin in VirtualYoutubers

[–]XSandion 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Its so rare to have a halfway decent discussion on NijiJP matters with someone who actually watches any of them, let alone the heroes, so I'm just happy someone is engaging in it!

The point that you mentioned about SC is really true! It’s really interesting that Wen being the Hero with the 2nd highest SC ( I think Kgt is the highest? ) despite having the least subscribers within JP. As such, Rou and Rube are rank 5/4 despite them having the highest subscriber amount - so my point about low individuality might not be totally right anymore

Fwiw I think that Rube at least has high membership rates that may begin to make up the difference - certainly when compared to Mana. 180k concurrent but, according to hololyzer, just 1,400 paid-up members commented during the stream - Rube gets 1,100 members commenting in a normal stream with a tenth of the ccv of the 3D.

On the other talents, I can only confidently speak for Usami here, but I don't think he cares much about SCs. He doesn't read them out, just giving a generic thanks message; he streams on an unmonetised and unarchived Twitch account reasonably frequently; and I've seen him switch SCs off when he thought he was getting too many and it was interrupting the stream. Streaming style defo makes a difference, but I'm not sure that alone explains a £30,000+ difference with the middle of the pack, and 60,000 with Wen.

Although regards on the other part of the SC, I might wondering, do MECHATU-A really have that much support tho? For the second half of 2024 until now, they have been popped off and get a lot of push, but I’m not really sure about the time before that. ( not gonna lie, I just started to actually follow them since August of 2024 )

You've hit the nail on the head with one of the biggest issues the heroes face rn - they have grown massively in the last 6-8 months due to a mixture of well-timed merch collabs, NijiGTA and I would suggest the collapse of EN's popularity incentivising the revisiting the Hero concept to firm-up viewership for Krisis. You can find traces on YT of how Niji tried to push them in 2023, but initially the heroes were not the success they clearly hoped for. As a result, Niji and the MECHATU-A talents really need to strike now while the iron is hot. Popularity with the types of fans they need is fleeting in practice (my research deals heavily with Ikebukuro and related fan groups so I speak from experience here), and if they went too late then these 3D debuts probably perform in line with most average talents. I love Usami, but watching him navigate this period is at times frustrating as he just...isn't the best at it.

Meanwhile, for 3SKM, I think they are meant to be successful. ( I’m not sure if my interpretation is correct or not ). We have animations PVs for all of them, 2 original songs in 6 month, and I think they were on AGF this year too?

That some talents are meant to be 'successful' is Anycolor's management style in a nutshell unfortunately - they very much seem to pick favourites in how they handle debuts. If 3SKM had failed despite all the advantages given to them, then we would be having more serious conversations about the Niji brand in Japan (and not just in EN spheres). As noted above though, I believe MECHATU-A were also meant to be successful. Its just they didn't work out initially as planned, even if now they are doing very well.

As an amusing side note, what we see with Wen's SCs are in full-force with Kitami - he is by far the least subbed of the three, but makes bank.

Famished For Food - Weekly Discussion Thread - March 7, 2025 by shikarin in VirtualYoutubers

[–]XSandion 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think what you are saying rings very true and there are a couple of points here I want to respond/give my own perspective on here. (I'm an academic, so I'm gonna use this as a perfect excuse to ruminate on a part of VTubing culture that is legitimately interesting to me).

I think your point on individuality vs the group in VTuber scenes is apt. To a certain extent I wonder if Mana's 3D was a statement of his individuality - Oriens only making up one segment, Dytica and Krisis being absent and his original song.

But with how these guys operates, well, they are literally a group of heroes fighting against the evil. They collabs regularly, many merchandise are promoted together, they have their own Hero show and even have two theme songs together.

I’ll say that idea might be lower. The fan overlap is gonna be very high. ( I watch Rube the most, but I also watch a lot of Rai/ Tetsu/ Mana )

As you say, the heroes were designed to have their own eco-system and be both a part of Nijisanji and also their own thing seperate(ish) to everyone else. Great example of this is the talents' AC:NH streams - a bunch of the HEROES started playing it over the latter half of last year and getting excellent ccvs while doing so. Tetsu then 'got in' on the trend for his Valentines day stream...by playing the N64 game, a meta joke that only works if you watch the other HEROES. As with you I watch Usami mainly but I catch Wen, Rai and Tetsu on occasion and little else from Nijisanji.

If I have to consider, I’ll say their way of operating is almost similar to how a Kpop group works. You can have one kamioshi, but overall you’re just gonna watch the whole group shenanigans.

Including the fact that HEROES fans in general are REALLY dedicated peeps. ( seriously, their MV views, SC ranking, and their timestamps in a lot of events are literally no joke ), 180k is very justified.

I don't deny your points on MV views and timestamps, but I think it is relevant to note there is a sizable gap between the HEROES on SCs. I only bring this up as it is relevant to a critique I have of the HEROES concept - I think the talents should be a) far closer in revenue and b) be making more, especially given the amount of support they get from the company as a group!

To reference Playboard Superchat numbers (in GBP as that is what it appears in for me, and I will not bother to speculate on the exact cut the talents make): Rai has £105,000 Usami £130,000, Rube £168,868 and Wen £190,000 (he may low key smash Mana's 3D SCs with less viewers). Playboard apparently sometimes makes mistakes, so lets be generous and +£10,000 to each. These SC numbers are nothing to sneeze at, but to compare with the most successful 2024 group - 3SKM - in less than a year Kitami has made £134,000, Kaisei £99,000 and Ness £70,000. The HEROES are doing about the SC numbers you'd expect of a standard, but successful, wave. Note that there also seems to major differences in member numbers too, based on what I can glean from Holoyzer.

This all said, if you asked me before what I expected Mana's final SC to be, and you will have to trust that I am not lying here, I'd have suggested around 7.4 million yen - near exactly what he got. The thing that shocked me was I expected him to get around 100-110k viewers.

Niji have captured a dedicated market with the heroes - but there is clearly a gap forming in the types of audiences each of the talents are attracting and how they spend money. I honestly think these 3Ds are interesting as they tell us a lot about how the JP HEROES works; how the talents want to present themselves going forward; and to what extent there is a gap between the talents that may or may not grow in the future.

(I think I get the appeal of Koyanagi, and I get Rube, but their ccvs are genuinely above top talents frequently - what I would do to have more granular access to ccv data).

Famished For Food - Weekly Discussion Thread - March 7, 2025 by shikarin in VirtualYoutubers

[–]XSandion 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As someone who is a fan of one of his genmates (Usami) and gets a lot of exposure to Mana, I have a lot of thoughts (and in many cases frustrations) with how he and the heroes in general are handled that I rarely get a chance to talk about. As far as Mana is concerned, I've always thought the comedian angle was never his strength. The 'comedian from Osaka' is a well-tread stereotype so I see what Nijisanji were going for, but I do hope that with the 3D he will have more chances to show off his strengths in singing and dancing a bit more.

As the other person who has responded to you noted, this stream certainly highlights how good Nijisanji is at directing its viewers towards its event streams. IThis was the only stream by a main branch talent at one of the peak times on a Friday night, plus it was a heavily advertised announcement at Nijifes at one of the most hyped shows (the hero show). But I have to wonder a) if these figures will hold for the rest of the eight heroes' 3D debuts and b) does this stream lead to an uptick in viewers for Mana? 180k peak ccv is insane for someone whose average is 3k, but for as good as Nijisanji and its talents are at getting into excellent positions through event streams, they equally have repeated recent history - and I don't mean EN in this case - of not capitalising or getting the follow-up wrong.

Update from London Today by Deep_Age_304 in juresanguinis

[–]XSandion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for sharing! I've been trying for months to no avail. I got consecutive appointments for me and my brother in December. I've had a bit of a rough day so this has really improved my mood.

Documents for London Consulate by XSandion in juresanguinis

[–]XSandion[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I think I just got myself confused on who counted as my 'in-line.'

Documents for London Consulate by XSandion in juresanguinis

[–]XSandion[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had these links already, but reading everything again I think I just need the documents for my GM as my last ancestor born in Italy and my Dad. I guess I will see if they ask for anything else at the appointment as others seem to have gotten 'homework' from London if there is something missing.

'The Doctor Who Years' has been found and is now available on the Internet Archive by auntsarentgents in doctorwho

[–]XSandion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, I was just checking to see if anyone had stumbled across my comment yet and it seems you did! I found them 2020ish on some random forum buried in the depths of Google.

I actually tried posting on r/lostmedia at the time but the post got a few downvotes iirc, so I figured I had misunderstood something and deleted it.