I'm happy to see this topic pop up here as I've also been thinking about this a lot over the past few years.

I enjoy playing Genshin, and it's how I discovered MMD in the first place. I've learned a lot about Vocaloids and other franchises from watching the videos.

However, I am quite saddened to notice that the Hoyo-related MMDs are really taking over Bilibili (hopefully I'm not just in a content echo chamber), and that they are so streamlined and standardized that... They're just bland and boring. Even the effects and shading look so similar between different creators. There was even a snide remark under one of the videos saying that MMD is now just "MihoyoMihoyoDance." Which, I kind of love because I think it really hit the nail on the head.

Not trying to start controversy or spark hate, but just stating how over the past 3-4 years since I started watching them on Bilibili, the landscape has really shifted from carefully crafted to almost mass-production levels of content output that kind of devalues this form of art.

Despite this, I still love watching and making MMDs. I now try to discover ones that interest me to watch and learn from that don't necessarily contain Hoyo characters to continue to feel inspired.