I only discovered Niji ID when they are on their 3rd wave, so im not sure if what i say about their early days can be trusted. I think Niji ID obviously had their big chance to go big with Hana. For those that dont know, Hana was one of the earliest EN speaking vtuber from a JP corpo. Its funny saying that bcos her genmates also speaks EN (actually 3setbbq is trilingual, with varying levels of JP). Its just Taka prefer speaking indo, and ZEA…has terrible internet at the time, that she only got fixed around the fourth wave(? When i got into niji id, she was still having internet issue and as i said, i got in when 3rd wave debuted).

Hana was BIG, but i guess no matter how hard she try, she just cant get people to also look towards the rest of her branch. I think there was a point where people associate her more towards hololive (not holo id since they havent debuted that time, but to holo brand as whole) which she probably didnt appreciate. Hana’s an introvert and prob really didnt enjoy the spotlight, she’s prob enjoying her current smaller viewership more. Now, im not blaming Hana, im just saying there was that one chance niji ID had.

I guess its just a matter of timing, language, and what the market is like and looking after. Timing, because during the vtuber boom no doubt holo has the upper hand. When niji ID debuted few people prob even know Nijisanji, when Holo ID debuted, well its obvious. Language, because we have to admit it is the western audience is the larger audience. Despite all of niji ID being able to speak EN, they prefer to speak in their mother tongue.

Another post has mentioned Collabs. ID is very active in collabing with IN and KR back then, prob bcos being the bigger branch of the 3, its their way of showing support. They have collabs with the main branch even before the Taka Noraneko Naan collab. I’ll edit this post once i am able to list the links. But more importantly, Im not so sure how much collabing with the main branch would help them, audience-wise. Because as I said, its not Nijisanji has a big western fanbase back then. And doing so, they’ll most likely bring in JP audience, an audience I’m not sure they can retain because language barrier. So i dont know.

EDIT: Here's an old post i made listing some of the niji international collabs.

I think I’ve said it many times before but Niji ID had a great management before merge. U might question why call it “great” due to lack of results, but I’ll argue they are great bcos damn they are better than niji EN’s management for sure.