Five members of the Idol group have announced their departure from the VTuber agency, following the acquisition by Brave Group. Even the agency’s most successful talent will be leaving.
According to Idol Corp’s official X/Twitter account, five members, including Fuyo Cloverfield, Juna Unagi, Kattarina Qutie, Meica05, and Rin Penrose, will be graduating in November 2024. This news is particularly devastating for Idol Corp as Rin, who has nearly 750,000 subscribers, is the agency’s most beloved VTuber.
The announcement stated, “While it is with sadness that we bid farewell to Kattarina Qutie, Fuyo Cloverfield, Juna Unagi, Rin Penrose, and Meica05, we wholeheartedly support their decision to pursue their individual journeys.”It was also revealed that a special farewell stream will be held to commemorate their departure.
Instead of requiring graduates to repurchase their intellectual property and model, Idol will instead receive a percentage of each talent’s income for one year. After this year, ownership of the intellectual property will be transferred back to the graduates.
Idol asserts that this approach has been put into action in order to secure the ability for talents to “thrive in their careers,”regardless of their financial status upon leaving. Though specific numbers are difficult to obtain and differ among companies, repurchasing an intellectual property would likely result in a significant expense for each talent.
— idol (@idol_corp) August 8, 2024
Brave Group’s acquisition of Idol on August 1 has resulted in five new graduations. Brave Group is a major presence in the world of VTubers, with ownership of popular channels such as V4Mirai, VSPO!, and globie, and a partnership with the renowned duo HimeHina.
Following the announcement of the takeover, Idol offered existing members the option to leave the company and pursue independent careers. Although the majority of talents declined this offer, the aforementioned five individuals have chosen to move on.
After their graduation in November 2024, only eight of the current members of Idol EN will remain. However, the four members of Idol ES will also be staying, and an additional four EN members are scheduled to debut later this year as part of Generation 3.
Despite originally planning to debut anytime now, Generation 3’s first streams have been postponed to October in order to guarantee the best quality debuts. This means fans will have to wait a bit longer to discover more about the next wave of Idol.
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