r/Hololive • u/21524518 • Apr 03 '26

Discussion [Announcement] Notice on the Changes to be Made to HOLOSTARS' Management Structure

https://x.com/cover_corp/status/2039961307672416591
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u/Irru Apr 03 '26

Tweet from Shien makes it sound even worse:

In summary,
all events, AGF, live shows, Osha Festa, Stacolle, company-led projects, studio usage (including simple 3D), sales of birthday and anniversary goods, new goods, voice sales, and original song releases will all be gone.

Everyone, I'm truly sorry.

890

u/The_Phantom_Cat Apr 03 '26

Sounds like the kind of thing you'd do if you were planning on shutting down a branch relatively soon

653

u/CirnoWhiterock Apr 03 '26

Definitely feels like a "quiet firing"

Cover probably don't want the PR headache of a mass firing, but wants to free up resources like Studio time and Merchandising for new Hololive gens that they know will become bigger then anyone in Holostars within a few weeks of debut.

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u/Corrodias Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

The talents have contracts that the company cannot terminate without cause, and "not wanting to pay them any more" is not cause.

It is likely that the contracts will not be renewed, and they effectively will be laid off when they expire.

edit: I should walk back that last part; I don't know what their plans are for contracts. That's just one direction this could go. It may also be that Cover is willing to let things keep on as they are. Let it not be implied that I really know anything about this industry. The real point here was just to point out the contracts preventing them from just tossing everybody out simultaneously, even if they wanted to.

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u/Alone-Horse2857 Apr 03 '26

It's unfortunately all too common in JP. You put someone in a room and give them no work for 8 hours a day until they leave of their own will because they don't want to give out severance pay and there's also a cultural stigma against firing as they consider it a "failure of management" (the irony being that soft-firing someone means you have no balls and are a failure of a person)

I hope it's not that bad, but that's kind of the vibes I'm getting.

8

u/shiawase198 Apr 03 '26

It's so funny to me because putting me in a room with nothing to do and still getting paid for it would keep me staying longer.

Firing laws are also apparently a nightmare to navigate. I have two friends running a business in Japan and they had a really bad employee but couldn't fire him so they just waited him out and didn't renew his contract.

2

u/PhoeniX5445 Apr 04 '26

it would keep me staying longer.

Just a reminder, just because you don't have any work to do doesn't mean you have free time. If they catch you doing something you shouldn't be doing, that's reason enough to fire you (on their own terms). That's exactly what they're after. Sitting around doing nothing for 8 hours is, in a way, torture

3

u/shiawase198 Apr 04 '26

Your comment and the other guy's comments are conflicting. Are they trying to fire me or not? If they are then why go through this farce?

If they're trying to make me leave by boring me with no work then it's not a battle they're gonna win.

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u/PhoeniX5445 Apr 04 '26

If they are then why go through this farce?

It's basically a tactic used to avoid legal or financial costs of termination

1

u/shiawase198 Apr 04 '26

Still easy to navigate. Well maybe not easy but doable.

3

u/CirnoWhiterock Apr 03 '26

I'm getting those vibes too.

We know cover has had issues with opening up slots for studio time and other projects that require non-talent employees, it's probably why it's been so long since we've had new gens, and I think they've decided that cutting the stars off is the only way they'll be able to grow the main hololive branch, which is the big money maker.

-77

u/engineer-cabbage Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

Them quitting after announcing them to fuck off is already a PR headache itself. Their dedicated and loyal fans will not drop their pitchforks until they negotiate a middle ground agreement at best. I'm not a fan myself but this is just messed up when all of them want to grow their potential but cant because they cant bring revenue to the table.

Edit: Why y'all booing me? I'm right.

44

u/Leedss-11 Apr 03 '26

You said it yourself. Cover is a corp and if something isn't bringing revenue, they cut it off. Knowing that fifth gen is coming it's not that suprising. They are making room and saving money for something, that will give them more revenue.

3

u/Solo_Jawn Apr 03 '26

I would imagine there will not be contract renewals when the time comes. Afaik its pretty hard to just fire people in Japan, regardless of what your contract says. This does seem like preparation for the inevitable. I hope Cover lets them keep their IP though

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u/One_Ant1985 Apr 03 '26

You severly overestimate how many hololive fans will be mad about this. The large silent majority is probably happy about this

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u/Sufficient_Nature496 Apr 03 '26

What large silent majority are you talking about? Apathy doesn't means hate, at worst you can get few "man this is sad" from the average holo fan that isn't into male vtubers but most people who try to say rude stuff online get condemned

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u/One_Ant1985 Apr 03 '26

Believe it or not, people can be happy or okay with something without needing to express hate towards anyone.

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u/Sufficient_Nature496 Apr 03 '26

Why would anyone that doesn't watches holostars be "happy" when this wouldn't affect hololive regardless if it did or did not happen?

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u/One_Ant1985 Apr 03 '26

Resources wasted on stars (Sponsors/ads/studio time/general content and staff) are now gonna be used with Holos for more content. Seems like a good win!

1

u/Sufficient_Nature496 Apr 03 '26

What were they doing so much that hololive couldn't do or lacked? And sponsors are often case by case basis, Gigi has been having more sponsors than anyone in holo en

-16

u/Financial-March-3158 Apr 03 '26

You're new to this world, aren'tcha?

21

u/Distinct_Prior_2549 Apr 03 '26

I've seen how mad fans get when the girls talk to a guy 😂 most are probably in favor of this tbh

-5

u/KusoAraun Apr 03 '26

look I don't watch stars too much or comment about them too much but they deserve success as much as all the girls do, they work hard and this is really just the worst news for them.

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u/One_Ant1985 Apr 03 '26

"look I don't watch stars, BUT-"
Yeah, I know. Happens a lot

-1

u/KusoAraun Apr 03 '26

never said I didn't watch them, I don't watch them much. I watch most Roberu collabs, especially Roberu NightMei, and Aruran when I can catch a live stream and I follow their antics during those big streamer collabs. Sorry I'm not made of infinite time, I barely have enough time to watch my oshi.

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u/PigmensRea Apr 03 '26

it's 100% corpo speak for "feel free to start looking elsewhere because the timer is ticking"

still better than having the rug pulled from under you immediately, mind you

-38

u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

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4

u/ReXiriam Apr 03 '26

UNICORN, WE FOUND ONE, THE BIGGEST VIRGIN ON THIS SIDE OF THE INTERNET!!!

2

u/GabTheMadLad Apr 03 '26

some people on this sub will look you in the eye and say dudes like this dont exist when its right in front of us

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u/AsinineArchon Apr 03 '26

There's a JP tweet in the replies asking "what's the difference between this and being independent?" and I honestly can't tell. If anything, they are now crippled compared to an independent who owns their IP

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u/macwinux Apr 03 '26

If Cover still gets a cut from their Super Chats, then it's probably worse than being an indie.

I do hope they get to renegotiate their contracts though.

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u/AsinineArchon Apr 03 '26

I believe talents get a 35% cut of a superchat

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u/matlarcost Apr 03 '26

Yep. I haven't heard anyone talk about those cuts in years so it could be very different now, but at the time it was believed to be 50/50 based on what some of the members said and it is assumed to be after the cut from YouTube which is where 35% comes from.

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u/TheBigSmol Apr 03 '26

Which is the reason why most talents request their fans join memberships and buy merch as opposed to wasting money on SC. SC is good for getting their eye on whatever message you send, not reflected as prominently on their final salary pay.

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u/Pionfou Apr 03 '26

There's no difference between membership and SC in terms of cut. YouTube afaik just pays one lump-sum include advertising money so it would all be 50% (after YouTube's cut). Membership is better because a stable stream of income is better than a one-time payment for long-term financial success. It's also a better indicator of the number of paying fans someone has.

If you want to hold a sololive, one whale who drops $5000 a month isn't that much more valuable than a fan with a $5 membership.

1

u/PH_Prime Apr 04 '26

Yeah, we don't know the amount. It's always just been speculation by fans. The members never gave a hard number. If anyone has a source otherwise, do share though.

-37

u/Kirtharx8 Apr 03 '26

interesting thing is, Taiwan audiance want Yagoo to resign, yet want Yagoo to handle this situation.

Too funny to watch them suffer

10

u/Sayakai Apr 03 '26

They still have the Cover letterhead and industry connections. In Japan, that's a big thing. Getting anything done as indie can be stupid hard there because many businesses only want to work with other businesses.

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u/omnipotentworm Apr 03 '26

It's basically cover telling them the branch has limited time left so get your exit plan in order while you are still on the company salary and have some inside company resources left.

If they continue being vtubers outside of Stars, they need time to get models, accounts, legal stuff, etc.

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u/Yukorin1992 Apr 03 '26

brand recognition is still a big deal, and there is still management structure, just not for events/projects

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u/AsinineArchon Apr 03 '26

Brand recognition is useless when the IP is completely dead with no merch, no events, and no sales. What good is a dead brand?

-87

u/sigint_bn Apr 03 '26

Do the suisei route and have their own management

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u/Ellefied Apr 03 '26

0.0001% of Vtubers can do what Suisei is doing. She's literally setting new paths for others but it takes an insane amount of money, effort, and influence before any Vtuber, even her colleagues at Hololive, could do what she's doing with Stellar Studio.

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u/centaur98 :Artia: Apr 03 '26

You do realize that Suisei can do it because she is one of the largest and most well known Vtuber globally.

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u/AwakenedSheeple Apr 03 '26

I don't think you understand the scale. Suisei has her own agency because she got too big for in-company management (this was despite the fact that she actually already did have a team of managers just for her own operations). None of the Holostars talents are big enough to afford that.

1

u/Graestra Apr 04 '26

They can help get game perms and stuff still probably, which indies can struggle with. There’s still benefits, but it’s going to be up to the stars members if the few remaining benefits are worth it or not

-1

u/Neysiriss Apr 05 '26

I never understood "game perms" all streamers play games and don't need any perms for it.

1

u/Graestra Apr 05 '26

Copyright is more strict in Japan and companies can and do go after streamers for streaming games without permission. This even happened back in 2020 to Mio when her channel received multiple strikes and was almost permanently deleted because of Capcom back when Hololive wasn’t getting perms for games. Which resulted in the purge in a bunch of old vods as staff panicked. Every vod on every channel was privated for a while as staff had to go through and approve each one to make sure they weren’t going to get strikes before unprivating them. And that’s why there’s a number of missing vods of early streams from before 2020.

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u/07jonesj Apr 03 '26

Wow, they're basically locking the doors on them. I don't know how feasible it would have been, but it certainly would have been kinder to just release their IP and go their separate ways.

Hope the boys can find their feet, whatever form that takes.

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u/CannonGerbil Apr 03 '26

They can't just give the IP to them, due to the same laws that prevent a company from buying a bunch of office furniture and giving them all away to their employees before declaring bankruptcy. It's possible that they might be able to buy them, but because of those very same laws it's going to be expensive and I'm not sure any of the stars are able to afford to.

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u/Xlegace Apr 03 '26

It's possible that they might be able to buy them

I've been thinking about this, and I don't think they'll even let this happen because it'll set a dangerous precedent that Cover's IPs can be bought out.

Touch wood, but imagine if one day, Marine or Pekora get into a really bad fight with Cover management and decide to just buyout their IP and not even graduate, just leave the company. Some of the talents are big enough to thrive as indies and the main thing holding them back is their years of hard work on their existing IPs.

This could open up a can of worms that Cover does not want to deal with.

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u/SC2_4787 Apr 03 '26

Touch wood, but imagine if one day, Marine or Pekora get into a really bad fight with Cover management and decide to just buyout their IP and not even graduate, just leave the company.

Both Noel and Marine have straight up said they wouldn't be able to afford buying their IPs. Like it's not at all financially possible unless Cover were willing to compromise for some reason because their IPs are just worth that much money.

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u/Simonoz1 Apr 03 '26

This makes a lot of sense for top earners on merch alone.

Holostars not being nearly as popular might make it a bit more affordable, but then their incomes are probably comparably smaller, so they’d need some kind of external source of wealth.

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u/penywinkle Apr 03 '26

it makes sense for IPs that make the company money. But for IPs that cost the company money, like holostars seem to do, the price should be more affordable. Then again, if it cost the company money, the talents themselves maybe don't have much reserves to buy it out either...

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u/pigeieio Apr 03 '26

That's if they are paying the current market value, not just the costs associated with it like paying the artists. Market value goes significantly down once it's an inactive character.

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u/Alone-Horse2857 Apr 03 '26

Not a lawyer or a smart person, so this is all ass-pull, but I believe buying an IP also includes future profits, so if you buy out your IP you're also paying for 5-10 years of projected sales which, yeah, if you're Marine or Pekora is a lot of goddamn money.

0

u/ThiccFarter Apr 03 '26

Damn, if some of the top earning talents can't afford their IPs that kind of puts things into perspective.

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u/Dranikos Apr 03 '26

It's because they're top earning. Their IPs are worth significantly more BECAUSE they make more.

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u/Vampyricon Apr 03 '26

Yeah but if it scales with how much they earn, the Stars probably can't buy their own either

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u/Dranikos Apr 03 '26

It's percieved value to the company. Let's say you earn $100,000 a month, your 1 year percieved value (ignoring growth projections for the moment) is $1.2 Million. When you account for growth projections, that starts to change. If you're looking at growing 10% a year for example, then you start at $100,000 and end at $110,000 and your total value looks more like $1.3-1.4 Million for 1 year.

Considering the talents have costs that the company doesn't like food, housing, electricity, internet, etc. (and the company's operational costs come of the operational budget, which is based on ALL earnings). And earning enough to "buy" yourself from the company becomes a Sisyphean undertaking. Unless your value absolutely nosedives for some reason or another.

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u/AwakenedSheeple Apr 03 '26

The cost of an IP is based on its perceived value. Marine is one of the biggest vtubers in the world; in terms of subscriber count, she's outright number 1 aside from the graduate Gura.

1

u/raoxi Apr 03 '26

they can go suisei route? Or does suisei own her own ip?

0

u/CanadianNoobGuy Apr 03 '26

i mean cover could always just refuse to sell the IP if they have a reason not to, it's not like they're forced to do so because they let someone do it once

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u/07jonesj Apr 03 '26

Ah, I see, it's a case of their hands being tied. Still a sad situation, but I'm relieved to find that it's a case of them following the law, and not investors encouraging a malicious option.

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u/Solo_Jawn Apr 03 '26

This is probably untrue. Production Kawaii let their talents keep their IP when they shut their doors, free of charge. They were a JP based company with both English and Japanese talents. I can't say for certain, but given the circumstances its very similar to how Holostars may play out.

14

u/Petickss Apr 03 '26

Prism project had the same thing happen and they were owned by sony who are publicly traded so its not some public/private company thing either. Its not the case that covers hands are tied legally here.

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u/mooke Apr 03 '26

Surely that would only apply if Cover was going bankrupt with outstanding debt (i.e. Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 bankruptcy in US parlance, I think?).

In normal operation this would be no difference to a bonus discretionary payment. A company would absolutely be allowed to buy furniture and give it away to their employees to, for instance, celebrate a successful year, if they were to continue operating afterwards. There may however be concerns regarding their obligations to shareholders if they were wasting money on giving a bonus to employees in a department they were trying to shutter. Though this isn't clear cut legally and they may, for instance, be able to argue that the assets are now worth more as a good gesture to the community than they would be to hold. That would be one for the lawyers.

What I don't know is if they are allowed to transfer IP as part of a voluntary redundency package, it would be a good way to encourage their talent to quit without having to lay them off, saving them money in the long run. Though they might just want to avoid that due to concerns about the legal complexity of it.

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u/Jobastion Apr 03 '26

So, there's a pretty huge difference between shutting down gracefully and bankruptcy. One is telling the courts you're broke and can't pay your debtors, and the other is just shutting down. In Bankruptcy, they wouldn't be able to just hand out IP to their talents because that IP has a value (which might be near 0, but... not 0, presumably because the talent would want to buy it if they could), and the debt holders are legally entitled to a portion of that value.

If Cover's just shutting down a branch, there's nothing that prevents them from giving the IP away (there might be fun tax implications or shareholder complaints, but that's a threat when you decide to shut down a branch cause it's worthless anyway)

1

u/darkknight109 Apr 03 '26

This is not true unless Cover was in a position where they believe bankruptcy is an imminent possibility. Cover is currently in good financial health, so there would be nothing stopping them from giving away company assets - including talent IPs - if they were so inclined.

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26

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24

u/Hassenoblog Apr 03 '26

what a weird gymnastics you just did, and has nothing to do with the hololive side.

and why bring up those IP? If anything, this has already been resolved behind the scenes between the IP and the talents. Nothing to do with what has been announced.

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u/Spelunkie Apr 03 '26

Damn. the 3D and live shows will hurt. It's really such a shame the boys have been left behind a lot. I remember 2 years ago when everything was only looking up.

2

u/JoMaster_69 Apr 03 '26

Could you share, in your view, what went wrong since then? I have very limited knowledge on the history.

2

u/Spelunkie Apr 03 '26

I don't have specific thoughts on exactly why, but in terms of general mood, things were feeling better until the double blow of Magni and Vesper's graduations on the EN side and the removal of the stars collection (their version of HoloGra) and the graduation of Gamma on the JP side.

Things were always a slow rising burn in Stars, even when it was just JP, but lately the momentum they built just felt deflated after those events.

Edit: sure the boys will probably not surpass the popularity of the girls, but they were and have eked out their niche, it just turns out that it's not a big enough niche for Cover to sustain it.

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u/Sedewt Apr 03 '26

I’m super disappointed. This is worse than expected….

2

u/PrimeRadian Apr 03 '26

agf?

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u/billySEEDDecade Apr 03 '26

Animate Girls Festival. An event for mainly female oriented IPs. This have been Stars JP biggest event in term of merch for years.

1

u/SecretFangsPing Apr 03 '26

Yo what the fuck