Virtual YouTubers agency Nijisanji released an official statement detailing the circumstances behind the termination of the contract with Kingyozaka Meiro. According to the statement, the Virtual YouTuber requested to withdraw and the company complied with the request. However, the YouTuber has since breached her contract and disclosed confidential information.
The situation originated due to a disagreement over the character's speaking quirk, who was similar to Yuzuki Roa, another Nijisanji member. Roa asked her to change the peculiarity of avoiding overlapping of her characters, to which Meiro did not agree with the need to change her speech patterns. She argued that more than a deliberate quirk of character, it was due to nervousness about speaking on the broadcast and how she was brought up to speak. In this regard, she asked Nijisanji to make a statement on the matter, however, the agency considered it unnecessary to make a public statement due to the desire not to give preferential treatment to either party.
As a result of the disagreement, Meiro requested to leave the agency as a Virtual YouTuber, submitting the formal request in early September, and the agency followed the steps to terminate her contract. Midway through the process, Meiro changed his mind and Nijisanji agreed to cancel the process. However, shortly after her retirement was canceled, Meiro leaked information about the situation during a live broadcast. She claimed to be the target of antagonism from a colleague within the agency and that she had been in talks with the company to terminate her contract. Although she claimed to have had the permission of the company to share this information, in fact she did not.
When Nijisanji made the decision to suspend Meiro's activities due to the rape, she reapplied to retire as a Virtual YouTuber, even though the agency had done everything possible to allow her to continue her activities. However, the agency decided to continue with the termination process once again after taking into account the background and the difficulties of resolving the matter peacefully.
Meiro's second withdrawal request was made at the end of September. However, two weeks later she changed her mind again and asked to cancel the process. In addition, it requested permissions to post on its YouTuber accounts and social networks, even while it was suspended, something that Nijisanji rejected due to the aforementioned information breach, the fact that Meiro had changed his mind several times on the subject and the difficulty of regain confidence in her.
While the official statement of Meiro's retirement was still being prepared, information about the situation was leaked to a third party and posted on YouTube. Due to the fact that this broadcast included information and screenshots that only Meiro could have had access to, it was determined that she, again, was the source of the leak. After the second breach of its contract, the company made the decision to terminate its contract definitively, something that it communicated publicly last Monday.
The official statement also addressed the nature of the talks between Meiro and Roa. The company claimed that it had received screenshots of conversations between the parties dating back to August, and found the exchanges not of an intimidating or antagonistic nature. Both parties agreed to discuss the matter, but Meiro did not respond to Roa's request to arrange a date for the discussion. Roa continued to ask him for dates to meet and discuss the matter, showing screenshots of the conversations during a broadcast on Wednesday.
Finally, the Nijisanji agency apologized for the situation and asked fans not to harass or contact any of the parties involved. For its part, Kingyozaka Meiro debuted for the first time in June this year, while the Nijisanji project was launched in 2018 and is coordinated by the company Ichikara Inc. It is one of the largest Virtual YouTubers agencies in Japan, hosting more than a hundred talents.
Source: NIJISANJI official Twitter account
