Is Nijisanji EN moving too fast?

Ever since the debut of Nijisanji EN’s Lazulight back in May of this year, I have been completely enamoured with all things relating to Nijisanji EN. It’s been roughly six months since Lazulight first debuted, and within that time two more generations or waves of Nijisanji EN VTubers have debuted. As someone who first got into the VTuber scene thanks to Hololive, the speed at which Nijisanji was debuting talent was baffling to me. 

Lazulight, OBSYDIA and Ethyria

Lazulight marked the beginning of my love for VTubers from outside of the realms of Hololive, and I became very quickly attached to the girls that made up this group — Elira Pendora, Pomu Rainpuff and Finana Ryugu. I’ve already written a whole waifu-related piece on our favorite Solar-Sky Dragon, and I can assure you that there will be pieces about the other two wonderful girls as well.

The transition of getting invested in the talent that Nijisanji provides wasn’t difficult — in fact, it felt like a very natural transition because of how similar Nijisanji and Hololive are in many ways. However, Nijisanji’s talent feels that little more… natural? I know that the Hololive talent isn’t always putting up their character front, but Njisanji’s girls always feel so casual and relaxed — I can quite literally watch any of the Lazulight girls no matter what they’re playing, whereas I can only name a couple of Hololive members I could the same about. 

Fast-forward only two months and we’re seeing the debut of OBSYDIA, the second wave of Nijisanji’s primarily English speaking branch. Here we got to meet another three talented girls — Selen Tatsuki, Petra Gurin and Rosemi Lovelock. Each one brings something new to the table with regards to their work. For example, Selen Tatsuki is an incredible Apex Legends player and retro gaming enthusiast, Petra knows multiple languages including Japanese, and even dedicates streams to her Japanese fans, finally, Rosemi is… Rosemi. And that’s why we love her.

Suddenly September is here and we are seeing the debut of the third wave of Nijisanji EN girls, and this time it’s not three girls, but four! The girls that make up Ethyria are Nina Kosaka, Enna Alouette, Reimu Endou, and Millie Parfait. Here we are now one month after the debut of these four, and I can’t help but wonder just how many more Nijisanji EN VTubers we’re going to be seeing in the next few months.

Is Nijisanji moving too fast?

Now, this might just be because I’m still fairly new to Nijisanji in the grand scheme of things, but this all seems to be happening in a rather short span of time. When I make the comparison with Hololive, they have considerably long gaps between their generations of VTubers. HoloMyth, the first generation of Hololive EN, debuted in September of 2020 and it took until August of 2021 for their next generation of EN VTubers to debut. 

VTubers are a unique form of entertainer where they blur the line between anime and real life, and most of the time it takes a little while for these girls to get used to their audiences and become truly comfortable in their streaming environment. After becoming acclimated to their new environment and the sudden large audience of viewers, they relax and the person behind the avatar starts to come out more — and it’s this part of VTubers that I really like!

With that in mind, just as I was getting to know the Lazulight girls and just as they were starting to really come out of their shells, suddenly a whole new wave is on its way and I’m thinking “wait a minute, I’m just getting comfortable with these three and now there’s three more?!” Then before I had even made a start watching the OBSYDIA girls, Ethyria was on its way!

Nijisanji is quite large already over in Japan, so I perhaps shouldn’t have been too surprised with the speed with which they were churning out VTubers, especially when it’s a whole new branch for a whole new audience — and an audience that still seems to be growing.

However, I do feel that there is a sweet spot when it comes to letting your current newest generation of VTubers sit in the spotlight, come out of their shell, and letting the viewers get to know them as an entertainer. Maybe that’s just me.

What do you think?

^{Disclosure: Some links in this article may be affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on them. This is at no additional cost to you and helps support Rice Digital!}

• Author
• Recent Posts

Conor Evans

Anime, manga, JRPG's, Fighting Games. Let's talk about them!

Tifa is mine.

Latest posts by Conor Evans (see all)

• Hump Day Husbandos: Shu Yamino (Nijisanji EN) - September 14, 2022
• Waifu Wednesday: Eunie (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) - August 31, 2022
• LazuLight, One Year Later - August 29, 2022