LazuLight, One Year Later

Can you believe it’s been over a year since Nijisanji’s LazuLight group first had their debuts — what even is time?! Since we first saw them in May of 2021, LazuLight as a group have come a really long way and have had a massive impact on Nijisanji as a whole. They were the first wave of English VTubers for the company and, although I’m sure they knew it would be successful, they still paved the way for all of the Livers that followed them. 

So today I’m going to be doing something of a sequel to a piece I did on Lazulight a while ago. I want to talk about each of the members and how they have evolved since their first few streams. As much as it’s always fun and interesting to see a new character’s backstory, the best part about VTubers is when they break out of their shell, get comfortable and their personality starts to shine through as the main appeal of watching them. 

Pomu Rainpuff – LazuLight’s Fairy

Ah, the adorable Pomu. Back when the girls were first debuting I thought that Pomu was definitely going to be the most seiso member of the group, This cute little fairy girl with an adorable voice and smile — I never would have imaged just how unhinged this little lady can get. Honestly, though, some of my favourite moments of Pomu are when she is malding to extreme levels and threatening to kill the entire branch of Nijisanji EN. She’s a gem. 

During the first few months of Pomu’s streams, she was actually working for Nijisanji but also still working an office job at the same time. After she quit her job, recovered from a surgery she was having and went full-time with streaming, she really began to stand out and shine with some of the most hilarious and creative streams that I’ve had the joy of witnessing. 

Pomu has done some of the most memorable things for LazuLight as a whole. When LazuLight first debuted, Hana Macchia from the Nijisanji ID branch said “Live from the moon” and Pomu took that as inspiration, going on to and create an incredible music video over the course of several months. For LazuLight’s anniversary, they sang the Nijisanji song Virtual to LIVE, and Pomu created an air balloon rigged up with a camera and an acrylic stand of the three girls and sent it, quite literally, into space.

Also, just look at how widespread the Pomu Diamond City Lights chant has come — it’s sung by almost every single member at every live event they perform at.

Elira Pendora – Lazulight’s Sky Dragon

Elira is the member I would say I have watched the most consistently throughout the year, so watching her growth has been really nice. In the beginning, Elira was maybe the one I thought might be the most “onee-san” out of the group, just from the way her design is. Little did I know she was going to be such a wholesome creature — easily the most wholesome out of the three LazuLight girls. 

The area in which I think Elira has really grown is her ability to reach out to other members of Nijisanji EN and collab with them, or even just talk with them in voice chat. She mentioned that she is often nervous to just join a call and hang out with other members, but just recently we had the Niji Koshien 2022 baseball streams and Elira did two watchalongs with numerous other members and it was great!

Finally, for Elira, I think that she has really assumed something of a leadership role within the EN branch. When I say this I don’t mean that she is literally the leader of EN, but rather she is really strong when it comes to talking directly to the audience in places with conventions or the main Nijisanji channel events. It’s a trait that I think Nina Kosaka from Ethyria also shares, in that she is really great at talking.

Finana Ryugu – Lazulight’s Mermaid

Last but certainly not least, we have Finana Ryugu — everybody’s favorite seiso fish. In the beginning I definitely had the feeling that Finana had something of a sheltered life; she’s pretty introverted and doesn’t really go outside much, but she has some rather colourful hobbies and stories that would surprise more extroverted people, I’m sure. 

Since first starting out though, Finana has bravely moved out of her comfort zone and managed to do some of the things that she’s been wanting to accomplish. For example, when she went out to a Honkai Impact event in New York City; it was largely thanks to Pomu coming along with her on the trip that her parents allowed her to go, but still she did it!

Finally, similar to Elira, this feesh has been doing really well in terms of collaborating with other members, even some of the brand new members from the most recent wave of Livers, Iluna. Overall you can tell that Finana has just gotten so comfortable with her streams and the fact that she is doing consistent watchalongs for Formula 1 motorsport is most definitely telling of that.

So LazuLight are definitely a fixture in the VTuber space now — here’s to many more years of them entertaining us!

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