Our first impressions of Nijisanji EN’s new wave ILUNA

As some of you may know, I’m a big ol’ fan of the English branch of Nijisanji. I have been watching members’ livestreams almost every day since Lazulight’s debut back in May of 2021. I’ve really enjoyed how much free rein these guys have when it comes to their live streams, despite being a part of a much larger agency.

Something I wasn’t quite used to was the speed at which Nijisanji likes to add new additions to their branches; within the span of just over a year, we are already six waves deep and 26 VTubers big — they grow fast!

Their latest addition to their VTuber lineup is ILUNA, a wave consisting of six members: three boys and three girls. It’s the first time they’ve done a mixed-gender generation in EN — and it’s quite unusual to see this in the broader VTuber space — so it was quite exciting leading up to their debuts. So today I want to give my first impressions of each of these new members. 

Maria Marionette

Kicking things off with Maria and I must say that she is really entertaining! She is definitely the cutest member of the ILUNA wave, that’s for sure. She reminds me of a couple of different VTubers — the main ones being Rosemi from Nijisanji EN’s Obsydia and Froot from VShojo — it’s something about her voice being ever so slightly raspy in an extremely adorable way, just like Froot. 

Design-wise I also think Maria is really well illustrated and I’m a really big fan of the whole ‘Chuuni’ aesthetic that she has going on with the eyepatch. As she is also a member of the ever-expanding Niji-Aussie group, she has adopted the word Pog (it’s cute as hell when she says it). I also love the fact that, although she is a resident of Australia, she has both insects and the sun as things she particularly dislikes — two things that are virtually inescapable in that country.

Kyo Kaneko

Upon first seeing the new wave for Nijisanji, there was a particular lady whom my eyes were quite literally glued to (I 100% know who it is before you even say – Ed.), which distracted me from the other members that ILUNA was bringing to the table. Kyo was probably one of the members on the lower end of the priority scale for me in terms of who I thought I would watch. However, this boy is bursting at the seams with personality, and it’s genuinely hilarious. 

I remember hearing his voice in the reveal trailer and being so confused, as I felt like what I was hearing just didn’t line up with what I was seeing. After watching a couple of his streams though, I began to see just how funny he can be, especially in the way that he talks. 

Aia Amare

Aia immediately caught my attention after listening to her voice line in the ILUNA reveal trailer. Her image is that of a very seiso-looking, wholesome girl, and yet her voice line was to do with bullying people — I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was caught off-guard by this. Something I really enjoyed about Aia during her debut was that despite knowing how cringey something might sound, she commits to it and then still suffers from the diminishing returns. 

She has a hilarious personality and her use of certain phrases — “Hell yeah, brother” was a total surprise but one that I will never get sick of hearing; I look forward to the day when almost every EN member is saying it. I really like her laugh, like holy shit that is one extremely cute laugh. Finally, she is extremely attracted to Scarle, something I find incredibly relatable. (Called it – Ed.) 

Aster Arcadia

Moving onto Aster, the resident star boy. Aster is probably the member I’ve watched the least of after his debut, but from what I’ve seen, he seems to be extremely sweet and innocent. He really does try to see the positive in almost everything, and no matter how stressful something may be, he always has fun doing it — apart from League of Legends, then he admits that even he can rage. 

Honestly, I’m secretly hoping for Aster to have a Finana-esque arc where, despite his exaggerating that he is very wholesome and pure, he surprises us with “egg story 2.0”, and everything we thought we knew about him was completely wrong. 

Ren Zotto

Of course, the wave needed to have the classic ikemen-type character that all of the ladies — and guys, to be fair — are going to be fawning over, and that’s our boy Ren. Something I actually find quite refreshing about Ren is that he is fairly new to Nijisanji and wasn’t someone who would be considered a superfan before joining. This is honestly really endearing as he tries to learn more about everyone and because he doesn’t have that preconceived idea of “oh these are people I was a fan of and watched all the time”; he treats everyone as someone he simply wants to be friends with. 

It was during the premiere of ILUNA’s debut song that Ren really stood out to me, because this boy can sing. It’s evident from his debut stream that he is big into his music, with him listing off numerous instruments that he plays — plus the fact he had a completely original song released alongside his debut.

Scarle Yonaguni

I remember waking up and checking Twitter on the day of ILUNA’s first reveal, and I cannot exaggerate how fast my body (oh aye – Ed.) woke up from the sight of Scarle. If you’ve read enough of my Waifu Wednesday pieces here on Rice Digital, then you know what I like — thicc MILFs or onee-sans, and especially if they’re dark-skinned or tanned. There is a character from the anime Violet Evergarden whom I would consider to be one of the most beautiful anime characters ever created, that being Cattleya Baudelaire — take a quick peek at her and then glance at Scarle. 

After seeing her debut I was pleasantly surprised at how different she actually was compared to what I imagine everyone thought she was going to be like. My original thought was definitely more mature, but turns out she is something of a klutz who has a natural drunken energy to her. I can’t wait for Scarle and all the other members to get comfortable and settled in so that we can see the rest of their personalities shine through some more!

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