15 Red Flags in VTuber Agencies to Watch Out For 

List down all your Red Flags ideas here

I find it funny that almost all the Phase Connect girls in gen one were like… is this a scam? Turns out to be one of the better companies.

There's also "Generation Wave Galore" as a red flag, for me at least, if a company hires many, and i mean, many talents, such as niji, in short periods of time, rather than giving a large gap between each generation to let people get used to the newest generation and connect with them, this makes talents easily overshadowed by the others, not giving them the light of day as much as they could have if there wasn't a new wave coming very shortly after, it makes it feel like these talents are numbers than people, which we know is how niji views their talents

TLDR: Do a lot of research of the agency you want to sign up. Read the contracts thoroughtly. If you notice something off, negogiate and hire a lawyer (unless your broke) when needed. If amendments weren't made, dip it out. And also keep that in mind when contract makes changes ether with or without warning (or in some cases they make a false contract that you have to dip out immeduately for you sake of your health both physically and mentally) Feel free to add if I miss something since I skim watched the video.

During contract negoiation. Its perfectly legal to read a contract right there and let them wait for a full hour as you take a pen and underline, highlight and amend the contract and handing it back to continue negoiations. The whole quiet pressure to sign is entirely to the contract giver's advantage but they can't force you to sign nor force you to hurry up signing or read faster. Don't give in to the pressure. Its a common tactic to coerce people. To such a point its normalised.

Reminds me of that 4chan thread of: Anon1: You are CEO of [big Vtuber corpo] whats the 1st thing you do? Anon2: F*ck [Vtuber]. Anon1: How will that make profit? Anon2: Profit?

Timestamps for the Red Flags: 01:42 - #1: No website, official email, unregistered 02:38 - #2: CEO is a literally who 04:23 - #3: Bad Models 05:47 - #4: Inactive Social Media 06:27 - #5 Short Lifespan 07:04 - #6: PL Accounts More Active 08:30 - #7: Graduations Galore 09:48 - #8: Contract Concerns 11:21 - #9: Lore > Concept??? 12:50 - #10: Staff Doko? 13:59 - #11: Leaders are out of touch 15:45 - #12: Creepy Favoritism 16:38 - #13: Delayed Payments 17:58 - #14: Lack of Agency Collaborations 18:34 - #15: DRAMA

Funny that my favorite agency had lots of these red flags in the beginning, even their top talent initially thought it was a scam.

Strange that VReverie, NijiSanji, and WACTOR all have business connections directly to mainland CN.

What if the CEO won't stop talking about Marine?

Phase Connect has raised several of these flags 😂 and somehow they made it through

There's one that I don't think was mentioned but is generally a red flag in any kind of business where your chances of being the top dog are basically non-existent: Management or any staff comparing themselves to someone else in the industry an inordinate amount. Like, it's one thing to have your CEO say he wants to be like YAGOO. But if the same guy keeps saying "You need to be like Marine" or "What would Gura do?" over and over it can be a huge problem. Because this goes along with general advice for any kind of performance art: Don't try to be like the popular one. Sure it can help to EMULATE the big ones. Shiori Novella had a short where she talks about what kind of camera equipment she uses. Shishiro Botan has recommendations about PC stuff. But you shouldn't ONLY use that shit, especially if it's not in your price range. And if your agency keeps getting random shit because "Pekora said she had it" or "Riku Tazumi used it" that's how you end up with your CEO on a fucking yacht. By the same token, a sort of corollary to this, the opposite can also be true: Sometimes a LOT of people do something because it WORKS. A huge number of vtubers use iPhones because they work. Using some 3rd party BS because "no one's using it!" doesn't necessarily mean it's good. It's good to find a niche. There are lots of unfilled or underfilled niches (a vtuber talking about childcare or one focusing on education without being cringe are two niches that could be filled. Giri is still the only big name cooking vtuber.) but not every whackadoo niche out there needs to be filled. We don't need a vtuber who does nothing but talk about the Roman Empire 8 hours a day every day for weeks on end. There's a reason even "Vsingers" will play games and gamer vtubers will do karaoke. There's a reason Giri gets so many people wanting to collab with her (aside from just having a good personality) If your agency is thinking so far outside the box they forget the box exists, that's a red flag.

Damn, that first statement caught me off guard, funniest shit I've heard all week

Definitely weird timing since a similar video on this same topic came out the other day by Yam. I’ll still watch this though.

People who didn't watch the entire video yet, but still comment. Am I right.

With the PL accounts. Some are just a side thing so friends can still play together, even after graduation/termination. I loved Doki's collab with RPR and people we know very well.

This is one of your most important videos forever. It will safe young girls from abusive experiences.

RED FLAG 🚩 (If The people that interview you seem very immature a.k.a sound like kids) I have had a couple of interviews for some agencies mostly small to micro corps as I didn’t feel comfortable with the medium/big corps, But the most memorable interview I had was for a now disbanded company, the interviewer’s consisted of the CEO, CCO and 2 girls that I assumed to be managers at the time. When I hopped on call with them the first thing I was greeted by was all of them laughing and they told me “sorry we were laughing at a meme another applicant sent us” I was kinda weirded out by that at first but didn’t think of it much after that, we then went on to introductions and immediately the 2 girls voices caught my attention cause they sounded so young and not in like an anime way they sounded like they were 13, the ceo and cco sounded like ur average E-boy trying to do the rough fuckboi voice but failing so overall your average discord voice chat, but like they were interviewing me while trying not to laugh, which overall kinda just fucked over my confidence for the interview. Must also add they were an hour late and did not tell me anything so I was waiting for an hour. They also were very adamant on applicants already having a vtuber model even though they stated in their applications, you would be given a new one and you would start from scratch, well what found out later is that they be given a new channel with a new name, but still use the same model you had before, overall their whole shitck was kinda shit and there were very much putting on a front while cutting corners in all facets. Tbh they probably weren’t the worst but definitely the most memorable, thanks for reading 🙇‍♀️ TLDR: immature teens not knowing how to do interviews or run a company 🚩

Technically could be part of point 11 but when the senior management doesn't speak the same language as you and/or your only way to communicate with them is through your assigned manager.

One thing about #10 that I think should be expanded upon or given its own number is a talent or talents taking on managerial duties. Yeah, that is allegedly relevant with NijiEN but there are confirmed cases like Tsunderia, Cyberlive and Akio Air.

#14 might be a bit too generalized, and in fact as presented in this video may be actually harmful to the perception of collaborations as a whole. Many vtubers from agencies like Hololive, VSPO, and others tend to do lots of extra-agency collabs (e.g. Laplus), and many may not be particularly inclined to collab in the first place and prefer solo streaming (e.g. Aqua in her early years), that doesn't mean the vtubers in question are in some sort of bad situation or something within the agency, it may just come down to their personal inclinations and preferences. Just throwing the entire conclusion into "whatever the reason is, it's bad" lacks the sort of nuance the other points made in the video do, and makes this particular aspect of vtubing look far worse than it really is.

You prob can add one more red flag: Flag #16: Lawsuit Lost Explanation: the agency has recently lost a lawsuit against their former talents or a 3rd party, especially if it came from someone doing something illegal. Reason: This show that either the agency done something illegal itself or they failed to protect their talents from 3rd party involvement. Example: Nijisanji vs Narukami Sabaki on Defamation of Yuzuki Roa.

Damn, I literally just finished watching another red flag VTuber company video minutes ago! What timing 😲

Yam and Nousagi coming for these companies

Phase Connect deserves some love for sure! In Sakana I trust!

2:45 I remember my first exposure to Pippa was when she interviewed that one Vtubing CEO from the company that basically failed. This red flag instantly reminded me of that person.

I'm wonder how many red flags a certain "adult vtuber" agency is gonna accumulate after auditions open tomorrow

oof red flag 9 hurts a bit, because the Vtuber I want to be is one that has a lot of lore and stories tied to him, which I plan on having directly influence a lot of my content down the line. I'm still determined to go that path, maybe it's different for an indie, but I can tell it won't be easy

If I had a nickel for every time someone made a video about red flags in Vtuber agencies and uploaded it today, I had two nickels Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice

Remember when AkioAIR tried to sass back their haters by describing themselves as "a questionable and very shady vtuber agency" in their profile? Knowing what we know now... talk about a self-report.

12:44 Saida Aisu, LET'S GOOO!! that model NEVER gets old, I love it

Just a note, Yam Albat posted up a similar "red flags" video yesterday on her channel; from the looks of it, this video and hers overlap on a number of points, but you might want to compare what she presented with your content here. (Edit: Okay, saw you two are already on the same page in your pinned comment. Cool. :)

I think some of the key points are 1 research the company and their contracts 2 sceptical with their or your management 3 be a bit wary of your coworkers... The 14th point is kind-of less necessary I think? As you said, some people just prefers doing solo and requesting collab can be a challenge I think? Of course your agency can help to reach or like finalize a collab between agencies but... Or you can reach out to whoever you wanna collab with...

i once joined a starting agency, working as an artist. i got harassed for prioritising my ACTUAL job and PAID clients over something they did not want to pay me for. once i left, they went to my social media, found my commission promotion, and started advertising their other artists there. there was a lot of drama, including DOXXING AND HARASSMENT, that i and the talents were left to figure out how to solve on our own. please do your research. don't be like me.

after all this stuff that has happened, it's great to see a video explaining what to look out for. These corporations are really screwing up these people's lives.

Red Flag N°16: they sell coffee ☕🐟

It's cool that both you and Yam had the same idea, but a bunch of the points are very different. If someone makes a third one, there could be a tier list

This is the second similar stream/video I’ve watched in 24 hours because Yam Albat did one yesterday. Honestly, I suspected that you talked to her about it BEFORE reading the comment above that confirmed it because of timing.

Thanks for the video!

Thank you for showing me the flags!

Another thing to consider- who owns the character IP and assets, you or the agency? The agency owning that stuff isn't inherently a red flag since that's pretty standard for how the big agencies operate, especially the Japanese ones, but it's something important to consider, since the vtubing scene's taboos about past lives means that if you leave the agency or it goes under, you have to effectively start over from scratch and it's not guaranteed how many of your old fans will follow you.

Hololive got insanely lucky with all the amazing fan artists writing much deeper lores and making animatiion lore videos for free. Council lore by that artist Super appleman? Or tywn ? Is amazing.

I just realized that i haven't checked out mythos since the debut watchalong. I'll check them out again because they seemed solid.

When your CEO says you need to sell more coffee so he can buy more diamonds.

Was in a very small agency once. I can verify that I've basically missed every red flag in this video back then.

Speaking of CEO's knowledge in the industry, I have a thought experiment: If Sakana is still open with trading the entire Phase roster in exchange for taking Marine from Yagoo, how could this unfold? A fully functional corpo that's not on the red on paper (no longer sure after JP and gen3 release, but they seem strong and promising right now, so they could probably recoup those costs relatively fast) that has very strong potential for growth in exchange for just one that's at the apex of the game. I got nothing more, i just enjoy that internal joke in PC.

When the agency conducts deficit spending.

So i just realised this, most holomember still have their 2nd channel(original channel) to post, streaming even sometimes accidently mentioning their "anime" avatar Meanwhile in Kurosanji, their 2nd channel(original channel) is completely abandoned. They even make a bye bye-see you again as last videos Also when Holomember take a long break, they just turned out fine more healthy more confident. Meanwhile in Kurosanji when taking a break(not even a long one) they graduated later and there is no bye bye stream it just turned to ashes Huge W for Holo since they literally giving a freedom, for their members. Kurosanji is 100% black company because they have so much policy but not defended their members and just throwing them like trash when something bad happen

lmao this is funny that I've watched another video of almost similar title and focus on red flags to this.

This is the second Vtuber agency red flag video I have seen today.

The most important part; If companies like these are hiring a SIGNIFICANT amount of talents in one go or high frequency. These are know shady tactics known among the “idol agencies” in person (the spheres where AKB46 came from). Just because it’s irl idol agencies doesn’t mean the tactic can’t be applied on vtuber. With hiring so much talents, how can they CULTIVATE said talents? It means they’re just trying to see who gets popular. Basically: produce enough people, there’s bound to be some to rake in the money at the sacrifice of the others a no.1 Black Company mark in agency type orgs. Niji is the biggest perpetrator of this. Even Holo is sorta slow since the beginning. This is why I never subscribed to Niji besides the fact that their talents are all lewd bait in some form or another. No.5 red flag is hit or miss if more companies follow the Niji model described here.

6:29 something sus on the bottom left 😂

We also now have track records for a lot of the agencies that can be compared to.

Did you and Yam chat or something or is this just a bizarrely timed coincidence?

not here about joining an agency, just wanna learn out of curiosity

I kinda get what you want to say by that the agencies have to have enough staff, but trust me, more doesn't mean better in that regard. I've worked many years in corpo, as a matter of fact my whole working career has been corpo work, and having more and more managers, directors, chiefs and what not does absolutely not equal better quality of work in said company. Usually it means there are just more people to shift the blame on. You need skilled workers that can easily work with others, not just more workers. I've worked with people on the lower end of the corpo food chain that could do work of 4 people and wouldn't even break a sweat in their working hours. Hell they even had the time to bum around. And I've also worked with managers that didn't do fuck all and never had enough time for anything. So it's all about quality not quantity. I've worked in this shit for multiple years across multiple companies and everywhere the story is the same: having more and more managers and other higherups never ends good for regular workers.

Well. I'm no expert, but if an agency implements crypto/NFTs, that's a massive red flag for me. Crypto/NFTs ruined a lot of things, including certain games, and Kizuna got in hot water because of it. 🤨 P.S. 6000something to go. Gib DN Silver Plate already! 🧐

lol did you see Yam's vid and think "she forgot a couple points?"

thank you nousagi very cool

Another red flag you could add is: Criticism from former talents. Explanation: The previous talents who worked at a company you are looking into joining has said little to no positive things about it and have a lot of negatives to say instead. Reason: While trusting the criticism of single person isn't always the best choice, it's best to keep it in mind because maybe that person was hard to work with or was fighting with the staff but when the criticism is being said by multiple talents and the same thing is being said or similar to one another, that is a problem that can stem from the environment they had to work in or the people they had to work with behind the scenes. Think of it in another way, would you buy a product if it had 1000 reviews and over 50% or more of the reviews were negative? It's always something you should be careful and think over before actually going through with it.

YOU MEAN EVEN IF I CREATE MY OWN VTUBER AGENCY I CAN'T MAKE IT INTO MY OWN PERSONAL HAREM? OH NO... 😂

Good job pointing up the warning signs of possible #000000 company woes 🙍‍♂️👍

Not only this video is for those who wanted to join Vtuber Agencies but also those who wanted to invest on creating Vtuber Agencies, prevent atleast 90% of them. 4:50 bro literally roasting himself. But again he is also roasted me too *look at my pfp*

Good thing I am the artist and CEO who is learning to do models and ensuring to learn professional grade

Wait if the contract is too good to be true and you confirmed it with a lawyer then why the fuck wouldn't you sign it? xD

hmmmmm might I add another red flag to you DN "Bundle graduation/termination of multiple talents" while on the face the agency might be colorful and developing well, a group of talents just suddenly go on to say their goodbyes and if it is a good agency then at least give each one of the talents a separate and sincere announcements rather than group them up like they are a bunch of unwanted goods, this has been applied in not only Niji (Niji-ID and the group-up 4 graduation per announcement), but even WACTOR and RIVERIE

What is the background music at the beginning of the video?

There is no reason to join a agency at this point.

On the CEO part I'd also have a "Has been in too many projects/failed startups". Some people are just braindead fraudsters who "fake it till you make it" and will have a trail of destruction behind them. Also, some times they operate as a group, taking turns on being the CEO, so you might wanna also look into the other leaders if there's multiple top positions in the firm.

Green flag is having a fish CEO

I've seen it mentioned that some CEOs make agencies for the powertrip/be around women, but I haven't heard of any of them. Does anyone know which one(s) he mean? Maybe some clips that show it, its baffling to me that it could be real.

Funny enough some of this flags describe phase connect Gen 1

Peak content

You and Bat girl have both now made vids on this.

Another red flag would probably be, just like what happened in a certain agnecy- is members of the staff or even the CEO being too friendly and unprofessional. Major red flag and sign that who made the agency is just in it for a power trip and some weird harem fantasy.

Ayo, is it me or do you have new expressions in this video? Also some of them are not fully transparent and have white chunks flying around.

wactor has all of them tbh. just like quagmire from family guy

I remember going through so many auditions including nijisanji even but then i finally gave up when holostar en came, i mean how can I get myself in, comparing to the boys. I am dirt awful to even pull a normal stream right and yet i have the copium thinking I would get in. haha T - T

Speaking of a bad vtuber model, I wanna see a vtuber with that kind of model really, since most models are having that anime artstyle and it just makes it look unoriginal in my eyes when it comes to the uniqueness of vtubing. It shouldn't be mostly associated with anime when it comes to vtubing.

5:06 NEED

Yam Albat made a similar video to yours 20 hours ago... I trust that you take more than 20 hours to make that, but it still is interesting

Red flags with a bunch of star in it

Why did you decapitate ember like that in the thumbnail😭

12:45 saidu aisu clip YAGOO......PERHAPS......JUST SAYIN

ok i believe you

Your rent is $150/month? It's gotta be in Laguna

The Small cuts is the biggest giveaway a company is a possible Black one

Hopefully this will help a lot of talents from getting into bad/black companies

5:06 a bot out of topic, but please tell me who is she, her model is soooo cool

Wait, I thought VReverie was doing good. What happened to them?

Hearing Okay - 13ounce, You know it's gonna be shitshow

You should know that if you're joining a corpo, your content does not belong to you. If you plan on being a Vsinger, for instance, the corpo will take ownership of all your music you created during your time there. The same is true if you want to be a gamer. The corpo will take over all of your gaming Live Streams and possibly gaming accounts that were made while doing business. If you are more into doing projects, depending on the projects, they may also belong to the company. You should also know what sort of content you're doing and what the company can do to assist you in it. If you plan on singing a lot, you should find a corpo more dedicated towards it, especially if you want to boost your career in it. If you want to do more projects, perhaps a comapny that can promise 3D appearances. You should also be able to negotiate with the company. They can't exist without you and the company sees you as a contractor. Infact, you should be taking your contract (Before you sign it) to a lawyer and telling your lawyer what you want and be able to create the contract as you see fit. This is negotiating and if they're serious about having you, there should be no issue to go back and forth. Some things can't be changed while others can be changed. If a corpo is deadset on their contract and will allow no changes to it, that is a red flag. That is a corpo that sees things in black and white and will not accept violations in the rules regardless of circumstances.. Should look into their most popular fan favorite vtuber, their highest subbed vtuber (They are not always the same), the lowest vtuber, a a vtuber with a competely different personality than the other three and see how management treats them. Does the lowest subbed one get support from management? Is their model ever updated? Other outfits? Do they doompost management? Does management support them and advertise them on social media? Compare all that to the others. I get it, not every vtuber is fun to watch to the majority of people, but a person at the lowest rings personality may be a direct result from management misgivings or it could be that they're just not interesting to mainstream audiences. Have years of experience as a vtuber. A corpo needs to amke sure you can hold your own against a few hundred people. Not asking you to have experience with a few hundred people, but asking you to be able to handle yourself despite the stresses in performing to that many people. It also hlelps that you have experiences with collabs. Not every person is compatible with every other person. There are some people that just don't collab well together. Regardless, you have to try to keep the momentum going regardless and its good to know how to interact that way.

is this related to Yam Albat video?

But l don't know what if happen next if gura's hate fans because of it.

MY OLD AGENCY SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED

......... And whatever you do. Do not hire Bobby Kotick as your CEO. Sure, the man has experiance in business but he is not the kind of person you WANT as a CEO in any company much less a Vtuber Company.

weird coincidence that this is so close to another content creator's similar video

UP UP UP UP UP UP

good

Riku tazumi has 0 work experience pre niji