The sense of stagnation is particularly evident for Any Color and Cover, which are developing the vtuber business. Anycolor, which went public in 2021, is known for operating Nijisanji, and was solely responsible for its growth and popularity. At one point, its market capitalization exceeded that of major Tokyo-based broadcasters such as TBS and Fuji Television. However, the stock prices of both companies that operate these vtuber agencies have been significantly sluggish over the past year. Anycolor’s share price peaked at 6,895 yen in October 2022, but is now less than a third of that at 2,255 yen. Cover, the company that operates Hololive, has also seen its market capitalization drop significantly. After hitting an all-time high of 3,325 yen at the end of 2011, the price has been falling steadily, and is now below 1,700 yen. *Both stock prices are as of September 11th. What is the reason behind the slump in vtuber agency stock prices? What both companies have in common is that, surprisingly, their financial results and performance have maintained high growth rates, and they are in the black and doing very well. Generally, the phenomenon of a company’s stock price falling despite the company’s business going well occurs frequently when investors begin to become aware of industry-specific risks. In this case, it is thought that the reason is that the market has begun to become strongly aware of the “personal risk” that is unique to the vtuber business. (Omitted) Let’s start by going back to when Anycolor and Cover first went public. At the time, the justification for vtuber agencies being “superior to regular talent agencies” was given in the form of narratives such as: (1) “Because vtuber agencies hold the rights to the characters’ ’shells’, i.e. the illustrations, there is little risk of them going independent or being poached away, unlike YouTubers or talent agencies” and (2) “Because characters don’t age, they can be active for longer than regular idols.” In fact, that narrative held up for some time after both companies went public. However, we must pay attention to the fact that in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of artists being poached, going independent, or ceasing activities from Nijisanji, which is run by Any Color, and Hololive, which is run by Cover. More in the source.
There’s no doubt that this industry is a red ocean, but the top companies have huge profit margins, and the companies that cover them are venturing into other businesses and their profits are declining.
It’s amazing that people think they can make it in this business. It’s even more amazing that they’re actually making a profit. There really are a lot of idiots out there lol.
If you think about it, in the entertainment industry, amateurish performances became popular with AKB, and then VTubers became popular with people who just screamed while streaming games, and it was an era when professionals in singing and dancing were being weeded out, and the only ones left were professionals coming from overseas companies. Social games and other games that looked like they were made by amateurs and relied on IP were also mass-produced, but they suffered the same fate.
I think the original members, not just Nijisanji, were great because they spoke well and had strong personalities, but the current motley crew is terrible. They’re just there and you don’t remember them at all.
They’ve been doing a lot of collaborations with other companies recently so I thought they must be really popular, but maybe they’re just trying to make a push.
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