I’m considering embarking on a journey of connecting many of the hololive virtual YouTubers to their independent projects, and I’d like some opinions on how to do it~
the main issue, all these artists’ real legal names aren’t widely known for several reasons*, so I don’t believe we should add them to MusicBrainz. however, all these talents have aliases they used prior to joining hololive (“indie” or “independent VTubers” vs. “agency VTubers”), and those are often not hard to find. usually just a quick Google
for example, Kiryu Coco left hololive just over a year ago. since then, she’s started streaming and posting under her old alias, Kson, which she’d used before and even during her time at hololive.
to prevent adding a ton of new [unknown] artists, I’m thinking of just using their indie account name as a legal name entity, like I’ve already done for Uruha Rushia. thoughts?
Personally, as someone with peripheral exposure to communities which discuss this matter, I would avoid linking these artist identities, as the info is not willingly made public in any form and is widely considered a form of doxxing, even if in some cases it’s plainly obvious.
It has the potential to be disruptive especially among larger company-managed VTubers, who’s companies may also turn an eye towards MusicBrainz for distributing this information. Recently it was announced that there would be a joint initiative between Hololive and Nijisanji, the two largest Japanese VTuber companies to take action against forms of organization which negatively effect their employees/talents, including “infringement of privacy rights” (read the full “Joint Statement” on the page linked), which the exposure of information such as past careers may qualify for.
The characters represented by these talents are (at least in the context of these two large companies) never meant to be associated. This is not just for selling the character but for the safety of the talent who becomes exposed to a much larger audience than their previous persona in most cases and faces more attention, both positive and negative. Obviously this information will be spread regardless of action taken, but I don’t think it’s anything MusicBrainz wants to find itself a part of.
Just my thoughts, I am biased as a fan of many of these characters and the people behind them someone who has previously held many pro-company policy opinions. I’m sure there’s a purist argument for information that would support making these relations clear and public knowledge, but I’d rather not see any trouble arise from that similar to what happens in the communities which already engage with that side of the medium.
Edit: Didn’t mean to imply that if you’re a fan you have to agree with me, anyone can take whatever position they want here.
You make many fair points here, that’s exactly why I asked for input first~
at the least, I wonder if it would be fine if we just have this data for former members, like Coco, Rushia, Sana, and others. that way people can see what they’re up to now?
so, would something like this clip of Kson opening fanmail and receiving her former genmate/housemate Kanata’s accessory might be proof enough? or is this the ambiguity you’re talking about?
That’s exactly the ambiguity I meant yeah.
Any youtuber could get that fan mail after all…
If it comes down to stuff based on personality, voices, educated guesses then it shouldn’t be there. Go by official info in these cases, focus on the stuff the personalities and companies admit to openly.
I had a similar issue with this composer of a vtuber song recently: U.Z. INU - Relationships - MusicBrainz The name is a very obvious reference to another composer it seems. Basically winking and nudging to who it is… They could have just said who it was but they didn’t for whatever reason so… I created a new artist page and left it at that.
a performance alias can be a character too. for example the artists Mumble, Lex, and Emma Essex treat their aliases as characters, some even having wikis and character biographies for their aliases (examples from Mumble, Lex, and Emma)
you’re probably right there, I just followed the example of Nyanners, since they are (or rather were) both with VShojo
Didn’t Nyanners use that name way before she actually becomes a VTuber? That would make sense why she was not set as type character in the first place.
Except Uruha Rushia was not simply her alias as it’s a character owned by Cover Corp. and she merely took place as the voice and personality of it.
Also, all the artists you referenced have the type set as person.
I know she used the name and the character (I think?) before she got the vtuber model, I don’t know if they coinsided, because I haven’t looked too far into her history
she also performed as the character, both in livestreams and virtual concerts
all that said, I don’t have an issue with the Voiced relationship, I’m mostly explaining why I did what I did
because I linked the person behind the aliases. two of the three characters I linked (Spott and Ice Sickle) are listed as characters, and I haven’t gotten around to editing all the Lapfox characters like Renard (there’s a lot of them, lol), but it has been mentioned before…
on digital releases, I’ve exclusively seen COVER corp. as the label (like the digital version of the same release), which other editors have been adding to the カバー株式会社 label, which I’ve been following myself. that said, it’s possible that the HOLO catalog numbers are actually hololive Production catalog numbers miscategorized as COVER catalog numbers…
