Zaion LanZa

Zaion LanZa (ランザー 罪恩) was a female English Virtual YouTuber affiliated with NIJISANJI EN's seventh wave "XSOLEIL", alongside Doppio Dropscythe, Hex Haywire, Meloco Kyoran, Ver Vermillion, and Kotoka Torahime.

Profile
XSOLEIL Institute of Infinity 1st Year. Treasurer of the Student Council who came from the future. She hides her loneliness with a self-imposed goal of preventing the apocalypse.

Personality
Zaion was confident, energetic, and exceptionally sassy, often engaging in fierce banter with her peers and chat. Although she often acts smug and somewhat condescending when she has the upper hand, she is also easily upset when things go awry, and can be embarassed easily when teased or called cute. She also has a penchant for saying questionable things without thinking of the consequences beforehand - or perhaps because of those very consequences.

Background
On 5 December 2022, NIJISANJI EN announced the upcoming debut of its seventh wave "XSOLEIL", accompanied by a teaser of the Livers' designs and voices as well as an announcement for a debut song "HOLD IT DOWN" produced by GRP.

Zaion's YouTube channel was created 13 November 2022 and her Twitter account also created in the same month. Her first tweet and her first YouTube upload were posted on 5 December 2022.

2022
On 14 December, Zaion announced on Twitter that she became a YouTube partner.

On 24 December, she opened membership feature on her YouTube channel.

On 26 December, she reached 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

2023
On 24 January, Zaion and Maria Marionette had their first collaboration cover song, the song "Identity" by Kanaria.

On 8 February, ANYCOLOR released a statement announcing that Zaion's streaming and social media activities would be temporarily suspended as a result of repeated misconduct, claiming that Zaion had "compliance issues" since debut, causing multiple issues to occur.

Retirement
On 10 March, ANYCOLOR released a statement announcing that they had terminated Zaion LanZa's contract, alleging that despite being suspended for repeatedly infringing on her contract and the agency's internal rules, Zaion's behavior and understanding of the rules had not improved during suspension, making it difficult for the company to continue working with her as a Liver.

Her activity period of 10 December 2022 to 4 February 2023 (the date of her last stream; officially still under contract until 10 March) made her the fourth-shortest-tenured member of NIJISANJI as a whole, behind Kurohane Kuroto and Kaminari Poaro of VOIZ (who retired in under one month) and Shindo Raito, who was terminated a few days after his debut. All three were part of the main branch and streamed either only once or not at all.

On 5 May, the talent behind Zion LanZa released a statement on Twitlonger and Google Docs regarding the situation, and gave her side of what happened, and provided pieces of evidence, although some remain withheld due to legal reasons. She stated that she does not "absolve herself of the mistakes she did make, and wishes to apologize to her community and those who were truly her friends behind the curtains, for letting them down in any way," and that nothing in the statement was to be used in any manner to damage NIJISANJI as a whole, nor its Livers. The following was also in the document:


 * No VODs during her time as Zaion LanZa were privated by her own decision
 * At the time of termination, Nijisanji stated they had "no intention... to cut off or discourage her from interacting with or remaining friends with other NIJISANJI livers" and that they "would not avoid commissioning or working with any creators that work with her in the future"
 * Any instances of alleged "shotacon" refers to an inside joke from the talent's time as an independent streamer playing Genshin Impact, where she refers to a discrepancy between the stated ages of the characters and their appearance
 * She believes that she believes that "several of the allegations written on her termination were due in part to the differences in cultural background between NIJISANJI, an agency based in Japan, and Zaion, a streamer catering to a global audience"
 * Following the announcement of "indefinite suspension" in February, the talent behind Zaion LanZa had received death threats and had her personal information doxxed by "those expressing malicious intent", with the talent stating that "NIJISANJI did not inform Zaion that it would be taking action against the spread of personal identifying information, defamatory misinformation, and daily harassment towards Zaion while she was suspended as an active liver," despite having released a joint statement with COVER Corporation in December 2022 declaring that acts of slander and defamation against affiliated talent would be dealt with "vigorously", with doxxing included.
 * She admitted that "I did not understand exactly what victims of harassment went through, how mentally and sometimes physically damaging it is, and how hard it is to get any kind of help against it."
 * The talent behind Zaion then went on to address all listed bullet points on NIJISANJI's publicly posted termination notice:
 * Zaion's first suspension on New Year's Day 2023 for "using a copyrighted song in her stream without prior authorization" (one reason as alleged by Nijisanji for her termination) was due to having played the first cover song release of one of her genmates on a stream on 18 December 2022, having been unaware that this was considered a breach of copyright. She stated that she apologized, but that this incident remained on her disciplinary records
 * "Revealing internal information that can potentially cause issues for stakeholders during her stream": she stated that this was referring to a period of around 36 seconds in her final Good Job! stream where she "spoke about permissions regarding playing Hogwarts Legacy on stream", further saying that "the alleged mistake here was that Zaion stated that they did have permission to play the game at some point. Zaion spoke about this like any other game they had gotten confirmed permissions on that was a publicly released game, and this was after staff requested that EN not play the game. Zaion recognized that the controversy around the game is a difficult topic."
 * "Making statements that could lead to speculation or leaking of internal information using social media accounts that she personally operates during her activity suspension time.": she stated that this referred to two incidents. One was due to using her previous Twitter account from her time as an independent streamer to browse the site due to her lockout from Zaion's account during her second suspension and inadvertently liking a post NIJISANJI stated was "mocking the fans who were angry at your inappropriate behavior" (she removed the like after realizing the mistake and apologized to NIJISANJI. The tweet in question was an image and referred to fans angry at Zaion's use of "dark humor"). The second involved an admin on the Discord server attached to her prior independent persona stating that "production for mouse pads that were owed to previous subathon supporters were finally being made." According to the talent, "no intention to sell these as merchandise products was ever emphasized" and the announcement could have been perceived by NIJISANJI as her planning to leave the company, despite it referring to events prior to Zaion's debut. She stated that she explained this to NIJISANJI at first and they seemed receptive, saying they would investigate, but that they later included it as a reason for termination anyway, saying it was evidence she had "no signs of remorse for [her] behavior."
 * "Offensive remarks regarding discrimination and sexual assault": this also refers to two incidents. One was a statement made during a stream where she was playing The Karaoke, saying that she made a joke she admits was fully inappropriate, and takes responsibility for that and apologizes, saying there was no malicious intent. The second refers to an incident on her 11 December stream, where "a viewer jokingly asked her if they could use the term “Zionists” as a fan name for her community. She clearly stated “I don’t think we can do that” in response, knowing full well that it was not her place to use such a term. Unfortunately, NIJISANJI characterized Zaion’s nervous laughter when addressing this viewer’s comment as “remarks mocking political or religious beliefs” in her termination letter, even though this was not the case."
 * "Several infringements of the Rules pertaining to the use of games defined by ANYCOLOR Inc. (including intentional infringements) and repeated false justifications given to ANYCOLOR Inc. regarding these infringements": she stated it was unclear if it referred to one or multiple events, but that there were a couple possible culprits:
 * Used YouTube's autofill function to fill in the video description on her 4 February stream of a Nintendo game, and missed adjusting part of it to fit the new content. Her manager notified her mid-stream of the issue and corrected it, which Zaion thanked them for and apologized
 * Used a pre-existing account with the name changed and little/no past logs remaining to play Final Fantasy XIV, which was not agreed to by management. She states that this was fully her fault and apologized to staff. She also stated that any allegations of use of mods are untrue. The issue occurred because NIJISANJI requested "a new character, upon a new account. New accounts require the game, (along with subsequent story skips or level boosts), to all be officially bought from the Square Enix store in order to participate in the content that Zaion had readied. No form of compensation for this (or for new Genshin or other game accounts) was discussed"
 * "Expressing her will to perform streams using illegal games (also referred to as pirated games)": she stated that this appears to have been an incident taken out of context after Zaion replied to a viewer in stream chat, saying that sue "used to play ROM hacks", although she never stated she condoned piracy nor streamed emulated games during her time in the company
 * "Comments that can be considered offensive to the rights holder of a game during a stream": she says this likely refers to one instance where she criticized the UNO game made by Ubisoft for lack of user-friendliness when it comes to changing usernames. Prior speculation had theorized that it involved statements made about Raid: Shadow Legends
 * "Giving false information to other NIJISANJI EN Livers regarding the contents of her communications with ANYCOLOR Inc.": she stated that this refers to a misunderstanding regarding her use of old Genshin and other gacha game accounts from prior to her time as Zaion. She stated that she never claimed to her genmates that it was fine to use accounts from prior to their time in NIJISANJI, only stating that she was not told in her NIJISANJI interview that it was not okay. She states that this sentiment was conveyed to NIJISANJI staff, and that she was unaware any misunderstanding regarding this issue existed until it appeared in her notice of termination
 * "Falsely claiming to have received permission from ANYCOLOR Inc. after a viewer commented on Zaion performing an action prohibited by the Rules": she stated that this may refer to "Zaion opening her YouTube memberships after checking that all of her membership perks were within the rulings of NIJISANJI. [She] had gotten the emotes and badges approved by her manager, and thus assumed that as long as her perks were also within ruling, she could activate them for Christmas for her fans after they had asked. [She] apologized to staff for not asking for their approval"
 * "Falsely claiming to be sponsored by a brand during a stream": she stated that this was a complete misunderstanding regarding a running gag on a Cats Organized Neatly stream involving "Dee's Nuts" and an associated stream asset, as she was unaware that a real company under this name existed, and NIJISANJI felt like her statements on the stream could be construed as being sponsored by the real company.
 * "Giving “likes” to comments falling under defamation of NIJISANJI Livers and ANYCOLOR Inc. using social media accounts that she personally operates": she stated that this likely refers to the previously mentioned incident of accidentally liking then unliking a post using a Twitter account from prior to her time in NIJISANJI, although the liked post did not appear to contain any negative statements about the company (only containing a meme stating support for her content style)
 * "Numerous other actions and comments infringing the contracts and Rules": she states that as the statement is too vague, no specific instances can be tied to it, although it implies there was some other wrongdoing committed
 * The talent behind Zaion stated that although she agrees she made mistakes and that separation between her and NIJISANJI was appropriate, "in their last call [with NIJISANJI], Zaion begged for them to consider a more professional approach to future commentary between the two sides. To this, NIJISANJI refused, stating they “needed to protect their brand.” Some of the allegations written are untrue or uncontextualized which negatively impacted Zaion’s character."
 * The talent behind Zaion then goes into some of her past personal experiences and how it affected her mental state:
 * She stated that it is difficult (especially as someone who was doing content creation prior to employment by NIJISANJI) to one day be going about business as normal, supporting friends, etc, then being forced into silence due to contractual terms regarding suspension, and that this resulted in "suddenly being blocked or unfollowed by several people who you have considered to be your friends or who you've cared deeply for for a long time. People who knew her as a person, and still cared for her in return, are even harassed for caring for their friend."
 * She stated that following her suspension and termination, she withdrew from contact from the few friends she still considered she had, as she was afraid of causing them harm, also saying that she remains unsure to this day how some of those people feel about her, and now has constant fear of making people uncomfortable by being around them
 * She stated that she used to go out of her way to go to conventions with "friends IRL", although she no longer does following a "constant cycle of guilt ant trauma" which "drove [her] to a dark place" where she remains, and that while some friends understood her state, others felt it was "gaslighting" or an attempt at "guilting".
 * She stated that for the people that didn't "really know [her] as a person", it is not fair that the simple way they knew her was now replaced by a "storm of complicated and strong words" without "her" in them, and that you cannot assume how someone feels based on a character they play or portray themselves as online.
 * She stated that following her suspension and termination, she read as much as possible about what people in the community were saying regarding the situation on various social media platforms and YouTube, and that she "read[s] every Twitter DM, and just about every YouTube comment".
 * She stated that after ingesting this information, she felt like a failure, and that her dream and who she was as a person was destroyed and corrupted, and that she contemplated suicide. However, she said that "each and every kind message pulled her back from the brink" and that without those, "a person would no longer exist."
 * The talent behind Zion then went into a rough timeline (with descriptions) of the period between her first interview with NIJISANJI in August 2022 and her termination from the company:
 * She said that in the early months up to when she was hired, nothing regarding compensation or how the company was run was discussed, nor was anything she was expected to "give up" in exchange, including past accounts on games and services. Additionally, in October 2022, she was asked to record her debut song before meeting or hearing the voices of her genmates. After submitting the recordings and getting a message back from NIJISANJI saying it needed to be re-recorded due to background noise, she asked "a friend who dabbles in DJing as a hobby to clean up the same audio files", which were re-submitted. She stated that she received no further updates on the song following this.
 * She stated that all costs incurred on "planning a successful debut" were taken on by her personally, that lore was written "by ourselves", and that "I had to find people who had the skill sets needed for the graphics and animations myself, and pay for them myself. By the time we debuted, I was already hugely in the red, in order to plan and execute a debut befitting of a talent of such a big company." She also stated that no budget was given by NIJISANJI
 * She stated that upon meeting the other Livers in NIJISANJI EN, they were all "incredibly kind, considerate, and immediately included us and made us feel like one of them. I will never forget their kindness and how much effort they put into being there for us, and each other," although she said that "things did change as time went on, but that was not until the very end"
 * She stated that in December, she was given a manager who was at the company for only two weeks, and that the same manager would be assigned to manage the entire group of XSOLEIL. She said further that "for me, I see a manager as someone who helps us strategize and build upon our own style of content and character personality" and that "it was far from what we got... It was not the manager who trained us for the whole month of November with whom we developed a bond, nor the person who worked with us through the onboarding." She says that "Anytime I had a call with our manager to discuss something, THEIR manager was also there. And it was pretty much just me asking him stuff while she sat there and nodded her head. If there was something I wished to do, or something I thought was worth fighting for, it felt like it wasn’t fought for. All I experienced was the expectation to bow your head down and not to question the system"
 * The talent behind Zaion said that "things started to fall apart" immediately during her debut week when she played Genshin Impact: "Just to double check, I asked my manager if I could use my Genshin account of nearly 3 years. This game was huge for me. I had a longstanding relationship with the game as a content creator, and it was a significant part of my career growth. I would stream that game multiple times each week on Twitch as an indie, and it was my comfort place. Several other talents in the EN branch were also streaming while using game accounts they owned before joining the company. Even though the precedent was there, I was trying to see if there were any other rules they wished for me to follow." Her manager stated that, if using an account for Genshin that was used previously when streaming, that the user ID not be visible or to change it if possible. However, after the stream, she received a message from her manager stating that in a sudden change, due to considerations over "Liver safety," in addition to possible connections with fans from activities prior to joining NIJISANJI, accounts for games made prior to joining NIJISANJI would be "strictly prohibited" from use, and that as a result, the VOD of the stream would be privated.
 * She stated that "Other livers are able to use their past accounts and I was not. I had a 2 year-old account I wished to use, and a lot of content planned for my future streams centered around it. Having the stream VOD from that day privated also meant that I could no longer earn money from new views on it, and consequently stunted my growth analytics because–as one of my most successful streams–it was no longer visible content to the public in my debut week. Fans were asking me where that stream went. And I wasn't allowed to tell them what happened. Many people attacked me for using my old account which I had received permission to use, then had taken away, saying that it was “my fault for probably using it without permission.”"
 * She explained further: "I did my best to argue for the rights to use that Genshin account, saying that this was not the term I entered the company on. And that plenty of other talents in the company used, and still were using, their old accounts. I had a call with my manager and her manager, and they told me that the reason I couldn't use my old accounts now was “because they existed before Zaion LanZa did.” When I said I could not agree with that, we had a second call, and nothing changed. Finally, I told my genmates what was going on, asking them for help. Since some of them had past accounts, they were also under the impression they would be able to use them. We all had a group call with the two managers. Once again, the narrative was changed. The managers said that they would consider past game accounts on a "per game basis", and approved of a game that my genmate wanted to use. When mine was brought up, they said "it's because [you were] an official Genshin content creator and that counts as a sponsorship. And you can't use accounts that were previously sponsored." This expanded the scope of the matter beyond just my Genshin account. But first, I rejected that claim, because in the official rules for being an "official Genshin Impact Content Creator" explicitly states that it does NOT count as a sponsorship in any way. “Official Genshin content creators '' do not get paid for creating Genshin-related content. Also, in preparation for joining NIJISANJI, I purposely did not reapply for my position as an official Genshin content creator, and thus I hadn't been part of the program for 2 months. Then, the managers said "but [you were] a pioneer for the game, so a lot of people know that account." This was yet another completely new argument from them. This normally would hold no weight, because no single Genshin account can be distinguished from another. Every account is able to get every character, every item, every outfit. Nothing is unique except for the user ID that could be hidden. At this point, I had my suspicions about their real reason, and I gave up on arguing any further."
 * She stated that this then followed her into other games, now including ones she had past success with, including good relationships with the companies making them: "So, I moved onto my other game accounts, such as Alchemy Stars and Guardian Tales. Because I had been sponsored by those game's companies twice each, I greatly enjoyed working with them and we had a great working relationship. I relayed this to my managers, and they said because those accounts were sponsored at any time in their existence, I could not use them here. I felt like I was being punished for my past success. Prior to hearing this, I was under the impression that NIJISANJI would be happy to have someone who had been on good terms with several other companies whom they also worked with. Funnily enough, one of those Alchemy Stars sponsorship events was WITH two of their own EN talents who were now my senpais [Shu Yamino and Alban Knox]."
 * In her second week of activities, the talent behind Zaion wrote: "At this point I had messed up in several ways, including playing my genmate’s cover without realizing I couldn’t, showing a stranger’s face in a Twitter post on my stream by accident, etc. I was having a hard time not messing up, and I felt horrible about it. I suffer from clinical depression, and have been going a little while without meds at this point. At this point, I felt incredibly trapped, I felt like I couldn’t fit in, and my content wasn’t welcome (all my hard-work on gacha games from the perspective of an experienced/dedicated player); I felt like I was a failure. So I reached out to the two people who had onboarded us at the start. They were not our direct managers, but they were people who I trusted and felt comfortable with. I DMed them stating how bad I felt that I kept making mistakes, that I didn’t know what to do (in order to continue being creative but not infringing on one rule or another). I DMed them saying I was sad, asking if there was anything that could be done about my Genshin account, and saying that overall I just felt uncomfortable. And one of them responded. The person who trained us was someone I loved a lot, and it seemed like everyone did. She was kind enough to have a voice call with me, and talk through my feelings and issues, and even offered to try to fight for the Genshin account issue. That was enough for me. I knew that it was a difficult thing with a company that big, and I didn’t have any expectations past her just trying. I was incredibly grateful that I just had someone in the staff that I could speak to. But we would never speak like that again. In a call between my manager and their manager, I was told of my New Years suspension, and that DMing a manager was one of the reasons I was being suspended. I felt hurt and shocked; even my genmates had said they’d DMed managers before. I hadn’t said anything that would hurt anyone or was a secret. But that was that."
 * The talent behind Zaion then wrote of the run-up to her first suspension from 31 December 2022 to 9 January 2023: "Demanding a 2 week break so early into me being here was way too long and detrimental. Even as an indie the longest break I had taken was maybe 1.5 weeks. So during the call in which I was told of my forced suspension, I begged my manager’s manager, and asked if we could please reduce it to 1.5 weeks. He thought for a moment and said “can you really come to a serious decision within that time? [of whether or not I wanted to stay in NIJISANJI]” and I said “yes, because even before this call, I had already been thinking about this since debut.” I know he was trying to pressure me into agreeing to 2 weeks. But after working so hard on my own for over a year, I knew how breaks go. You get used to doing nothing and you get lazy. I wouldn’t let myself get into such a habit after all this struggle. Finally, he acquiesced. At the end of the call, my manager's manager asked me what I'm going to tell my fans.  This was asked in a manner that made me feel pressured to say, “Oh, I’m…just going to say that my family asked me to come on a last minute holiday trip.” Because of what happened with a prior graduation in the company, I had already been told by my senpais that oftentimes suspensions would be disguised as “breaks” by the talents. Now, I understand why. So the New Years countdown that I promised my fans, of course, could no longer happen. And I told them that "my family rarely does anything out of town so I had to go on this last minute trip." That I would be gone from the 30th and return on the 10th. That never happened; I just stayed at home and tried to see if there were any IRL friends around who didn’t already go on vacation elsewhere or weren’t too busy. At the same time, Haku, one of my two cats, 4 years old, was suffering from a liver disease that required me to feed him every few hours. So it would morbidly work out that I had the time to take care of him, however it was incredibly expensive and even now I’m still trying to pay off the incurred bills."
 * The talent behind Zaion stated that, out of fear of risking breaking any more rules, she "turned down the creative ideas a notch... I only streamed games because I knew which had confirmed permissions for sure. No “Just Chatting” or creative streams, at least for a while."
 * Leading up to and after her final suspension, she stated that "I had been taking care of my cat, Haku, who had been suffering from liver disease for a month. He passed away the day after my indefinite suspension began. I did not feel supported by my manager when I shared this information. The subsequent distress was compounded by the fact that staff had locked me out of all of my accounts. Forced to sit in all of this alone, this would be one of the most difficult times of my life."
 * The talent behind Zaion finished her statements with the following: "Everything past this is history. There was a lot I enjoyed about being in NIJISANJI. There were a lot of people I looked up to, who I liked, who I trusted with all my heart. There were some really fun times. But as much as I wanted to stay and with how hard I tried to do something different each time I messed up, I knew I wouldn’t be able to compact my style of entertainment into what they wanted without regrets. I feel that I need to say that during my time there, I felt trapped, felt like a failure, and did not feel like staff cared about me as a person (or for my own creative style), as the managers I was forced to work with did not show an effort to understand me beyond the surface of our work relationship. I am still incredibly grateful for the opportunity, I’m grateful for the friends I did get to make there, and I’m grateful that a place that had such history saw value in someone like me at all."

Fans

 * Her fanbase are called "Zaimons".

Quotes

 * "Hmph, think you can keep up?" - Debut teaser

Relationships

 * XSOLEIL - Zaion, Doppio Dropscythe, Hex Haywire, Meloco Kyoran, Ver Vermillion, and Kotoka Torahime. They are debut-mates.
 * Twitter hashtags: #XSOLEIL (Student Council)

Lore

 * She has the title of "The Highest Infinity".
 * She has the power to Dimensional Diffusion.

Likes and Dislikes

 * She likes noodles, mushrooms, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and sweets.
 * Some of her favorite anime: Full Metal Alchemist, Digimon, CLAMP, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Yu Yu Hakusho, Gundam 00, Horimiya, and Moriarty the Patriot.
 * Some of her favorite games: Persona 3, Fire Emblem, Pokémon Crystal, Pokémon Sapphire, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, and Genshin Impact.
 * She likes gambling, summer, sliver, white and blue.
 * She dislikes sprouts, carrots, bananas, zombies, cold weather, bad 3D graphics, things being lost, the end of something nice, and bad technology.

Miscellaneous

 * Her color code is #fff462.
 * Zaion can speak both English and Japanese.
 * Zaion is ethnically Japanese but her parents don't speak the language, so she took it upon herself to learn it. She has passed the JLPT N2 and helped kids and adults learn English while she lived in Japan.
 * Her skills are grinding, acting/voice acting, singing, exploring, people watching, and being lazy.
 * Her goals are to be playable in a gacha game, release an original song, stop the apocalypse, learn more skills/hobbies, speak more languages, and take over the world.
 * She is the shortest in XSOLEIL at 153 cm.

Media

 * Zaion LanZa's corporate profile on NIJISANJI website
 * Zaion LanZa【NIJISANJI EN】 - YouTube channel
 * ZaionLanZa - Twitch channel
 * @ZaionLanZa - Twitter account

Twitter Hashtag

 * #ZaionLanZa - General
 * #ZaiOnline - Live Steam
 * #ZaiOnPaper - Fan Art
 * #ZaiOnTop - NSFW
 * #ZaiOnCrack - Memes
 * #ZaiOnTV - Clips
 * #LanZasset - Thumbnails