NIJISANJI



Nijisanji (にじさんじ) is a group of mostly 2D-only Virtual YouTubers who are also known as "Virtual Livers" (バーチャルライバー Baacharu Raibaa) when posting on sites outside of YouTube, such as NicoNico Douga and Bilibili. (The term "Liver" is a self-made Wasei-eigo word pronounced similar to "alive", not "liver" as in the organ).

Managed by Ichikara Inc., the group started in Japan in early 2018 and has since expanded to other countries as an international project. As of April 2020, there are currently 99 active Nijisanji members, 25 active VirtuaReal members, 10 active NIJISANJI ID members, 3 active NIJISANJI IN members, and 12 active NIJISANJI KR members.

There are a large number of Nijisanji Livers in the Top 100 Virtual YouTubers; Tsukino Mito has the highest number of subscribers within the company, with Honma Himawari and the two other girls of JK Gumi following close behind.

For the list of original songs released by Nijisanji members and musical units, refer to the following Wiki page: List of Nijisanji Songs.

Technology
Nijisanji Livers usually stream with iPhoneX facial motion capture technology, Live2D models, and the Nijisanji app (commercially unavailable). Although this method is technically simpler and much less expensive than full-body 3D motion tracking equipment, the resulting motion is mostly limited to facial features and has been noted to suffer from stuttering and accuracy issues.

In addition to Live2D and conventional full-body 3D motion capture, Nijisanji also supports "Niji 3D" (にじ3D), which allows Livers to stream using their 3D models without a studio. But the range of motion for Niji 3D is limited to the upper body and hand tracking.

2018
On 17 July, Nijisanji announced Chinese and Taiwanese Vtubers as an expansion into those markets. However, they are no longer active within Nijisanji and on April 2019, were transferred to another virtual group called "VEgo" which only lasted for a month before retiring from Youtube entirely.

2019
In April 2019, a new branch of the Nijisanji Project in China called "VirtuaReal" officially began their activities.

On 10 May, they announced the commencement of their Nijisanji NetWORK (にじさんじネットワーク Nijisanji NETTOWAAKU) partnership program which is aimed towards giving support to other virtual talents. The first VTubers to participate in the program were Tenkai Tukasa and Fairys Chan. It was first hinted at on 8 May. Since 31 December 2019, it is no longer operational.

On 19 July, Nijisanji's parent company Ichikara Inc. announced a new branch of the Nijisanji Project in Indonesia called "NIJISANJI ID." Auditions for four initial virtual YouTuber positions were open from 19 July until 4 August, and the selected candidates officially began their activities in September 2019.

On 18 November, Ichikara Inc. announced a new branch of the Nijisanji Project in India called "NIJISANJI IN." Auditions for three initial virtual YouTuber positions were open from 18 November until 2 December, and the selected candidates officially began their activities in January 2020.

On 17 December, Ichikara Inc. announced a new branch of the Nijisanji Project in South Korea called "NIJISANJI KR." Auditions for five virtual YouTuber positions were open from 20 December until 6 January 2020, and the selected candidates officially began their activities in late January 2020.

2020
A 6-show national music concert tour called "Nijisanji JAPAN TOUR 2020 Shout in the Rainbow!" took place between 9 February and 5 April. A total of 29 Nijisanji members performed across 5 Zepp venues (Sapporo, Fukuoka, Namba, Nagoya, and DiverCity Tokyo). Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Zepp DiverCity Tokyo show was entirely cancelled and the second Zepp Namba show was exclusively streamed online.

On 22 June, NIJISANJI IN rebranded and changed the name of their branch to "NIJISANJI EN." Additionally, Nijisanji launched their official English YouTube channel on this day too.

Members
The current members endorsed by Nijisanji include:

Gamers (former members; now part of the main Nijisanji group)
The Nijisanji Gamers group was later dissolved and merged into the main Nijisanji group in December 2018.

SEEDs (former members; now part of the main Nijisanji group)
The Nijisanji SEEDS group was later dissolved and merged into the main Nijisanji group in December 2018.

VOIZ
Originally a four Virtual Liver ensemble that was part of Nijisanji SEEDs. Only two members of the VOIZ group are continuing with their activities:

2020 Wave
(as of June 2020)

Nijisanji NetWORK (former members; program terminated)
These two are still active VTubers but they are no longer officially affiliated with Nijisanji. Refer to Category:Nijisanji Network for more information on this program.

VirtuaReal Star (China)
Members of VirtuaReal Star are the VTuber identities of popular Chinese content creators on Bilibili.

VirtuaReal Link (China)
VirtuaReal Link is similar to the former Nijisanji NetWORK partnership program such that independent VTubers are given technical support from Ichikara Inc. "Super Virtual High School" (SVHS) is the unit name for four members.

Trivia

 * Nijisanji can be represented as the number 2434, so this is sometimes seen in their material. Also during live-streams, fans sometimes donate 2434 yen (~$21 USD).
 * The company is run by a man named Iwanaga, whose Twitter is here. He sometimes does live-streams as a female-looking VTuber named Iwanaga-chan.
 * On March 2019, Nijisanji was forced to abort the debut of a Virtual Liver called Raito Shindo (真堂雷斗) . Apparently, the VA of Raito violated several terms of his contract related to the privacy of his fellow colleagues and other VTubers. The scandal was widely cover by image boards and forums such as 2chan, 5ch and 4chan.