The Three-Day Fire of VShojo's Downfall

Author

Stephanie Liu
July 25, 2025

Welcome to “Siliconera Speaks Up,” our newsletter for the site! This’ll be a summary of the past month’s anime or gaming news, a little reminder of things to come, and our insight on what games you should pick up next. Without further ado, let’s get into it!

Speak Up Sesh

Hello and welcome to yet another “Siliconera Speaks Up”! Last month, we discussed the global release of Persona 5 X and Umamusume: Pretty Derby (albeit, the topic quickly shifted to the Hatsune Miku concert and the impact of piracy on Japan’s international soft power). While Umamusume: Pretty Derby is going strong—the memes, trends, and feverish rise of popularity mirroring how the community reacted when the game first came out in Japan—Persona 5 X is going through its fair share of troubles.

Between the poorly received story (as much as people enjoyed the Subway Slammer meme, others rightfully pointed out that the stakes are significantly lower than Kamoshida from the original Persona 5, and the narmy nature of the Subway Slammer is not great considering the real impact and harm of butsukari otoko in Japan), as well as the discrepancy in rewards between the Chinese server and the global (including JP) servers, Sega might have to start changing how it handles the game if it wants to compete in the over-saturated market. Even it being a Persona 5 gacha game isn’t helping it too much. Fans have commented that they’d rather play a real Persona game, and others have pointed out that more people are playing Royal than X.

Perhaps in another world, the topic of Sega’s mishandling of Persona 5 X would have been the star of the newsletter. But in this world, something else has grasped everyone’s attention: the sudden downfall of VShojo, a California-based English VTuber company that shut down on July 24, 2025.

Many people have put out video essays and articles about this topic already. Statements from VTubers involved go viral on social media platforms like Twitter, as well. I encourage those who aren’t in the loop to look into the situation themselves, as there are a lot of details. But to summarize it…

Ironmouse, one of the founding members of VShojo and one of the biggest VTubers period, left the company on July 21. She accused the company of withholding her Twitch revenue, including over $500,000 that was supposed to be donated to the IDF (Immune Deficiency Foundation). In response, many other VTubers (Henya, AmaLee, Kson, Michi) left the company, with former members such as Matara Kan and Zentreya voicing their support for Ironmouse. In a recent statement from CEO Justin “TheGunRun” Ignacio, he announced that the company was shutting down, and it had run out of money. At this point, VShojo had lost pretty much all of its VTubers, anyway.

There’s a lot of crazy stuff in this story, with the charity thing probably being the biggest one. It was what triggered the entire downfall, after all, and I’m pretty sure everyone in the world, regardless of nationality or ideology, can agree that stealing money raised for a charity is a pretty scummy (AND HIGHLY ILLEGAL) thing to do. A lot of former VTubers from VShojo are also giving more behind-the-scenes details about the poor management and work culture now that they no longer have to abide by NDAs.

Sadly, this isn’t exactly an uncommon story. Tech start-ups crash and burn like this all the time, though maybe not in such a public way. Hindsight is 20/20, but a lot of comments have pointed out that VShojo’s business model isn’t and was never sustainable in the long run. So, this outcome didn’t exactly come out of left field. Granted, again, I think everyone expected the charity money to, you know, actually go to the charity and that the VTubers were receiving their rightful compensation.

Maybe we all wanted to believe in a company that would actually value the talents and faces that make it profitable, especially with how much VTubers like Kson and Kuro genuinely enjoyed being at VShojo when they first joined. At the very least, the streamers have amassed a sizeable following during or before their time at VShojo, so even if they wish to go indie, they’ll still have an audience. Going indie is, apparently, the only way to do things these days.

Top 10 Stories From the Past Month

  1. Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories Cards Return in 2025 - I wonder how people are displaying them, or if they just keep them in the box?

  2. Falin and Marcille Dressed Up for Delicious in Dungeon Figures - Girls being girls.

  3. Re-Ment Will Sell 6 Animal Crossing Happy Room Sets - Now you can give your favorite villagers a comfy home in-game and in real life!

  4. July 2025 Umamusume Character Banners Shared - Umamusume stories that have nothing to do with the game’s popularity in Japan making it to a Top 10 list? 2021 me would’ve never believed this! So happy that global is loving it.

  5. Zenless Zone Zero Ellen Joe Figure Pre-Orders Open Soon - For some reason, she feels more like the poster girl of the original Zenless Zone Zero patch than Belle or Nicole do.

  6. New Uniqlo Chainsaw Man Shirts Debut in August - Cool drip for when the Reze movie comes out.

  7. How to Feed and Visit Haru Urara - Haru Urara has more than enough fresh ryegrass to eat, so make sure to look into local race horses or other ones (still alive) from the game to see if they’re accepting patronage!

  8. Hatsune Miku Hugs a Haro in New Gundam Figure - There’s a video for the collaboration, but I was hoping it would be more like the Hello Kitty ones.

  9. Hatsune Miku Themed Daihatsu Move Canbus Car - If you don’t play a Vocaloid song while you’re driving this, what are you even doing?

  10. July 2025 Pokemon Presents Teaser Puts Pikachu in Front of Speakers - The stream showed off some cool content like Z-A and the upcoming Aardman series.

Upcoming Releases

  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles 2 - August 5 (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC)

  • Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar - August 27 (Switch, Switch 2, PC)

  • Super Robot Wars Y - August 28 (PS5, Switch, PC)

  • Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater - August 28 (PS5, Xbox Series X, PC)