Gyeonggi Youth Union Exonerates Project Moon of Charges Regarding False Firing of Artist Vellmori Over Limbus Company Swimsuit Art

Following the controversy in July that leads to the involvement of Gyeonggi Youth Union, the council has exonerated charges against Project Moon for the unfair dismissal of illustrator Vellmori over a swimsuit design backlash in mobile RPG Limbus Company.

According to a Twitter post from Lee Jong-chan, Chairman of Gyeonggi Youth Union, condemnation and protests against Project Moon has been withdrawn after communication confirming the truth behind Vellmori’s firing.

Statement from Project Moon 

At the same time, director Kim Ji-hoon of Project Moon has also released an official statement apologizing for the inadequate response regarding the July 25th Notice about Limbus Company and providing clarification about the Vellmori controversy.

“I apologize to our fans for the inadequate early response regarding and after the July 25th Notice,” said Kim Ji-hoon, Director of Project Moon, in the statement.

“Project Moon respected the worker’s wishes, who explained to us that they could no longer work due to social issue-fueld attacks regarding personal social media accounts.”

“In compliance with their wishes, we have provided the form of protective support they wished for and they left the company in their preferred manner.”

“In that process, in order to respect and protect the worker’s intentions, Project Moon posted a notice with vague wordings that withheld specific details of the events and remained silent afterward regarding the matter, which led to misunderstandings.”

“I apologize for failing to foresee that the series of responses would culminate in misunderstandings and misinterpretations that caused pain for our fans and employees.”

“However, the incident is still closely related to our employees’ privacies and personal information, so please understand that we cannot share every detail in full transparency with the public.”

Further Clarification

“With the July 25th notice and the August 3rd notice, I attempted to separate the worker from the company to minimize the attacks led against the worker, and wanted to let it be publicly known that they could take individual legal action against online abuses.”

While it is revealed that VellMori left Project Moon and Limbus Company on her own accord in the current statement, the original announcement said that her contract was terminated.

The original statement reads, “Because this was a violation of a rule that was repeatedly reminded of, our contract with the illustrator in question will be closed.”

According to the statement, Project Moon’s decision to not include Vellmori’s artwork in Limbus Company is to prevent the illustrations from being used as weapons to further defame and abuse them.

Project Moon further clarified that the previous statements had a Japanese translation error that is not present in other languages thus causing misunderstanding especially because of the lack of explanation regarding their mistakes.

“Regardless of the intentions of the original notice, however, my heart is heavy that the inadequate and inexperienced wording of the notice has led to many misunderstandings and pain for the workers, employees, and fans who have loved Project Moon’s games so far,” added CEO Kim.

“I will now identify and improve such inadequacies so that no further pain will be inflicted on our fans.”

“Also, I apologize for causing distress to fans, who are unrelated to the spreading of false information when we announced that would take stern action against such activities.”

Project Moon’s Response Against Cyberbullying 

Further into the statement, Project Moon announced that they will take measures to protect employees and take strong legal action against cyberbullying.

“As the representative of the company, I am determined to take action to the end against those who claim to vehemently oppose cyberbullying yet somehow believe that attacking the company and its employees with falsehoods and manipulation and using its fans as mere opportunities to amplify their voices, as stepping stones to larger, more righteous discussions is justifiable,” said CEO Kim.

“I will ensure that those responsible are held accountable for the pain and damage they’ve caused the company, its employees, and its fans.”

“Project Moon does not endorse any specific ideologies or any forms of hatred, nor does it biasedly and exclusively endorse the opinions of any specific communities.”

“I cannot help but apologize to our fans that such heavily polarizing socio-political issues became involved in any shape or form, hurting and disappointing our fans with this incident.”

Project Moon ends its statement with more apologies and says that they will be more careful moving forward so that such an incident would not happen again in the future.

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