Over the weekend the upcoming Little Witch Nobeta game had its early access build review bombed, by what fans believe to be supporters of the Chinese government for its use of Vtubers in its cast.

As of this writing it looks like Steam has cleared up most of the negative reviews, save for two. Looking back both accounts appear to be Chinese, with one of them having a history of leaving negative reviews related to Chinese bot talking points.

That being said netizens have posted screenshots of the game’s review score over the weekend, showing the game having been pushed down to Mixed from Very Positive.

People in the comments are also referencing the incident, with several reviews asking readers to ignore “Chinabots”.

While Steam may have deleted the negative reviews, it looks like they still have records of it happening- you can view a graph showing the history of review scores, and there is a sharp spike on October 2nd- the day after the Little Witch Nobeta Hololive collaboration was announced.

The sharp decline the day after may have been Steam detecting the mess and taking steps to avoid it.

The China-Hololive Conflict

It all started in 2020 when now-graduated Vtuber Kiryu Coco and active Vtuber Akai Haato were reading off their fan analytics by country, as per their Google report. On stream they showed their viewership comes from Taiwan, with Google recognizing it as a country.

This provoked Chinese fans of the Vtubers, who have been harassing the two since, particularly Kiryu Coco.

It only got worse from there as they declared any Vtuber who actively voiced their support (or collaborated with) for Coco ‘tainted’. Such was the case for Shirakami Fubuki, who actively supported Coco.

Chinese bot raids have been common in Vtuber collabs, with many Vtubers encouraging a “don’t interact, just report” mentality in their communities.

Similarly, it looks like neither the developers for Little Witch Nobeta nor Hololive’s talents have issued a statement on the matter.