Nijisanji EN and Selen Tatsuki Controversy Full Timeline, Explained

If you have been in the Vtuber circle at all lately, chances are you heard about the controversy between Nijisanji EN and Selen Tatsuki.

In this article, we will compile what the controversy is about, and the events up until now.

Preceding Events

Before we talk about the drama, some notable events before the scandal must be mentioned first, as the community’s negative criticisms towards Nijisanji did not explode overnight, it’s an accumulation of multiple events leading up to this.

Selen Tatsuki’s Outfit Design Contest

In May 2023, Selen Tatsuki held an outfit design contest to allow fans to submit designs, where the winner’s submission will serve as inspiration for her official new outfit.

After the contest was announced, however, fans quickly realized that in the Terms of Service, Nijisanji did not include a prize pool for the winners, as seen from this reply.

Read the TOS carefully before joining pic.twitter.com/NFBKTJDJqq

— totoroki @ 💙☁️ (@_totoroki) May 10, 2023 

This essentially means that the artists who participated would not be compensated for their work.

Only after Selen Tatsuki fought to give prizes did the company allow it, and even then she was paying for these prizes out of her own pocket, as documented in the video below by YouTuber Beelz FlyLord.

Selen Tatsuki’s Fall Guys Tournament Cancellation

In August 2023, Selen put out a post saying that the Fall Guys tournament that was scheduled for that month had been canceled, and she could no longer hold any international tournaments from that point onwards. As seen on the archived screenshot shown below.

Combining this with the drama from the outfit design contest not so long ago, her fans were pretty disappointed at the news. Many were criticized Nijisanji for cancelling the tournament.

Selen Tatsuki’s Christmas Cover Cancellation

In December 2023, Selen Tatsuki uploaded a cover for the song ‘Last Cup of Coffee’ for Christmas.

Soon after the cover was released, however, it was quickly privated leaving fans confused over the situation. Not long after, Selen tweeted the following.

As Selen had so many events cancelled or had controversies surrounding them, fans were begging Selen to leave the company at this point, as shown from this tweet.

“Please Selen, I’m begging you not to renew the contract. You deserve so much more than a company that actively sabotages you every chance they get,” written on a Tweet by Flipsie, a Vtuber and a fan of Selen.

The Month-Long Silence

Soon after Selen tweeted for fans to reupload the music video. On December 27th, 2023, a tweet from Selen Tatsuki explained that she has had an accident, which writes:

“I apologize for the silence. I’ve been in the hospital after an accident and will be staying there for a few day under supervision. I just got back access to my phone today.”

A few days after that post, another update from Selen reveals that she was discharged on December 31st, 2023, it reads:

“Thank you to everyone for the support since I’ve been gone, I’m discharged from the hospital and my parents are helping me after my accident.”

“Thank you to all my Dragoons for all the kindness and support, I will keep trying my best in the new year. You are what keeps me going.”

After the tweet, Selen went into radio silence, with neither the company nor Selen herself updating on her current status, aside from Nijisanji EN confirming that she will not be joining Anime Impulse.

As nearly a month has passed, worried fans of Selen started to band together and use the hashtag #WhereIsSelen, asking the company to provide updates regarding Selen.

Selen’s Termination

On February 5th, Nijisanji EN posted a termination notice of Selen Tatsuki on their Twitter account. According to Nijisanji, Selen Tatsuki was terminated due to repeated breaches of contract and misleading statements on social platforms. They have also attached the circumstances leading up to the decision.

【Notice: Termination of Selen Tatsuki’s Contract with ANYCOLOR】
We hereby announce that we have had to make the difficult decision to terminate our contract with the NIJISANJI EN Liver ‘Selen Tatsuki’ effective immediately, due to repeated breaches of contract and misleading… pic.twitter.com/arIds68TZu

— NIJISANJI EN Official (@NIJISANJI_World) February 5, 2024

When the termination notice was announced, fans were very shocked by the news as they did not expect it due to its suddenness after one month of radio silence from Selen. Many fans were upset with how the company dealt with the situation and how the liver was treated within the company.

However, many fans also realized some discrepancies in the notice, and they used the ‘add context’ function on the post to refute the arguments made in the notice, stating the ones that they found were untrue.

Merch Dropping Right After Selen’s Termination

On February 7th, 2024, two days after Selen Tatsuki’s termination, Nijisanji immediately announced their merch sales for their ‘Hotel Nijisanji’ merchandise lineup.

After the post went live, many people felt that Nijisanji was ignoring or shrugging off Selen’s recent situation, despite Selen being one of the company’s biggest livers. As such, many fans criticized Nijisanji for only caring about profits.

‘Negligible’ Impact on Financial Result

On February 7th, ANYCOLOR, the parent company of Nijisanji, updated their Investors Relations page with a notice that mentioned the recent termination of Selen Tatsuki. In the notice, it says:

“On February 5, 2024, ANYCOLOR made the decision to terminate our affiliation contract with the NIJISANJI EN Liver, Selen Tatsuki. The impact of this decision on our financial results will be negligible.”

As the notice went viral, many fans were outraged with how the company was underplaying her termination, further reinforcing the notion that the company does not care for their livers. 

Other fans also point out how this statement contradicts their termination notice, which stated that Selen caused “irreparable damage” to the company, and yet here they state that the impact of her termination is negligible.

Events After Termination

After Selen’s termination, all of her YouTube videos were taken down, alongside the channel being privated. Her X account was also privated.

However, Nijisanji forgot to remove Selen’s YouTube moderators. As such, the moderators started a livestream and promoted the other channel of Selen, which was named Dokibird. The stream where this happened has been taken down ever since.

Furthermore, fans were also syncing the timeline provided in the termination notice of Selen’s to Selen’s tweets at the time.

Within Selen’s termination notice, it was mentioned that Selen was stripped access to her social media since 26th December 2023.

However, the tweet prior to the month-long silence was posted on the 27th and 31st of December respectively.  This essentially confirms that staff was impersonating Selen when those tweets were made.

The Impact of Nijisanji’s Actions

After the outrage caused by the previous event, the movement to boycott Nijisanji EN started to gain popularity online, as shown by #SINK THE YACHT being trending on X, with many showing their displeasure towards the company.

Major Companies Cancel Collaboration With Nijisanji

Soon after, many companies in response to the situation announced that they will stop all collaboration and ongoing plans with Nijisanji EN, the companies include:

• Hyte, a well-known custom PC hardware company 
• Studio Nekomata, an indie apparel & merchandise studio
• Frel, a content creator who mainly focuses on Nijisanji animations
• Velo City, a reaction channel based in London
• MofuMerch, A webshop that works with artists and provides merchandise.

Nijisanji EN Livers Experiencing Massive Unsubscriptions on Their Channels

In an act of protest, many fans who decided to no longer support Nijisanji EN have decided to unsubscribe from the livers under the branch.

This causes the livers to lose thousands of subscribers in days, as shown here.

ANYCOLOR Inc. Shares Seeing a Massive Drop

After Selen’s termination notice was made public, the share prices for ANYCOLOR started to see a huge decline, dropping from 3 820 JPY to 3 380 JPY per share in just two days, the shares continued to plummet for 10 days, reaching as low as 3 085 JPY per share on 15th February 2024.

Community Backlash and Disagreement with Statements

Aside from the many companies pulling support for Nijisanji EN, many well-known members in the Vtuber community as also voiced out their discontent with Selen Tatsuki’s termination

Kay Yu, the game creator of the famous Hololive game, Holocure, criticises the termination notice as unprofessional and aggressive.

I don’t like to comment on things like this because it’s not my place to.

But maaan reading this is infuriating, this whole statement is so aggressive and unprofessional

Go fck yourselves lmaoo

— Kay Yu (@kaynimatic) February 5, 2024

Streamer and friend of Selen, rpr, speaks up on the situation, criticizing Nijisanji’s actions for only caring about their reputation and not caring about the wellbeing of Selen.

Andrew Dice, A senior game editor released a long thread heavily criticizing the termination notice and public relations post of Nijisanji, claiming it as “farcical” and “making mistakes that an undergraduate PR student will catch and correct.”

Okay, I imagine many others are commenting similarly, but aside from everything else, this whole statement is one of the most outrageous things I’ve ever seen a company post, and I’ve been following JP biz in particular for about a quarter-century now.https://t.co/DV9iTaDsJx

— Andrew Dice (@SpaceDrakeCF) February 6, 2024

In addition to this, many artists whom Selen Tatsuki worked with also defended her against the claims that were made in the termination notice, such as:

• Madi said that Selen paid her from her own account after Nijisanji delayed payment for months, despite the notice claiming that it was a miscommunication between Selen and the management.
• Mel claimed that a cosplay and dance video of her and Selen could not be released even until now because Nijisanji has not corrected the details in her NDA, hinting at the incompetence of the company.
• LilyPichu, the creator of the song ‘Last Cup of Coffee’, stated that permission to cover the song was given back in August 2022.

With the community’s overwhelming support towards Selen in the controversy, alongside the various testimonies given by people who worked with her, many fans did not believe the statements of Nijisanji.

The term ‘black company’ was used to describe the company, with it even showing up on the Wikipedia page for black companies at one point.

Dokibird’s side of the story

After being terminated by Nijisanji, Selen Tatsuki returned to her old persona, Dokibird, with her making a statement on the situation on the 5th of February, 2024, saying that she will no longer be silenced.

I will not be silenced anymore. On Dec, I was hospitalized for an attempt that was caused by a built up of bullying from within&being in a toxic&poor environment for numerous months that led to my breaking point. I requested to leave first but on more neutral terms on 26th Jan.

— Doki 🏆 (@dokibird) February 5, 2024

She then had a return stream on 8th February 2024. In the stream, she provided additional context on her side of the story regarding the Nijisanji EN controversy.

Below are some information about the incident revealed in the stream:

• She revealed that she did not know about her termination until Nijisanji posted the Twitter announcement. She also revealed about how she tried to leave Nijisanji on more neutral terms but was denied.
• She never wanted the public to know about the bullying drama and that she can’t legally say anything more in public about it
• Documentation such as therapy sessions and doctor evaluations were kept and she alluded that ‘everyone’ knew why she was in the hospital and the reason behind it.
• During the stream, Dokibird talks about how her suicide attempt was the result of months of build-up and stress that led to a breaking point and that she has medical records and lawyer approved statements about her experience.
• She doesn’t want anyone to be harassed or bullied because she went through that herself. She just wants people to look towards new beginnings for the Lunar New Year and to make people laugh. She’s still the same person and that won’t be taken away from her.

Many fans and streamers have reacted to these statements by Dokibird, with many surprised that she only knew of her termination through the post, and not in person.

Nijisanji EN Responding to the Controversy

On the 13th of February, 2024, several livers from Nijisanji EN, namely Elira Pendora, Vox Akuma, and Ike Eveland would speak on the controversy in a stream after nearly a week of silence,

In the video statement, Elira claimed that what they say on it are their own words and feelings and that she volunteered her channel to be used for this announcement. Everything that was discussed had been approved by their lawyers and were based on their personal experiences.

Nijisanji staff claimed that over the past month, they have received documents from Selen’s lawyer containing examples of her claimed experiences while she was working under ANYCOLOR. The documents included personal information of her co-workers. They noted that some of the information contained within will run the risk of their personal safety such as information regarding where Millie Parfait, Enna Alouette, and Elira Pendora herself lived.

Elira also stated that the documents contained information with harmful claims that they believed to be untrue.

Afterwards, Vox talked about his past experiences working with Selen and talked about her repeated behaviour of not complying with protocol.

Vox also alluded to Selen thinking that management played favorites (with Vox being one) and that she secretly recorded their private conversation talking about it which she used as evidence for her documentation. Vox talked about his experience about how this isn’t the case and that they were equally reprimanded by staff in similar situations.

Ike merely reiterated that the documents shown to them had claims that they thought were untrue and potentially harmful.

All three of them claimed to have been hurt or betrayed by the situation.

CEO of ANYCOLOR.Inc, Riku Tazumi’s Statement on the Situation

A few hours after the stream by the Nijisanji livers, Nijisanji EN released a video on their official YouTube channel, titled ‘Addressing your concerns’, and directly addresses Selen Tatsuki’s termination.

CEO of ANYCOLOR, Riku Tazumi, said the points below in the video:

• Tazumi apologized for using the word ‘negligible’ in the notice in the ANYCOLOR investor relation report, admitting that the wording lacked consideration of the situation, and has caused fans and supporters to feel that the company undervalued the impact of Selen’s termination, or Selen herself
• He also said that Selen was integral to the growth of NijisanjiEN, and the wording on the notice made it seem as if the company does not value the hard work of their livers.
• Tazumi has also mentioned that the company’s actions have caused distress for their livers, as both the company and livers are receiving hurtful messages. He apologizes for the current situation and promises that the company is taking the situation very seriously.
• He then says that new internal systems, such as a better reporting system will be implemented to create an environment where they can better identify and resolve issues more quickly.

Dokibird Responded to Claims in the Videos =

After the Message from Nijisanji EN stream, and the Addressing Your Concerns, Dokibird responded to the videos, stating that the documents are not meant to be shown to any parties outside of her, her lawyer, and other relevant lawyers, insinuating that the company broke NDA and shared the information with livers.

I am currently talking to my lawyer and thankfully only my diagnosis and reason for hospital stay was reported without further private info being disclosed. It was requested that none of this info should be revealed to anyone other than legal. Thank you everyone for the support,…

— Doki 🏆 (@dokibird) February 13, 2024

This promptly caused another huge wave of backlash, as now most people see this as a violation of law, and are calling for lawsuits against Nijisanji EN.

Nijisanji EN later would respond to this with a tweet, claiming that only necessary information was given to the livers, and any information that Selen’s lawyers have specifically stated not to be shared to livers was kept confidential. As such, no confidentiality violations were caused by this.

They further emphasize that because the livers are not held to any confidentiality obligation regarding the information shared with them by AnyColor Inc (NijisanjiEN), there are no legal issues regarding the information shared by the livers in the stream. 

They ended the tweet by emphasizing that after rigorous legal checkings, they can confidently declare that no confidentiality violations were made while checking the validity of claims by Selen, her lawyers, and any affiliated livers.

The Current State of the Controversy

Dokibird made another post on the 14th of February, 2024 , with her wishing that is the last statement she has to make on the situation.

I was ready to move on, I had made my last statement and I haven’t looked at anything regarding my past for a full week. I didn’t look at anything regarding legal documents or anything regarding my situation since I moved back to Doki. I wanted to be hopeful for the future and…

— Doki 🏆 (@dokibird) February 14, 2024

As of right now, both Nijisanji EN and Dokibird have not given any more updates regarding the legal process of the incident, or if any lawsuits have been made.

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