The average sub count on Holo EN2 as of today, three and half weeks after their debut, lies at 262K.
By comparison HoloMyth had 417K in the same time. That's 60% more subs.
Even if you count out Gura, an obvious outlier, you get 344K.
Overall this is the opposite of what I, and probably many of us expected: numbers that would explode in the first few weeks. So what happened?
There's the obvious sub culling by Susantube. Some anti-bots algorythm must've been triggered. EN2 seems to be slowly recovering from that but it seems the damage has been done.
But the re-growth isn't quite as the same pace as the EN1's. Could it be that the chosen five of EN2 are just not as appealing?
I think there's a certain market saturation taking place as well. Nijisanshi might've been expecting this and where quick to release a 2nd round of talent.
The Holobrand is HUGE and we're seen how basically everyone wins since Holofans are prone to sub (even if pity-sub) most of the Holomems. This doesn't quite seem to be happening for EN2 tho as their numbers would rise much higher. I think this might be due to oversaturation. Holofans have already enough content/oshis and are thinking to themselves ''I'll check the new kids on the block later, when I got time''.
Another thought I came up when I saw the 1 year anniversary of HoloMyth. I just thought to myself... damn, the talent scout from Hololive is a fucking genius, he got 5 huge talents here that, given time, really developed into stars. Really thought, props to the talent department.
So.. are Myth outshining Council so hard because they are really that talented and had a one-year headstart to solidify themselves among the Vtuber community?
As far as judging EN2.. I've only seen a few streams and clips but I don't think any of them are inheritly ''bad''. This is where I want to start a discussion and get to the bottom of why the numbers aren't there yet.
Personaly I like the models and personalities of all 5 more than Irys and she got an easy half a million. I suppose that's due to the timing and being released alone.
Overall, this is just numberfagging though, as the other set of numbers, nanmely, the cash these girls are getting and the live viewership is pretty healthy.
You really can't compare myth and council. Myth debuted on the time where vtuber is at its peak hype and not to mention they are the "first" EN branch of hololive. Obviously meme and personality helps boost myth aswell.
I don't think council is not as talented as well or less entertaining.
I think it's two major factors that are at play here to explain the difference. FIrst, it's basically as SmugPeko said. Myth came in at a 'perfect storm' and trying to replicate that is going to be impossible. The giant surge of Gura, while not transmitting 100% to gains on the rest of Myth did allow for significantly more trickle down for the rest of the team that premiered at the same time.
And secondly, there is just way too much algorithm fuckery going on with Council. Very specifically with Sana.
Here's the sub number by day chart for all of Council as well as IRyS. As you can see, Susan took Council behind the woodshed multiple times. However, Sana got hit the hardest, and also has never had the recovery numbers that the rest of Council has had despite their growth being basically the same shape.
The easiest point of comparison for Sana is going to be Bae, because they're both Aussie but Bae has expected growth vs Sana. Here's a look at the last bunch of their streams.
In that time periods Sana had 643K views, and Bae had 693K views. Sana is also streaming live right now, so her numbers are basically in the same ballpark. In that time period, Sana has received $10,253 in superchats, and Bae has gotten $3,648. Sana tends to stream during much more friendly US/America hours (USA evenings/mornings), whereas Bae streams a much more JP/Europe friendly schedule (generally dead of night/super early morning for USA). So Sana has a much more 'English' friendly schedule, and is earning more as well. Sana is also receiving more 'likes' on her stream VODs as well.
So Sana has simliar views, more likes, a more superchats, more friendly schedule, and hasn't done anything like stream a major debuff game or taken a long break (yet).
Yea, sure, she has an accent. But it's not like it's so thick people can't understand her. Bae and her are the same in that aspect. Though I think both of them could stand to get a new computer/crisper microphone to make that situation much less important.
So what's left? Really, I hate to say it, but I alluded to it earlier. I'm genuinely curious if Sana's 'Gyaru' design is fucking her in the algorithm. Although the Gyaru thing is absolutely a normal subculture/fashion sense in Japanese society, the algorithm is absolutely based around American sensibilities. Especially Silicon Valley super liberal ones. I'm worried the system has somehow flagged her design as, like, a racial caricature or something and is actively working against recommending her as much as the rest of her gen mates.
And it might get even worse after next week. She mentioned it in some of her streams, but she's getting the 2nd vaccine shot in a few days. She's taking a small medical break because she's anticipating a really bad reaction to receiving it. So now we have a fresh talent taking a minor break. Here's hoping Susan doesn't fuck her even worse.
It's not even her first month. Give her some time. She already put a stop to all those horny request and been trying to tard-wrangling her chat when they get spammy at least. Have to say I like her meme game though. Have nothing against it. Her smooth voice saying stupid meme is funny on its own.
It really doesn't help either that Kronii has A) a really damn dark sense of humor that she probably has to keep tampered down to not offend the normies, and B) most of the time has a super deadpan joke/delivery style like Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg. It leads to a lot of her dumb meme humor sounding like ironic pandering, when in fact she's just a giant fucking dork.
R quitting on watching vtubers because I still feel lonely and I can never be able to be invested on them due to slow delivery of quality content