COVER Corp. has announced the termination of hololive VTuber Yozora Mel as of January 16. Her YouTube channel and memberships will be closed by the end of February 2024.
COVER cited violations pertaining to information leakage as the cause of the termination. “It has been confirmed that Yozora Mel has been engaging in acts that violated her contract by leaking information to third parties that she acquired from the company,” COVER said in a statement. “As a result, we have determined that it has become difficult to continue managing and supporting her and have elected to make this decision.”
The Japanese version of the statement also mentions that the decision was mutually agreed upon with Mel. (Update: the English version has been updated to include the words “and, with agreement from the talent.”)
In a message that was posted on her X (formerly Twitter) account by Hololive’s management, Mel said that she deeply regretted her “rash actions” and expressed her apologies. “I had dreams that I wanted to fulfill with you Kapu-min [the nickname for her fanbase]. I’m sorry for being unable to keep my promise,” she said. “However, the memories I have with the Kapu-min and Holomems [Hololive members] aren’t going to disappear. Nor will they be forgotten in the days ahead. I’ll always watch over everyone. I’ll always love everyone. Thank you for everything up until now.”
COVER Corp. CEO YAGOO (Motoaki Tanigo) wrote a tweet thanking Mel, who debuted in May 2018 as a part of hololive’s first generation VTubers, for her hard work over the years. He also thanked fans for the support that they had given.
Mel’s fellow genmates — Aki Rosenthal, Natsuiro Matsuri, Shirakami Fubuki, and Akai Haato — had a brief audio-only stream on Fubuki’s channel concerning Mel’s termination, in which they expressed their sadness and shock about the situation (Fubuki says that they received the news just the night before), as well as their resolve to keep marching on.
Mel has not had any previous public suspensions since joining hololive over 5 years ago.
In the wake of Mel’s termination, COVER said that it intends “to make further efforts into instructing our affiliated talents on compliance matters, so that similar incidents do not happen again in the future.”
This is the first contract termination for a hololive talent since Uruha Rushia in February 2022. Information leakage was also the reason for Rushia’s termination, with COVER saying at the time, “it has been apparent for some time that she has been distributing false information to third parties and has been leaking information, including communications regarding business matters.”
If taking graduations into account, Tsukumo Sana of hololive EN, as well as Magni Dezmond and Noir Vesper of HOLOSTARS English, were the most recent of Cover Corp.’s talent to part ways with the company.
Mel, whose fanbase is known as “Kapu-min,” is the second first generation Hololive member to be terminated, following Hitomi Chris in 2018.
Update: Added mention of Mel’s message.
Source: Cover Corporation