It’s been three weeks now since Mizuryu Kei, rumored artist of the manga attached to the Hololive Alternative multimedia project, cut all ties with Cover Corp in the midst of a Twitter temper tantrum. He has since rescinded those comments, but the damage appeared to be already done: Cover confirmed as much in a recent statement, addressing the Hololive Alternative controversy and Mizuryu Kei’s departure from the project in a vague but important way.
First of all, Cover confirmed that there was, indeed, a manga attached to the Hololive Alternative project that the company and the chosen artist had been negotiating ‘for a long time.’ However, due to ‘various circumstances,’ it was ‘reluctantly decided’ that the project would be abandoned. The company apologized to all the fans that were looking forward to the manga and promised that ‘suitable compensation’ would be paid to the artist.
Cover’s statement doesn’t actually confirm that Mizuryu Kei was the one behind the Hololive Alternative manga, but he has since retweeted it and put out a statement of his own that only strengthens the connection. In it, he says that ‘since an apology has already been put out from the other side… I will refrain from saying anything more than what is contained in that statement.’ Mizuryu’s statement is actually more about a bilibili stream that was carried out at around the same time as his tweets in his name, which spread false information and rumors.
Mizuryu explained that ‘My bilibili channel was run from the beginning entirely by volunteers and was not meant to be official… Things that seemed to be true were spread, including details of my conflict with the company and seditious attacks on various VTubers, even though they had absolutely no basis in reality.’ The stream suggested, among other things, that he was prevented from producing a Hololive doujinshi after signing a contract with Cover and that he had requested a bigger profit share from future Hololive Alternative projects after seeing the reception to the animated PV.
With the statements from both Cover and Mizuryu in hand, it appears as if this Hololive Alternative manga controversy can finally be put to bed. Particularly encouraging is Cover’s commitment to compensating the artist, which isn’t officially confirmed to be Mizuruyu Kei; nevertheless, it’s pretty obvious.
The real question, however, is where the Hololive Alternative project is supposed to go from here. As mentioned in the original article, the initial fallout surrounding the controversy was particularly incendiary, as the manga was just about the only concrete thing attached to the Hololive Alternative project, with everything else up in the air. Was it a game? An anime? Just a music video? Who knows, but it’s definitely no longer a manga… that’s for sure.