Sayu Okami releases statement following Zaion LanZa NIJISANJI termination
Following controversial statements and other cited breaches of contract, VTuber Zaion LanZa was terminated from NIJISANJI. Sayu Okami has just released a statement with more details.
VTuber Zaion LanZa was terminated from her agency, NIJISANJI, back in March. This was the first time the company had delivered such a strict punishment, and it followed an indefinite suspension initially enacted in January. Fans of the streamer and other online personalities alike were shocked.
NIJISANJI had listed multiple reasons for Zaion’s suspension and then termination, citing everything from copyright infringement to repeatedly made offensive remarks. Months have passed since the drama was first set ablaze by NIJISANJI’s public statements, but the situation seems to be far from resolved.
Sayu Okami, a fellow VTuber who has thus far been inactive online, took to Twitter today on May 6 with a 22-page document discussing Zaion’s experiences while working with NIJISANJI as well as the reasoning given behind her termination.
Sayu Okami posts statement about Zaion LanZa’s termination
The first important thing to note about Sayu Okami is that many fans believe that she may in fact be Zaion LanZa. Sayu has been inactive in the VTubing scene for a good while now, leading viewers to think that she had started working as Zaion for NIJISANJI.
Whether or not this is the case has not yet been confirmed, and will likely remain up until Sayu confirms or denies it directly. Regardless, Sayu posted and pinned a Twitlonger link about Zaion’s situation, prefacing by saying the latter VTuber had struggled with mental illness.
She responded to each allegation dropped by NIJISANJI in Zaion’s termination, taking time to refute some of them. For instance, she claimed that the false sponsorship claim cited by NIJISANJI was in reference to a joke Zaion made about her “Dee’s Nuts” stream assets.
For some of the other claims made by NIJISANJI, Sayu offered an explanation for the actions she was being accused of before her termination. When replying to the allegations about offensive remarks, one of which included liking a Tweet defaming other VTubers, Sayu stated that Zaion had “strongly tried to emphasize” it had been an accident rather than an intentional jab.
Sayu also claimed that Zaion had “begged” for NIJISANJI to “consider a more professional approach to future commentary between the two sides” ahead of the termination, only for NIJISANJI to refuse according to Sayu.
Both Sayu and Zaion stressed that they thought NIJISANJI’s members themselves were not the issue. Writing on the other streamers within the agency, she said, “They were incredibly kind, considerate, and immediately included us and made us feel like one of them.”
However, despite her kind words for other NIJISANJI members, Zaion expressed that she wasn’t content with how she felt while she was with the company. “I feel that I need to say that during my time there, I felt trapped, felt like a failure, and did not feel like staff cared about me as a person (or for my own creative style), as the managers I was forced to work with did not show an effort to understand me beyond the surface of our work relationship.”
NIJISANJI has not yet responded to Sayu or Zaion’s statements on the matter, and have shared no further information on the VTuber’s termination aside from their initial announcement back on March 10. Fans are currently split, with some on Zaion’s side and others still uncomfortable with the allegations made against her.
