V&U, a Vtuber agency, posted that it terminated its contract with one of its livers, Amano Serafi of Solstice. According to V&U Official, this is because Serafi broke her contract.
In the statement, V&U stated that Serafi told the company on February 28, 2024 that she wanted to break her contract and refused direct communication. She would communicate with the agency through her lawyer. V&U explained that it never made this public because it wanted to continue working with Serafi. However, “the recent events have been damaging to the other talents currently working with V&U,” and so it terminated its association with her. Serafi’s membership closed after the announcement and V&U is working to refund Super Chats and YouTube membership fees that Serafi received since December 2023.
Reactions to this announcement have been very negative. People noted that V&U should have chosen to focus on supporting new talents rather than trying to “go after” Amano. The reason behind the negativity seems to stem from a Reddit post in which Serafi stated she graduated from V&U in late February 2024 due to mental health issues. After her birthday stream, she had to take a week off to recover mentally, during which time her managers talked to her. She mentioned that she did not feel like her managers were supporting her or giving her analytics during their weekly meetings, and wanted to graduate peacefully and early. Management then asked her for over $100,000 in order to leave early.
Serafi’s Twitter has been inactive since early February 2024. Many people have been comparing this situation to recent fumbles Anycolor made at Nijisanji. Some have even commented that it’s precisely because of the extreme backlash Nijisanji EN got over its handling of Selen Tatsuki’s termination, as well as the negative reactions to a “leaked” contract from the company, that V&U decided to make this announcement.
As of March 20, 2024, Amano Serafi is officially no longer part of V&U. V&U will refund all memberships and Super Chats that people sent in or paid since December 2023.
