What Happened to the Kagerou Project? The History of Vocaloid's Largest Multi-Media Franchise
31The Kagerou Project was once the largest and only multi-media franchise stemming from vocaloid, yet it has seemingly disappeared from otaku culture in the modern day.
Mekakucity Actors was once one of my favorite anime and a simple question: Where did it go? Spiraled into a multi-week investigation down the rabbit hole.
A few thoughts that couldn't make the video:
Summering may have been planned or considered to be a kagepro song if its the "summer-ish" song Jin mentions in the 2024 Livestream. https://x.com/rei_rei_suruyo/status/1824101817057497417?s=46
Jin also stated, again, that he wants to continue Kagepro in the 2024 Livestream, so his tweet Mekakucity Completed most likely does not mean he's given up.
The phrasing of the tweet was also quite interesting, why Mekakucity and not Kagepro? And is it intentional, to differentiate the two? Maybe some more hardcore Jin fans could better guess why.
I don't think there's many details out there on how First Place handled the copyright issues, but correct me if I'm wrong.
I assume there probably was some discussion going on until the end of 2021-2022, before things fell through.
Children Record reboot may have been a catalyst since it most likely did violate the trademark while copyright issues were ongoing. The fact that there's no physical release does suggest a lot though.
Jin also hasn't really spoken negatively about First Place at all afaik, despite all this going down.
To play devil's advocate a bit, First Place did seem to foot a lot of the bill for some pretty insane early growth and most likely Kagerou Daze no 9's production before Jin left. To First Place, it may seem like Jin used their money to get big and famous and leave for the better terms when the chance arose.
That being said, IA most likely would not be as big as she is now, if it weren't for Jin, and their company wouldn't be as big if it weren't for the Kagerou Project.
So what happens now?
Tbh, with both Jin and Shidu out of 1st Place now though, there's really nothing they can do with the trademark. Unfortunately, hype around kagepro has long since died down, so they also won't get much attention for not doing anything with it.
It really depends on the people at the top and how much they're invested into this. Their options are to A. Work out a deal, B. Sell the rights, C. Continue holding out of spite, or unlikely D. Just let the trademark go.
C would be the worst case, but could be challenged by Jin and Arch if the trademark isn't used. But how likely Jin is to do that, I don't know.
D will most likely not come to pass until the trademark naturally expires in 2028. Over a decade since the announcement of reload. If First place had any intentions of just letting the series go, the copyright issues would not have dragged on for so long.
A bit disorganized for now, but simply just some of my thoughts.
0:00 Overview
1:37 The Beginning
4:18 Rise to Fame
9:57 Stardom
17:33 Reload
22:16 Disappearance
27:20 Conclusion & Thoughts
Translation screenshot credits:
https://x0401x.tumblr.com/
#kagepro #kagerouproject #カゲロウデイズの日