GBF Announces Back-to-Back Collabs with Hololive AND My Hero Academia — Chinese Players Lose It Over 'Corpse Collab' Double Tap

Cygames dropped two 'nukes' at the Granblue Fantasy (GBF) FES event — collabs with Hololive AND My Hero Academia. In the Chinese community, both IPs are basically 'corpse-tier' forbidden. The moment the news hit, NGA's comment section went full fireworks mode.

Let's start with Hololive — back in 2020, the vtuber agency got effectively 'socially executed' in China after Hololive talents mentioned Taiwan on stream. Discussions around the topic remain extremely sensitive to this day. Then there's My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero) — the manga faced a massive backlash in China over a character whose name allegedly referenced Unit 731, Japan's infamous WWII biological warfare division. Two collabs, announced consecutively — players called it 'precision landmine-hitting' and questioned whether it was deliberate.

The most popular phrase in the comments? '忠孝两难全' (zhōng xiào liǎng nán quán) — a classical idiom meaning 'torn between loyalty and filial piety.' Here it's used sarcastically: CN players are caught between not wanting to support toxic IPs and not being able to let go of their years-old game accounts. Others rubbed salt in the wound: 'Can you do that thing again? — CN players are the second-largest market,' mocking Cygames for paying lip service to the Chinese market while stomping on its sore spots back to back.

The peanut gallery was out in full force too: 'Rushing over to laugh at you first' and 'Don't forget to buy after you're done raging — cyber indulgence tickets (赛博赎罪券) go on sale tonight.' Some players went nuclear, calling to 'stir up drama and make sure Relink flops hard on the mainland' — redirecting their fury at the upcoming GBF spinoff title that hasn't even launched yet.

A veteran who already quit showed up to share the full emotional arc: 'Good game → getting scummy → not wanting to spend anymore → rage quit,' and warned newcomers to learn how to properly value their accounts. Meanwhile, players who are still hanging on got roasted as 'high-purity crystals' (高纯度结晶) — the gaming community's term for hopelessly loyal players who won't leave no matter what. As one commenter put it: 'The devs saw through you ages ago — crystals don't quit.'

Internet sleuths also dug into GBF's dev team drama, pointing out the 'six-letter' meme about producers KMR and FKHR ('six letters because there's no M' — a dig at a former producer). Someone even questioned whether GBF even has a Chinese language option, implying CN players have been 'hard-chewing' raw Japanese for years, which makes their continued loyalty even more absurd.

Bottom line: on one hand, 'back-to-back landmine hits — CH (the China team) sure knows how to pick collabs.' On the other, 'don't forget to play after you're done raging' — the classic resigned copium. Cygames pulled off a masterclass in 'how to precision-target your second-biggest market with maximum collateral damage.' As for Relink's fate on the mainland... it'll have to survive the court of public opinion first.