Azur Lane Collabs With an Obscure VTuber, Gets Roasted for 2 Days Straight, Then Grovels and Cancels Everything

Azur Lane's official announcement of a cancelled VTuber collab has set the NGA forums on fire. It's been only two days since players launched their coordinated backlash — and Yellow Chicken (黄鸡, the community's affectionate nickname for developer Manjuu) has already buckled.

The whole fiasco started when Azur Lane announced a collaboration with a VTuber (virtual streamer, or 'skin suit person' / 皮套人 in Chinese gaming slang). The problem? Virtually nobody in the player base had heard of this VTuber. The top-voted comment in the thread hit the nail on the head: 'Why are we collabing with a VTuber nobody even knows?' In the Chinese gacha community, collabing with VTubers is widely seen as a red flag — there's a well-known saying: 'Getting close to VTuber dogs (皮套狗) only brings misfortune.'

After two straight days of relentless backlash, Manjuu finally caved and scrapped the collab. But players weren't exactly showering them with praise. A highly upvoted comment sarcastically noted: 'They got roasted for about two days — not bad speed, I guess.' The tone was clear: this time, the groveling was too slow. Manjuu is famous in the community for what players call 'short-track speed skating' (短道速滑) — a metaphor for how lightning-fast they usually are at apologizing and backpedaling. But this time, even that reputation took a hit. Another comment pointed out: 'The grovel was slower this time, otherwise it wouldn't have blown up this much.'

As for why the drama escalated so quickly, one player dropped a surprisingly insightful 'enemy situation analysis': 'Originally the situation was under control, but then the VTuber's actual persona (亲妈, literally 'birth mother' — slang for the real person behind the avatar) stirred things up even more, the whole defensive line collapsed, and even Manjuu couldn't withstand the second wave of assault.' Another player added: 'After the VTuber issued their own apology, most of the heat redirected to Manjuu for still playing dead.' In other words, the VTuber and their management didn't just fail to put out the fire — they poured gasoline on it and redirected the flames straight at Azur Lane's developers.

While celebrating the collab cancellation, players made sure to deliver a stern warning. One top comment read: 'Learn your lesson. Stop doing random crazy stunts. Players used to shield you, but they also have leverage on you now.' Another was even more blunt: 'If you don't sacrifice whoever came up with this idea, it'll happen again.' It's clear that while the grovel succeeded, significant trust has been eroded.

Some players wrapped things up with a backhanded compliment that perfectly captures the community's feelings: 'Manjuu's only redeeming quality is knowing when to kneel.' The whole ordeal was described as 'enough to teach Xi Xi Zhong Xue (a meme for learning lessons the hard way) for a lifetime' — essentially calling it a textbook case of how to tank your own goodwill with a single collab. And credit where it's due, as one commenter quipped: 'We really owe it all to that talentless, zero-EQ bottom-tier VTuber for accelerating the whole thing.'

As of this writing, Azur Lane has officially cancelled the VTuber collaboration, but details on compensation or follow-up handling remain unclear. This 'two-day speedrun grovel' saga will likely continue to be chewed over in the community for quite some time.