Translator’s note: This is a straightforward article from J-Cast detailing the circumstances around Lulu’s retirement and how fans have reacted and how much she made from Superchats during her last stream. I’ve added some links and images for flare. This won’t be my last Lulu-related translation, as there’s more news and a few interviews featuring her in the 2020-2021 Nijisanji Archives.
Virtual YouTuber Suzuhara Lulu retired on June 30th 2021. During her final stream on YouTube, she earned over 1 million yen in superchats.
As for why she was retiring, she revealed that it “hurt me to trouble my listeners” while dealing with harassment from malicious listeners and that she “hated the idea of doing things half-heartedly.”
“I’d received a letter of challenge”
Suzuhara Lulu was a virtual YouTuber who belonged to the major virtual liver group Nijisanji. She started streaming in May of 2019 with the profile “a second year in college who attends a women’s university. She started streaming to make up for her ignorance of the world.”
Though loved by fans for, among other things, the “indomitable spirit” she showed during long streaming sessions, she announced during a stream on June 24th 2021 that she’d be ending her activities at the end of the month.
Her last stream, entitled “[Final stream] This has been Nijisanji’s! Suzuhara Lulu! Thank you…!! [Suzuhara Lulu / Nijisanji],” had been played over 2 million times by 6 pm the following day.
According to the website Playboard, where you can see ranked statistics about YouTube channels, the total amount of Superchats from in and outside of Japan during this two hour stream was 10,642,853 yen [around $96,000 US].
During the stream, Suzuhara-san mentioned why she was retiring. While prefacing it by saying there wasn’t just one motive, she gave a specific reason by reflecting on her past troubles, saying “I’d gone to the demon police about the letter of challenge, and they’d dealt with it, but…”
Though she used vague expressions like “letter of challenge” and “demon police,” Suzuhara-san had been suffering harassment from malicious listeners.
“…it would be nice to take a new path”
Suzuhara-san temporarily suspended her activities in March.
While she similarly played things down during her stream on March 28th by saying she’d received a “message from someone who seemed like they wanted to duel,” she revealed that she’d suffered harassment that had set the police in action.
In addition to this, during her final stream on June 30th, she reported that while the “letter of challenge” had been resolved through police intervention, there’d been several incidents on the anonymous messaging service Marshmallow and “some direct ones.”
She revealed that having to repeatedly cope with the harm from each of these incidents was having an effect on her activities, and that she “hated the idea of doing things half-heartedly.” According to her this was her biggest reason for retirement.
And while she acknowledged that she could have chosen to change the way she did her streams, “I couldn’t stand the idea of worrying everyone.” She also revealed her feeling that, by “not being able to do the things I’d wanted and planned to do,” the “feeling of regret had grown heavier and heavier.”
“I’m already laughing at the ridiculous amount of superchats”
Regarding what she’d be doing in the future, she took a positive view of her retirement, saying, “I’d like to do what I can right now, and it would be nice to take a new path after parting ways with everyone.”
The chat was filled with people feeling bad for Suzuhara-san’s retirement, saying:
“Hearing why you’re leaving made me really depressed”
“It’s really painful to hear you’re retiring because of this even though you’ve still got the energy for it”
“There are so many people watching, this must be how much people love you”
“I’m just praying for whatever you do in your life after this”
Eyes are also on the more than 1 million yen in Superchats she made during her last stream. Most of these had messages of thanks and sadness at her leaving, and there were people on Twitter saying “I’m already laughing at the ridiculous amount of Superchats” and “if you open up Suzuhara Lulu’s stream a lifetime’s worth of Superchats come flying out.”
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