A planned collaboration between top VTuber and illustrator Shigure Ui (しぐれうい) and Japanese children’s apparel brand mezzo piano has been canceled after Shigure Ui said threats suggesting violence had been made against her and others involved in the project, according to a September 17 announcement.
The tie-in, unveiled on September 15 by Shigure Ui’s talent agency coly, was set to include a line of merchandise and a pop-up shop celebrating what the agency called a “dream collaboration” between the VTuber and the junior apparel brand, owned by Narumiya International.
The announcement quickly drew criticism on X (formerly Twitter), where some users argued the pairing was inappropriate given Shigure Ui’s association with “Sacred!! Loli-God Requiem” (“粛聖!! ロリ神レクイエム☆”), a song built around exaggerated “loli” (childlike-girl) aesthetics that became one of her signature hits. Critics noted that Shigure Ui had reportedly selected the mezzo piano pieces shown in the collaboration’s promotional artwork herself, which they said reinforced an uncomfortable overlap between the song’s imagery and an actual children’s clothing line.
Among the more widely shared reactions was a thread from a self-described longtime mezzo piano customer posting as “Donko,” who said the collaboration left her personally upset. She later clarified repeatedly that she had never called for the event to be canceled, accused Shigure Ui of any wrongdoing, or encouraged attacks on anyone involved — she said she was only sharing her own complicated feelings as a former customer of the brand.
On September 17, coly announced the collaboration’s cancellation, and Shigure Ui addressed the decision directly on X. “We received a range of opinions, and there were also threats suggesting violence against those involved, including myself,” she wrote, adding that the event was called off out of concern for everyone’s safety and apologizing to fans who had been looking forward to attending.
Following her post, discussion online turned to a message that commenters said appeared to match the threat Shigure Ui described, which had reportedly surfaced on Sukikirai.com, a Japanese site where users anonymously post complaints and rumors about individuals. Several users pointed out that Japanese courts have historically granted identity-disclosure requests against the site relatively easily, and noted that it was designated this year as a “large-scale specific telecommunications service provider” under Japan’s revised Act on the Provision of Information by Providers — a law intended to speed up the removal of, and accountability for, harmful anonymous posts on major platforms.
Many commenters said responsibility for the cancellation rested entirely with whoever made the threat, with several urging Shigure Ui and coly to pursue legal action so that, as one user put it, people don’t learn that “threatening violence is all it takes to kill a collaboration you don’t like.”
Who is Shigure Ui?
Shigure Ui is a Japanese illustrator and one of the best-known individual, agency-independent VTubers, having built a large YouTube following since her debut. She is widely recognized for her distinctive character art and for “Sacred!! Loli-God Requiem,” a song and music video that became a viral hit and helped define her online persona. She has since branched into merchandise and brand collaborations built around her illustration work.
Author’s Comment
Let’s be clear about what happened here: somebody didn’t like a fashion collab, so they threatened violence, and now a pop-up shop is dead. That’s not ‘consumer feedback,’ that’s a crime, and I don’t care how uncomfortable the branding felt to you. I get why people raised eyebrows — pairing a song built on loli imagery with an actual children’s clothing line was always going to invite scrutiny, and plenty of critics, including the customer who started this whole conversation, made that point without threatening anyone. But there’s a world of difference between saying ‘this made me sad’ and sending a message that gets an event shut down for safety reasons, and Japan’s internet loves to blur that line. If the trail really does lead back to one of those anonymous gripe sites, I hope coly drags it into the light — because right now the only lesson being taught is that a threat works better than an argument.
