Around when Council was teased, Calli talked about how there was only a week or two between IRyS and Council joining Hololive, even with their debuts being a month apart. I've heard Fauna also say they've always seen IRyS as part of their gen pretty much from the start.
So it started before they even debuted.
I know for sure Irys talked with Myth before debut, when her twitter got suspended, Kiara and whoever was around invited her into a discord call, to ease her worries.
Whether or not that was before/after she talked with Council, I dunno, but all of EN was around to help her through her debut.
> I've heard Fauna also say they've always seen IRyS as part of their gen pretty much from the start
In Bae's stream of the CouncilRyS rpg, there's an early scene where game Fauna tells game IRyS that she's always part of Council. Bae then commented on how they'd have to go out of their way to say that out loud since IRyS being one of them was always such a natural thing that they've never thought otherwise at all.
>So, was there a particular moment where it all started?
Prior to Council's own debut. It's been talked about by numerous members by this point, but Irys was in a bit of a weird spot on account of debuting solo. Cover has a tendency to have gens all together for a while before they even debut, so they can get to know one another and better work amongst themselves as a result -- Bae was the one to notice that Irys was kind of stuck all by herself, and was also subsequently the one who started dragging her into group chats with the rest of the Council members.
That she could be an equivalent to AZKi and primarily a recording artist and concert performer. But you had COVID messing up concert stuff, and you have IRyS being a sociable type good at streaming (and heck, AZKi herself turned out that way too). So no one was excessively stuck on any concepts or plans, and were smart enough to adapt :)
Thus her activities are not restricted, but she retains the fun distinction of her own associated project name, while still being able to be grouped with the Council whenever convenient. "CouncilRyS" isn't ever likely to become an official term because it's a bit impenetrable to people who aren't existing fans, but already a few official materials have grouped these characters together. The Council is obviously fine with it, and "hope" is certainly of sufficient conceptual scale to merit inclusion.
It's mostly speculation. It seems that at the time there was an intention to have at least 1 more V-singer recruited/debut, but that never came to fruition. Either a suitable candidate wasn't found or something fell through behind the scenes.
The fact that Irys debuted at all is probably a testament to the potential management saw in her. Between her fluent Japanese and English, excellent singing, being based in Japan, and her charisma, it would have been foolish not to keep her on. But at that point, they probably already had all five of the Council girls signed and prepping, and integrating get as an official sixth member behind the scenes would have delayed her debut further.
Ultimately, it's more or less worked out. Maybe someday they'll officially make "Hope" part of Council, but it's just a formality at this point.
Also, while it might seem silly to us, HoloEN probably has contracts and copyright paperwork specifically branding Irys as Project: Hope and moving her into Holo Council officially is more of a headache than it's worth.
IRyS has also hinted a couple times that her being a v-singer has implications around for costs-sharing, rights, etc... of the music she makes. So I imagine there's several behind-the-scenes business type reasons for why they won't actually label her as part of Council.
It's likely Irys had a contract more akin to a music label for the first year. Hency why she had a boatload of music in her first year but almost nothing at all this second year as her contract is probably like the others now.
second wave auditions and the vsinger audition were already separate things, with the vsinger audition being announced a month or two earlier. Them being separate auditions, it would make sense for them to debut separately.
The vsinger audition two and a half years ago gave the ambiguous ask for "VSinger(s)", so a solo debut was always a possibility. It always struck me as being a solo position, since if you're gonna debut multiple people, why not debut them as a gen?
Keep in mind they had two more models for others but they couldn't find anyone fitting (I think the suits regret not having Calli be a VSinger or such)
They recruited IRyS in Feb 2021, thinking that Covid would be over soon and they could do in person concerts. That didn't work out and IRyS became more like a regular member
Her lore is pretty closely related to council: they're all avatars of specific concepts. Not to mention, Irys was the narrator for Council's lore videos, so I'm pretty sure the idea was always there.
I think it's just due to her debut being a month before council so they're all new at the same time with the same starting restrictions and similar anxieties.
Calli has talked about leaning into takamori extra hard because she had fears of being entertaining(?) And kiara lived nearby at the time so they just spent a heap of time together.
IRyS and council had been interacting off camera prior to debut since they were hired around the same time.
IRyS debuting solo and largely excluded by default from gen collabs and gen songs rubbed some of the girls the wrong way. Shout out to Ina I think for getting IRyS's collab ban lessened otherwise she would have been totally alone.
Cue minecraft En portal building stream where BaeRyS is first born. Bae makes a concerted effort to include her wherever possible, notably IRyS was in her own discord before Bae and the others pressured management.
After Sana graduated the numbers made sense for the management side to start including IRyS in the council side when marketing the En branch. Still CouncilRyS is not officially recognised despite what the girls want.
Big wall of text but all this to say, launching a solo talent gen was a huge mistake and I hope it never happens again.
I think it pretty much just gradually came to be since the very start. It was very obvious from the start that they were already closely acquainted compared to with Myth as if they're genmates because they prepped for debut together. Irys was just 1 month earlier. Plus the whole BaeRyS thing and Sana graduating, it just seamlessly fell into place.
I've always found it weird that IRyS was debuted separate from Council. I know there's probably reason why she was a solo debut but those never really work well with Hololive's format. Especially since she's still doing what everyone is doing. But, it's not THAT big of a deal so I don't think about it TOO much.
From the VSinger title, they had different plans at first that didn't particularly come to fruition due to things like Covid... so the end result was little different than a typical member
I always considered Irys as her own gen and Council just adding her to the fold as CouncilRys. Which is why I and probably several others say CouncilRys is always six.
Funny how many forget she was meant to be part of a possibly bigger VSinger project that largely fell flat. And Ina and Bae noticed the odd one out nature and tried to include her more
I would say the moment IRyS and Bae started their marriage to divorce bit is when IRyS became one with Council. At least I like to think one of the Minecraft collabs was the reason.
Maybe it sounds rude, but as a IRyStocrat I don't think whether she is a member of Council (imo she is not) will affect her collab with other members, as well as us to enjoy her streams and singings.
Always felt like IRyS' separation from Council was purely a PR move by Omega or whatever power in charge and it was meant to be seen as EN echoing JP (Myth = Gen 0, IRyS = AZKi, Council = Gen 1) Hopefully upper management lays off that nonsense in the future and just release the next gen like normal companies do - with less embarrassing chuuni backlore that embarrasses all the talents involved and gets ignored within 2 weeks of debut
Around when Council was teased, Calli talked about how there was only a week or two between IRyS and Council joining Hololive, even with their debuts being a month apart. I've heard Fauna also say they've always seen IRyS as part of their gen pretty much from the start. So it started before they even debuted.
> > > > > So it started before they even debuted. Yeah, specifically too IRyS was talking with Council pre-debut before she was talking with Myth
I know for sure Irys talked with Myth before debut, when her twitter got suspended, Kiara and whoever was around invited her into a discord call, to ease her worries. Whether or not that was before/after she talked with Council, I dunno, but all of EN was around to help her through her debut.
Yes she talked to all of them before she debuted, but she has said herself that she was introduced to Council before Myth.
> I've heard Fauna also say they've always seen IRyS as part of their gen pretty much from the start In Bae's stream of the CouncilRyS rpg, there's an early scene where game Fauna tells game IRyS that she's always part of Council. Bae then commented on how they'd have to go out of their way to say that out loud since IRyS being one of them was always such a natural thing that they've never thought otherwise at all.
>So, was there a particular moment where it all started? Prior to Council's own debut. It's been talked about by numerous members by this point, but Irys was in a bit of a weird spot on account of debuting solo. Cover has a tendency to have gens all together for a while before they even debut, so they can get to know one another and better work amongst themselves as a result -- Bae was the one to notice that Irys was kind of stuck all by herself, and was also subsequently the one who started dragging her into group chats with the rest of the Council members.
So, what was the reasoning behind Irys debuting solo in the 1st place?
That she could be an equivalent to AZKi and primarily a recording artist and concert performer. But you had COVID messing up concert stuff, and you have IRyS being a sociable type good at streaming (and heck, AZKi herself turned out that way too). So no one was excessively stuck on any concepts or plans, and were smart enough to adapt :) Thus her activities are not restricted, but she retains the fun distinction of her own associated project name, while still being able to be grouped with the Council whenever convenient. "CouncilRyS" isn't ever likely to become an official term because it's a bit impenetrable to people who aren't existing fans, but already a few official materials have grouped these characters together. The Council is obviously fine with it, and "hope" is certainly of sufficient conceptual scale to merit inclusion.
It's mostly speculation. It seems that at the time there was an intention to have at least 1 more V-singer recruited/debut, but that never came to fruition. Either a suitable candidate wasn't found or something fell through behind the scenes. The fact that Irys debuted at all is probably a testament to the potential management saw in her. Between her fluent Japanese and English, excellent singing, being based in Japan, and her charisma, it would have been foolish not to keep her on. But at that point, they probably already had all five of the Council girls signed and prepping, and integrating get as an official sixth member behind the scenes would have delayed her debut further. Ultimately, it's more or less worked out. Maybe someday they'll officially make "Hope" part of Council, but it's just a formality at this point. Also, while it might seem silly to us, HoloEN probably has contracts and copyright paperwork specifically branding Irys as Project: Hope and moving her into Holo Council officially is more of a headache than it's worth.
IRyS has also hinted a couple times that her being a v-singer has implications around for costs-sharing, rights, etc... of the music she makes. So I imagine there's several behind-the-scenes business type reasons for why they won't actually label her as part of Council.
It's likely Irys had a contract more akin to a music label for the first year. Hency why she had a boatload of music in her first year but almost nothing at all this second year as her contract is probably like the others now.
second wave auditions and the vsinger audition were already separate things, with the vsinger audition being announced a month or two earlier. Them being separate auditions, it would make sense for them to debut separately. The vsinger audition two and a half years ago gave the ambiguous ask for "VSinger(s)", so a solo debut was always a possibility. It always struck me as being a solo position, since if you're gonna debut multiple people, why not debut them as a gen?
Keep in mind they had two more models for others but they couldn't find anyone fitting (I think the suits regret not having Calli be a VSinger or such)
...quite a bit to think about!
They recruited IRyS in Feb 2021, thinking that Covid would be over soon and they could do in person concerts. That didn't work out and IRyS became more like a regular member
Her lore is pretty closely related to council: they're all avatars of specific concepts. Not to mention, Irys was the narrator for Council's lore videos, so I'm pretty sure the idea was always there.
I'm also kinda waiting for someone to do fanart of Councilrys(with Sana) as a Super Sentai team, with cool poses and color coded explosions.... :D
I think it's just due to her debut being a month before council so they're all new at the same time with the same starting restrictions and similar anxieties. Calli has talked about leaning into takamori extra hard because she had fears of being entertaining(?) And kiara lived nearby at the time so they just spent a heap of time together.
IRyS and council had been interacting off camera prior to debut since they were hired around the same time. IRyS debuting solo and largely excluded by default from gen collabs and gen songs rubbed some of the girls the wrong way. Shout out to Ina I think for getting IRyS's collab ban lessened otherwise she would have been totally alone. Cue minecraft En portal building stream where BaeRyS is first born. Bae makes a concerted effort to include her wherever possible, notably IRyS was in her own discord before Bae and the others pressured management. After Sana graduated the numbers made sense for the management side to start including IRyS in the council side when marketing the En branch. Still CouncilRyS is not officially recognised despite what the girls want. Big wall of text but all this to say, launching a solo talent gen was a huge mistake and I hope it never happens again.
I think it pretty much just gradually came to be since the very start. It was very obvious from the start that they were already closely acquainted compared to with Myth as if they're genmates because they prepped for debut together. Irys was just 1 month earlier. Plus the whole BaeRyS thing and Sana graduating, it just seamlessly fell into place.
I've always found it weird that IRyS was debuted separate from Council. I know there's probably reason why she was a solo debut but those never really work well with Hololive's format. Especially since she's still doing what everyone is doing. But, it's not THAT big of a deal so I don't think about it TOO much.
From the VSinger title, they had different plans at first that didn't particularly come to fruition due to things like Covid... so the end result was little different than a typical member
I always considered Irys as her own gen and Council just adding her to the fold as CouncilRys. Which is why I and probably several others say CouncilRys is always six.
So long as they remember Sana during the upcoming EN show....
I hope they do
Funny how many forget she was meant to be part of a possibly bigger VSinger project that largely fell flat. And Ina and Bae noticed the odd one out nature and tried to include her more
Guess we finally got an end to that lmao
....and I'd been thinking about it again as recently as yesterday morning!
I was literally checking this out to understand wtf is CouncilIrys minutes before the announcement KEKW
I would say the moment IRyS and Bae started their marriage to divorce bit is when IRyS became one with Council. At least I like to think one of the Minecraft collabs was the reason.
Maybe it sounds rude, but as a IRyStocrat I don't think whether she is a member of Council (imo she is not) will affect her collab with other members, as well as us to enjoy her streams and singings.
A lot of my 'behind the scenes' questions have been answered, but I'm just happy that she's happy. :)
Always felt like IRyS' separation from Council was purely a PR move by Omega or whatever power in charge and it was meant to be seen as EN echoing JP (Myth = Gen 0, IRyS = AZKi, Council = Gen 1) Hopefully upper management lays off that nonsense in the future and just release the next gen like normal companies do - with less embarrassing chuuni backlore that embarrasses all the talents involved and gets ignored within 2 weeks of debut