Breaking into the online entertainment world requires immense mental strength, but some stories exceed all expectations. Independent VTuber Hinata Sharu surprised the community by revealing in detail the long journey she endured before working solo: she failed a total of 19 auditions with the industry’s top agencies before permanently abandoning corporate contracts.

Far from hiding her failures, the content creator shared the exact breakdown of the rejections she received during her multiple attempts. Her audition record includes being rejected six times by Hololive, four times by Nijisanji, three times by VSPO!, twice by Neo-Porte, twice by Aogiri High School, once by Shinso-gumi, and once by Uo Musume. After accumulating this series of rejections from the most prominent companies in the field, she concluded that persisting with that approach was no longer the right path for her.

Instead of giving up, she made the firm decision to close that chapter and focus all her energy on working entirely independently. As she explained, reaching those 19 failed attempts was the breaking point where she decided to stop sending applications to corporations and fully commit to her solo activities. Surprisingly, despite the long list of rejections, she admitted that she currently enjoys her routine as an autonomous creator immensely.

Behind her current live-streaming persona lies a rather peculiar personal history. The young woman shared that she only completed secondary education, has dropped out of studies twice, and has accumulated over six firings from conventional jobs throughout her working life. Curiously, before this streak of failed auditions, she had already worked as a corporate streamer for three different agencies, though all those contractual relationships ended, returning her to her independent status.

Her economic reality at the time of revealing this story was equally precarious, as she confessed having only 548 yen in her bank account and no other job outside her streams. Despite the financial limitations and past setbacks, she does not interpret the 19 rejections as a definitive failure, but as the milestone that gave her absolute clarity about her future. Today, she prefers to focus on creating content under her own terms and connecting directly with her audience.

Given how competitive the virtual industry has become in recent years, do you think the talent and perseverance of an independent creator can compete with the massive promotional push a major agency offers?