I don't know what exactly is going on over at Animen but I want to assume there's some sort of mess going on right now. I doubt they mean to send out incorrect codes or recycle them but this is everything I know about what's happening with Animen as I've mostly kept up with news on them since September 2020 (which is where my off-putting track record begins sadly).
First off, for those who don't know, Animen is the name of the company which operates the ANiCUTE store and owns the Volor brand of Characters, so I'll be referring to them as Animen for ease.
Starting off back in September of 2020, I had reached out to Animen asking about Muxin and Minus coming to ANiCUTE. They responded to me stating Muxin would be available later that month while Minus still needed confirmation but of course, it's almost been 2 years and they're not on the store.
Link to the email for reference
According to a trusted friend of mine, there were supposedly issues on Quadimension's end. Though with the rest of my observations on the issue, I do have some doubts about that.
Following Eleanor's AI bank announcement Renri's R2 bank was announced to finally be making its way over as well as their new website and "Volor Gold". Volor Gold is essentially the successor to the "VIP" type deal they had when SynthV Studio had launched. The website was supposed to launch back in the summer of last year. Renri was also supposed to be distributed exclusively through Volor Gold membership. Of course, this never happened and we have no idea about the website's current status as well as Volor Gold.
Website information
Volor Gold information
Renri was also supposed to be released prior to September 28th, 2021, but when September 28th came, they had mentioned that she still needed about a week more of work the google form for her had been posted instead leaving those looking forward to Volor Gold wondering what had happened to the new site. Of course, the new date for Renri's release would be October 15th but users had started receiving their downloads and serials early on October 13th. Animen stated users could continue using the form to receive Renri.
Renri original release date
Release delay and google form
As of the last few months, users in my Discord Server, Banana Miku Gang (formerly VocaDeals Market), had been telling me that they had filled out the form but never recieved copies of Renri. I'm not sure when it started but it seems to be an ongoing issue.
I do not know the agreements made with VirVox, but based on the past incident with the GENBU AI crowdfund, it seems there was a miscommunication on what rights VirVox had, though we do not know enough to really say if the miscommunication is the fault of VirVox or Animen.
This one is probably not related, but ANRI seems to have stopped being sold on ANiCUTE as well. I do not know when she sold out on ANiCUTE nor if this was on purpose by Animen or Audiologie or if Animen just hasn't restocked serial codes but she's been taken off the site as a whole.
Now
THE BIG ONE, Eleanor's Box. I think we all know that no one has received their box. This situation has become frustrating and many have started asking for refunds. Animen has handled this situation VERY unprofessionally. We know that they did ship out copies of ANRI's box based on the last email update buyers were given on February 22, 2022. Animen disclosed that due to COVID outbreak restrictions and issues with the postage they hadn't been able to ship anything out and would give us an update on their shipping plans in March or April of 2022. At my time of writing this, it is 1:50am on May 31, 2022, and no further updates have been given to those of us who had purchased Eleanor's box. This has become inexcusable.
While I can't say for sure what is going on with Animen, especially with the issues with receiving purchases something is horribly amiss with Animen. I hope things begin to look up soon, but from an outside perspective, Animen has been struggling with deadlines, failing to communicate with customers, and exhibiting a lot of unprofessionalism. We love the products they offer, we love Eleanor, Renri, AiKO, and GENBU, and we want to see more from them, but it feels like there's a huge amount of disorganization occurring.
It's frustrating now and we all need answers.
EDIT: Quickly tacking on, they're definitely not scammers of any sort. It is just how they are handling things over these last few years that is concerning. They're not ill-intended actions I assure you, though like I said, there seems to be an extreme amount of disorganization and unprofessionalism. This is just my open criticism and observations at the end of the day. I have personally never experienced an issue with purchasing from ANiCUTE aside from the difficulty I and many others are having with their Eleanor Box.
