This is gonna be a long one so I won’t waste time. Recently I covered the news of Hololive’s newest and first Vtuber group that speaks English while streaming. I had actually been learning more about Vtubers and their growing popularity before that but that article wasn’t the place to cover as many aspects as I wanted to. Instead, the time is now. So, what’s the deal with Vtubers?
It all started when this girl British/Japanese girl called Ami Yamato had the idea to vlog as some sort of animated humanesque model. This was in 2011 and nobody even knew what to call it back then. The model had no resemblance to anime and instead was similar to what an asian girl would like in a low budget Pixar movie. Years passed until finally someone had the idea to make the model have more anime characteristics and push the concept further in 2016. As you probably could have guessed, that someone was Kizuna Ai who is credited with really creating the term “Vtuber” and popularizing it. And when you popularize something, more people want to hop in on the bandwagon.
Yeah, I see why this didn't take off as much.
After Kizuna Ai started popping off, everybody wanted a piece of the cake. After all, becoming a Vtuber doesn’t have a high barrier for entry. You simply need a model, software and equipment to capture your motions and expressions, and good enough Internet to stream. Apart from things like the quality of the model, it quickly became apparent that the only major difference between one Vtuber and another would be their personality and commentary. Nobody wants to spend hours sorting through hundreds of Vtubers to find a funny one, or one good at singing. Then some business-minded people had the idea “dude, if we control the best ones, group them together, and market them to people, we’d all get tons of fucking clout!”and so they did. Vtuber groups like the aforementioned Hololive were formed by companies and auditioned tons of Vtubers to find ones they thought would stand out and should be signed into their group. Over time their plan worked and now multiple generations of Vtubers have debuted from Hololive and similar organizations such as Nijisanji. It’s kinda gotten to the point like game studios in America. Oh shit, another CD Projekt Red game? I gotta hit that up. Oh shit, another idol from Hololive? I gotta check them out.
Listen that has nothing to do with our current discussion...
Originally, the plan was to make a bunch of super idols that could sing, play games, interact with fans and do all that bubbly shit on stream. The founder of Hololive’s parent company, Cover Corp, is Motoaki Tanigo (commonly called YAGOO) and his twitter reads “We will provide the most advanced virtual entertainment experience from Japan.” And for a while they did. Tokino Sora was the first Hololive idol and she basically did everything YAGOO dreamed of. Singing is a big part of her content and she has wanted to perform at Yokohama Arena since her debut. She was pretty prim and proper and even starred in a TV show. Over time though, future idols decided to… take an alternative approach to their image.
As more degenerates like Matsuri emerged, YAGOO’s dream was chipped away one small piece at a time to the point where it has become a meme in the community. Oddly enough though, I suspect this is why Hololive has gained so much popularity in America this past year. Over here we like our virtual stars to be memers. All of the top YouTubers I can think of make fun of themselves, shit on each other, and are in general not anywhere near what someone would think of as an “idol”. Most of them are just people being people and I think the image transition from soft, proper, idol-like girls to regular wackos has played a big role in getting overseas people to pay attention to Vtubers. Though that’s not to say the new members don’t whip out some banging music every now and then to remind viewers that they still bring some idol qualities to the table.
All I'm saying is the pee clip was from March.
Recently, people in other industries, like doujins, have even joined the Vtuber train. Doujin artist Mizuryu Kei started a Vtuber channel two months ago and often draws on stream. It’s fucking crazy to me and I wonder if any other lewd artists will try out the Vtuber approach as I do see artists doing a lot of regular streams while working these days to interact with their fans. The future really is now.
And there you have it. You’re now entirely caught up on the Vtuber scene. This industry has exploded recently and I can’t help it, I’m getting sucked in. I don’t have time to watch their live streams or anything, but the little three minute highlight videos people make? They’re like crack cocaine. I pray you never fall into the hole brothers and sisters. It’s fucking dark down here. Do you watch any Vtubers? Do you think they’ll continue to grow? Grab a model, practice your singing, and leave a considerate, proper, idol-like comment below!
