What’s the Deal With Vtubers?
The Spanish data company Stream Hatchet recently released their list of the top female streamers of 2020, but there’s one problem:
One of these streamers technically doesn’t exist.
Fourth place went to Usada Pekora, part of the biggest trend of 2020: the rise of the vtuber.
So, what is a vtuber? That’s a complicated question. To really understand, we have to make Moses mad for a second and talk about idols.
Idols, are some of the most popular performers in Eastern Asia. They’re about the same as any other celebrity, but more honest about how manufactured their fame is. It’s somewhere between American Idol and a theater company. People come in and audition. If they’re accepted, they’re trained to sing and dance and look perfect for the public. Most idols appear primarily on television and in their music videos, only occasionally performing live concerts. They’re meant to have a kind of mysticism to them, always spotless and perfect and above even the average celebrity. Being an idol is more than being an entertainer. Being an idol is being a 24/7 perfect role model every second you’re in the public eye.
AKB48 wanted to change that. The idol group was made and managed by producer Yasushi Akimoto. Akimoto held auditions and organized 24 girls into teams. They would set themselves apart by having daily concerts at their theater in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, a cultural hub for Japan. They made themselves into “idols you can meet”, hoping that frequent interactions would make dedicated long-term fans. The result was wildly successful. In 2012, their sales from records and show DVDs alone topped $226 million.
As AKB48 was growing in popularity, a new kind of idol was about to take the stage. In November of 2016, the very first video was uploaded to A.I. Channel on YouTube.
Kizuna Ai was something entirely new. Unlike real idols, nobody knew what company was behind her or who had cast her. Unlike virtual idols such as Hatsune Miku, her voice was an actual person, not synthesized. She wasn’t fully real or fully digital. What was she?
And with that, all hell broke loose.
Within ten months, she amassed over two million subscribers, and became a culture ambassador of the Japan National Tourism Organization, being featured prominently in their “Come to Japan” ad campaign.
Virtual youtubers, or vtubers, as they came to be known, popped up everywhere. Kizuna led the charge as their followers grew into the hundreds of thousands. The number of active vtubers doubled almost overnight. Talent agencies like Nijisanji sprouted up to organize these aspiring idols, offering them networks and artists to make their 2D avatars for them. Among all this creative chaos, one man stood poised to bring the craze to a new level.
Phase 0: Sora
I’m so excited to meet you!
Motoaki Tanigo, or “Yagoo”(pronounced yah-go), as he came to be known, was a serial entrepreneur. He founded and sold several tech and advertising companies before founding Cover Corp, a company initially focused on producing AR and VR content. Yagoo had previously developed video game characters with Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty. Seeing this huge boom in digital entertainers, Yagoo was hit with inspiration. He thought their AR tech could make the AKB48 of vtubers: digital idols you could meet. And so, on September 7, 2017, Cover debuted their first vtuber: Tokino Sora.
Seems familiar.
Despite the obvious… similarities between Sora and Kizuna, Cover was determined to establish their space in the industry. On December 21st, they debuted their app, simply called hololive, which allowed users to view Sora’s livestreams in AR. An update in April 2018 removed AR functionality, but gave users the ability to try being a vtuber themselves. Using their camera, people with the app could track their facial movements onto a 2D avatar. Hololive started auditions through the app, bringing in the talent that would redefine not just the company, but the entire industry.
Phase 1: Fubuki
Skibidibidobabadeboom! Ba-badeboom!
On December 6th of 2018, hololive, by then managing 15 streamers, announced the formation of hololive Gamers, a group of idols who would specialize in gaming livestreams. The group launched with new streamer Ookami Mio, along with Shirakami Fubuki, who had been working with hololive for 6 months. While she had started out with the usual nerves of a debut idol, Fubuki quickly showed herself as something… different.
Yagoo has stated in interviews that rather than a factory that wants to create vtubers, hololive is a place that supports individuals that want to be vtubers. Fubuki was the first vtuber to capture Yagoo’s dream. She was energetic and authentic. She was a workaholic who didn’t take a break from her debut in 2018 until December of 2020. Moreover, she was dedicated to supporting and building her community. Just about every one of her coworkers has a story about Fubuki coming in to fix some computer issue or provide some much-needed art asset. She was a strong personality that developed a passionate fanbase, people who really supported her. Fubuki took full advantage of that, letting her personality shine through in one of the most infamous clips in vtuber history:
This went viral worldwide in a way uncharacteristic of vtubers up to that point, causing ripples company wide. Vtubers weren’t just an imitation of the idols in real life anymore. Fubuki opened the floor, and everyone else was going to take it.
Phase 2: Miko
Wee, aa, wee, aa FAQU!!
Sakura Miko debuted on August 1 of 2018 as a very average vtuber. She began as arguably another simple cute anime girl who wanted to be an idol. Aside from her design and theming as a shrine maiden, there wasn’t really a lot to set her apart from the crowd. That is, until Hololive Gamers began and she transformed from Sakura into Elite Miko.
Elite Miko was a different beast entirely. She got angry playing games. She swore. A lot. She was a lot like your little sister who was barely getting into games and getting mad when she didn’t win. The fans loved it. The idea of a cute anime girl running people over with her car on the streets of Los Santos had a very particular appeal to it. Slowly, streams like Miko’s began to define the hololive brand. Gone was the prim and proper perfection of their real life counterparts. These idols swore, they made gross jokes, they even got drunk on stream sometimes. Every day, they became less and less idols and more and more entertainers in their own right.
Famous clips from streamers like Fubuki, Miko, and Korone began circulating everywhere Japanese content was consumed. Everywhere you looked, more and more people were falling down the rabbit hole. However, there was still one big factor preventing hololive from truly blossoming in a way that no other company had: they still only spoke Japanese. A small group of dedicated fans were consistently translating and uploading their favorite clips from long streams, but there was still hours and hours of content left unreachable for the English speaking audience. That is until everything: all the memes, all the gamer rage, all the poorly translated English… it all culminated in one vtuber, the most important of all: Kiryu Coco.
Phase 3: Coco
Good morning motherf***ers!
In December of 2019, hololive was ready to debut their fourth “generation”, or group of new vtubers. There was some good talent: a singing sheep, an angel in training, a candy princess, and a demon. But the dragon Kiryu Coco took off like nobody before her.
She became one of the fastest growing vtubers in the company’s history. Within two weeks, her YouTube channel amassed over 100,000 subscribers. Less than four months later, she hit 300,000. However, her own channel pales in comparison to the larger movement she brought about: Coco cemented the hololive brand in the western world.
Kiryu Coco is bilingual. She speaks English so fluently, some fans believe Japanese is her second language. During streams, she switches back and forth between the two languages both rapidly and naturally. This new accessibility brought a flood of new fans. People who had been watching nothing but translated clips could finally listen in and participate in livestreams. They latched on to her. They loved her, enough to make her the #1 donation recipient of all time on YouTube.
Rather than promote herself, Coco drove them all towards her daily show, AsaCoco News, where she gave updates and featured all the other vtubers. Because of her, their audiences grew as well, and hololive became more established among English speaking circles. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be writing this today.
Phase 4: Gura
a
Coco’s success opened hololive’s eyes. There were now billions more in their potential audience. Yagoo had a golden opportunity, and he was about to take it.
In September of 2019, Hololive debuted their first all-English vtubers. Almost immediately, they had another Coco on their hands. Gawr Gura, a shark who arrived late to her own debut and only said “a”, was far and away the fan favorite.
Within a day, she reached 100,000 subscribers. In just over a month, she became the first hololive streamer ever to hit 1,000,000. On January 17, she hit 2,000,000, and now sits poised to overtake the original vtuber herself, Kizuna Ai.
And that takes us to the present. Vtubers have become a staple of certain internet circles, and their influence is hard to deny. They’ve come a long way from the perfect idols they were based on, but that’s definitely for the better. They offer a unique experience not like anything else online. They’re more than streamers, more than idols, and more than just anime girls playing games. They are vtubers.
