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VTubers

The Culture and Business

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VTubers: The Culture and Business

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What Is a VTuber?

“VTuber” = “Virtual YouTuber”

YouTube, Twitch, etc.
Usually live

VTubers use virtual avatars for streaming

La+ Darkness

(Hololive)

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What do VTubers Do?

The same things that IRL streamers do!
Gaming
Chatting
Singing
Cooking
…

Kitakoji Hisui

(Nijisanji)

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Characters!

Physical traits

“The ___ VTuber”

Personality traits
Backstory

Kazama Iroha

(Hololive)

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Anonymity

No face shown → Keep your identity a secret^*

^*Established creators are often recognized
^*Twitch, YouTube/AdSense, etc. need a real identity for taxes

Projekt Melody

(VShojo)

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First “VTubers”

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Primitive Vlogging VTuber

Yamato (2011)

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Early VTubers

Kizuna AI

(2016)

Tokino Sora

(2017)

So just a brief history of how VTubers started, people have been using avatars of different forms for pretty much as long as video’s been around, but one of the first VTubers in the modern sense was Kizuna Ai, or Kizuna A.I., who started in November 2016. Her channel was originally managed by a company called Activ8, she’s been a relatively independent VTuber in the sense that she’s not part of a company that also manages other VTubers, but she definitely had some commercial backing from Japanese companies. She actually went on an indefinite hiatus after an online concert in 2022, but her channel’s actually had some videos uploaded as recently as this year, so she’s still around. And as of last month, she had 993 prerecorded videos uploaded as well as 112 live stream archives, and she’s approaching 500 million cumulative views, so she’s definitely made a lot of content and reached a lot of people.

So about 90% of her content was prerecorded uploads, and a lot of Kizuna Ai’s content was actually more like a vlogger than a live-streamer. She kind of started when the technology for using 3D avatars was just becoming possible to use at a small scale, and she explored what you can do with a virtual avatar in augmented reality videos kind of interacting with the real world.

Another early-ish VTuber is Tokino Sora, this was the founding member of a Japanese company called Hololive, which is now one of the largest VTuber companies in existence. She debuted in September 2017, so almost a year after Kizuna Ai. And similar to Kizuna, Sora also started out doing sort of more general vlogging content, videos talking to viewers, talking about her life, answering questions, etc. Hololive as a whole has kind of moved towards gaming as the industry’s figured out what content is quickest, cheapest, and easiest to make, and Sora did eventually move that way as well. Last month, she had 174 pre-recorded uploads and 652 live stream archives.

So Kizuna Ai was the first big virtual YouTuber in the sense of that word, and then Sora brought that over to live-streaming where you have spontaneity and audience interaction. Streaming can still take a lot of planning when it comes to setting up the equipment for these avatars and preparing what you’re going to do, but it changes the workflow a bit since you don’t have to worry about editing, post-production effects, or things like that; it’s probably why the term “VTuber” kind of means live streamers by default today.

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The Big Two

So like I said, Tokino Sora was the first idol in a group called Hololive, which is owned by a Japanese company called Cover Corporation. Hololive has 75 active member, plus a couple that have left over the years, and the VTuber with the most YouTube subscribers in the world, named Gawr Gura, is part of Hololive’s English branch. Only 10 of their members are English, they also have nine Indonesian talents, and the rest are Japanese.

Now the other “big name” in VTubers today is called Nijisanji. And this logo on the right actually spells Nijisanji in Japanese hiragana. “Niji” is Japanese for “rainbow,” and the umbrella company managing Nijisanji is called Anycolor. Nijisanji’s first generation of talents debuted in February 2018, so about half a year after Sora from Hololive. Today, they have 179 talents, they go for a little more quantity than Hololive, and Nijisanji holds a VTuber called Kuzuha, who’s the most-subscribed male VTuber in the world.

And sort of related to that, Cover Corporation actually has another subunit called Holostars, which is sort of a male branch of Hololive. So Hololive is technically all girls, and Holostars is all guys, but they do interact sometimes and they both appear in promotional materials together. Nijisanji also splits up the male and female groups a little bit (when they debut a group of VTubers together, it’s either all female characters or all male characters), but they just put them all under the single Nijisanji name.

There’s a pretty recent sort of “family photo” of each company on the bottom half of the slide there, it shows how many talents they have.

Now both of these companies are huge. With all of the talents combined, Hololive has over 70 million YouTube subscribers and Nijisanji has over 60 million, so Hololive is ahead by a tiny bit. I live here in the states, and I’ve heard that Nijisanji is actually the more popular company in Japan, but Hololive is more popular with international audiences, so that might be why they’re ahead.

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Stocks

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Other Companies

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Defunct VTuber Companies

Defunct companies (shown here)
Defunct branches/subsidiaries

The first WESTERN vtuber company was Tsunderia (first talent debuted in June 2020).

Even though they worked well with their talent (ie. letting all of their members keep the rights to the characters once they shut down), they suffered from low funds, general mismanagement in terms of business (an online store that didn’t work, stock issues at conventions, etc.) as well as talent relation shortcomings with the talents having literally no managers at one point (managers control the behind the scene stuff to let the streamers stream without worrying about anything else like making thumbnails or finding out which games are allowed to be played), and losing talent due to poaching and leaving.

Hololive CN (closed due to political issues causing problems for the rest of the company/branches.)

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“Indie” VTubers

@CowboyKiwami

@RissTV

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Popular Indies

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How does it work?

Regular streaming:

Streaming as a VTuber:

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How does it work?

Source: Rokoko

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Live2D Cubism

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VTube Studio

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VUP (VirtualUP)

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Wakaru

3tene

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Tech Demo: Live2D w/ VTube Studio

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What’s Next for VTubers?

AR → Bringing VTubers Into the Real World
VR → Bringing Viewers Into the VTubers’ World
Concerts, expos, IRL events
Appearance in mainstream TV & music
Brand deals & advertising

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Augmented Reality and VTubers

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Virtual Reality and VTubers

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VTuber Fandom Terminologies

Oshi 推し (short for oshimen = oshi member): Your favorite VTuber.
TSKR (short for tasukaru たすかる): Thanks for the “help.”
Kusa 草: lololol → looks like grass → 草 (see also: www).
Mama*: Artist who designed/drew the VTuber’s model.
Papa*: Rigger who set up the VTuber model’s movement.
Teetee: Slang for toutoi 尊い, means “precious” (innocent/cute).
Zatsudan 雑談: Free talk, unscripted (lit. “crude conversation.”)
Kaigai Niki 海外ニキ: “Overseas Bro.”
AkaSupa: Red (aka 赤) superchats, $100+ in USD.
Anti: Toxic hater.

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