I Fell Down the VTuber Rabbit Hole in Kamuro-cho
Up until just a few weeks ago, I never would have expected myself to have any interest in idols. I didn’t particularly care about AKB48, iM@S, Love Live, Bandori, K-Pop trends, or anything of the sort. I also never thought I’d end up in the VTuber Vortex™. After all, I survived all of 2020 without getting hooked on a single VTuber. Despite this, here I am in 2021, completely fine with divulging a portion of my paycheck to VTuber idols.
The Early Days
I was never one to refuse to watch VTubers for the fact that they were virtual; in fact, I was fairly early to hop on the trend in 2016. I remember finding one of Kizuna AI’s first videos through Reddit and subscribing to her channel when she still had a 5-digit subscriber count. I thought her content was cute, but not something I’d follow long term since she only posted short videos. At the time, the Japanese streaming community was still largely on Nico Nico Douga instead of YouTube. NND is a bit of a nightmare to navigate if you’re not used to it, and HD video quality is behind a paywall. Eventually, I unsubscribed from Kizuna AI and largely looked away from VTubers in general. I knew that Kizuna AI had become a big name, and there was another VTuber, Kaguya Luna, who had reached similar levels of success.
When I visited Japan in December 2019, I was aware that VTubers were becoming less niche and rapidly growing a huge cult following, with Kizuna AI releasing music singles online with composed by big names like Taku Inoue. I had some friends who were closely following the existing top VTubers, but I didn’t know any specifics other than that they existed, and that their existence was big enough that niche shops were able to get by on selling only VTuber-related merch.
2020 Came and Went, but No Dice
Come 2020. Come pandemic. Come lockdown. I was no stranger to Japanese YouTube at this point as I was regularly listening to seiyuu radio shows and occasionally stopping by some streams of musicians I recognize, so I was more or less warmed up to the type of content that VTubers produce. I started seeing VTubers on social media significantly more as they became increasingly mainstream. In particular, I started seeing clips of Inugami Korone on Twitter on a semi-regular basis, and kept hearing about how much joy Korone would bring into her viewers’ lives even through the language barrier.
More and more people in various social circles around me started falling into the VTuber Vortex™ after the debut of Hololive English, but somehow, I still wasn’t hooked. I watched Amelia Watson’s debut Valorant stream for a bit. I watched Gawr Gura’s legendary “a” on her debut stream, and even enjoyed her first singing stream where she performed Ride on Time. I was even a pre-existing fan of kokorobeats, the composer of Mori Calliope’s debut song, “Excuse Me, But Could You Please RIP?”. The prerequisites for me getting hooked on VTubers were all in place, but something was missing. There were three distinct reasons that I think prevented me from being able to get into VTubers when everyone else did:
- Live2D models gave me a bit of an “uncanny valley” feeling, so watching the movements of VTuber avatars freaked me out a little bit and gave me what felt like a bit of motion sickness. This has faded with time, but I still get it with some VTubers who I still haven’t been able to watch.
- Almost none of my friends speak Japanese, and as a result, are only able to access translated content or English-language content. Since VTubers mainly produce long-running stream content instead of short videos, translations mainly come in the form of clips. It’s extremely hard to get a feel for a streamer’s personality through only clips, as clips tend to show a streamer in a moment of huge excitement, or saying something outlandish. I remember in 2020, a friend sent me a clip of Houshou Marine’s infamous “I’m horny” line, but I didn’t think anything of it. Marine is one of my favorite streamers now because of her uncanny ability to keep her commentary and monologues interesting, but just from the “horny” clip, I wasn’t able to grasp any of what made Marine great (but she really do be horny tho).
- Most importantly, I needed an “in” to the world of VTubers. I am of the belief that if you don’t find one VTuber that gets you hooked, you cannot fall into the rabbit hole. Once you have that “in”, one follow will quickly turn into ten, and ten into a hundred.
Enter Kamuro-cho
January 2021. At some point over the past year, the sheer amount of Korone love on the internet had spread to me via osmosis, so I occasionally watched and enjoyed Korone’s streams, but I didn’t (and still don’t) go back and watch her archives, nor did I consider myself a VTuber fan quite yet.
The pandemic continued, and I missed travelling and going outside. One night in January, I got an incredibly strong urge to go walk or drive through a city at night, but didn’t really want to go outside for obvious reasons. I had also completed Sleeping Dogs twice, so I didn’t want to boot up Sleeping Dogs for a third time. Looking through my Steam library, I found a copy of Yakuza 0 that I had been meaning to play for quite a while, so I figured it would scratch the Sleeping Dogs itch despite the lack of night driving. Unbeknownst to me, this was my first step into the VTuber rabbit hole.
Reader, do you believe in foreshadowing in real life? Sometimes you find some wild examples of seemingly unrelated events that ended up being connected. Who would have known that playing this game would lead me down a path to where I am paying hundreds for concert tickets and waking up at/staying up until 5AM to watch VTuber idol concerts? Life truly is strange sometimes.
I finished Yakuza 0 in about a week, thoroughly enjoying it. I also had Yakuza Kiwami in my Steam library, so I finished that as well, though it left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth since a lot of the gameplay felt dated as it was a remake of an old game. I didn’t own Yakuza Kiwami 2, and I didn’t really want to buy it either because beating up random street thugs was getting kind of old. I started watching a few cutscenes of Kiwami 2 on YouTube since I wanted to at least know the events of the next game, and by some crazy coincidence, the YouTube algorithm lead me to finally find my “in”.
Sakura Miko: The Point of No Return
Right as I was looking for cutscenes or streams of Kiwami 2, Sakura Miko began her playthrough of the game. My first time seeing Miko was actually about a week earlier, when a friend sent me Takanashi Kiara’s interview with Miko. For better or for worse, my introduction to Miko wasn’t the infamous GTA clip (I’m not linking it). My initial impression of Miko was lukewarm as she has a very childlike voice, earning her the nickname “Elite Baby” from fans, but it wasn’t long before I was charmed by her sense of humor and interaction with the stream chat. Miko is quite fond of her viewers and will let her chat poke fun at her within reasonable boundaries and she’ll roll with the punches and crack jokes back, resulting in a great time for all. I came to like her voice pretty quickly as I started associating it with more laughs and good times as I followed her Kiwami 2 playthrough.
Another reason Miko was able to act as my “in” was because instead of using a Live2D model that would have otherwise given me the uncanny valley feeling, she only uses a 3D model for her avatar. On top of that, she has one of the most expressive faces among VTubers as a whole, which made it very easy for me to become attached to her stream and her reactions to games and comments. I later came to find out that just one month before I started watching her, she got a 3D model update which vastly improved the quality of her facial expressions. I’m not a huge fan of her old model when looking through her pre-2021 videos, so things really just lined up perfectly for Miko to become my gateway VTuber.
The above is a clip from Miko’s birthday this year, when her fans reached out on Cameo to Ned Luke, the voice actor of Michael from GTAV (Miko’s favorite game). I come back and watch this video whenever I need a pick-me-up because I can literally feel her happiness radiating through the screen. Miko is still my go-to streamer when I want to watch someone play a story-based game.
As I mentioned before, once I had the “in” via Miko, one follow quickly turned into many. As I was now warmed up to VTuber content, I quickly became hooked on Gawr Gura even though I hadn’t been before, though it also helped that Gura was streaming Terraria, one of my favorites. From there, I started watching Ninomae Ina’nis, another member of HoloEN, who provides a niche for people looking for a more laid-back stream.
Miko held a multiple-hour-long karaoke stream as she approached 900K subscribers on YouTube. During this stream, I joined her channel membership since I wanted to wave penlights in the chat and support her stream. This was the point of no return. Once I clicked that Join button, more and more memberships would follow.
Between Miko, Gura, and Ina, I became more interested in VTuber singing streams, which signaled the beginning of the end for my wallet. The idols were now coming for me. Since I had bought multiple 6-month subscriptions on Twitch during Subtember 2020, all expiring in March 2021, I was planning on joining Korone, Gura, and Ina’s memberships in that order once the funds from Twitch freed up.
Hoshimachi Suisei: The Point of No Escape
Hoshimachi Suisei cut the line to my wallet, becoming my second VTuber membership in no time flat. One day in early March, I stumbled upon one of her singing streams, linked above. When stumbling upon a new streamer’s karaoke stream, my first course of action is to look through the timestamps to see if any songs I like are in the setlist. I clicked on the timestamp for Suisei’s karaoke performance of Kaikai Kitan, the first opening to Jujutsu Kaisen. As soon as she started singing, I was pleasantly surprised by her voice. I poked through her channel a bit more, and “Wow, she’s really good” turned into “Oh FUCK, she’s REALLY good” in a matter of minutes.
3 days after discovering Suisei, I came across this old acapella stream which made me realize just how powerful her voice was. She covered infamously difficult songs one after another, each sending chills down my spine. Her vocal range is absurd, capable of a deep voice for covering songs originally performed by male artists as well as hitting high notes when covering artists like Utada Hikaru, all while maintaining what some of her colleagues call the “air cannon effect”, which describes the phenomenon of feeling as though one is being physically blown back by Suisei’s singing voice.
I knew what had to be done and I joined her membership even before my Twitch subscriptions expired.
Each Suisei stream sold me on her more and more, every single one shoving me deeper into the rabbit hole. I could spout praise about Hoshimachi Suisei basically all day at this point so I’m just going to link some highlights. She has a fantastic sense of humor, and uncanny impressions of other VTubers and famous anime characters. She is quite strong at Tetris and capable of holding her own against top players. She famously cancelled her salon appointment on stream so she could continue fighting Sans during her Undertale run. She has original ideas for streams that combine her singing and gaming sides, such as playing Ring Fit while singing. The list really goes on, but the most inspiring part is her come up story, a tale of a struggling content creator who overcame heartbreak after heartbreak before finally reaching success. Suisei is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, my number one favorite singer, virtual or otherwise.
Further Down the Rabbit Hole
After Miko and Suisei opened the floodgates, the slippery slope became that much more precarious, especially as YouTube would start suggesting me more and more clips of other streamers that I would come to enjoy.
The above is a sorted list of the Hololive VTubers I currently follow and watch at least semi-regularly. I’ll go through them one by one in order, listing what made me a fan of each stream, and a recommended stream archive if I have one.
Hoshimachi Suisei
The GOAT. When she uploads a singing stream or concert, watching it becomes priority 0 when I wake up the next morning. Unfortunately, I am usually asleep while she streams so I rarely catch them live, but if she has a big concert, I’m absolutely down to pull an all nighter or wake up early to catch them live since her unofficial fan Discord pops off during concerts. Her other streams mostly fall into the next priority tier, where I’ll try to watch them when I can, especially as they tend to be under an hour. Sometimes I do skip them (most notably, I tend to skip her Smash streams because uh… let’s just say it’s way more satisfying to watch her play Tetris). I am incredibly fond of her degenerate gamer side, but as soon as she stands on stage, she turns into a real idol with one of the most powerful singing voices I have ever heard.
Sakura Miko
Miko has a reputation for streaming a lot, to the point that a lot of Miko fans are under the impression that she’s either streaming or sleeping at any given time. I’m fairly certain she’s on some kind of übermensch regime or something because she often streams late into the night (until 3–4 AM JST/11AM-12PM PT), and starts tweeting again around 8AM JST. This is just a testament to how dedicated Miko is to streaming, and to maintain that level of stream quality and chat interaction day after day is a feat to behold. It literally doesn’t matter that she’s infamously bad at most action game mechanics, as she always finds a way to make it fun to watch. There was a week recently when she was unable to stream, and it was only then that I realized how important Miko streams had become to my daily routine.
Houshou Marine
It’s now strange to me that I didn’t get into Marine’s streams earlier considering that I can listen to her talk for hours on end without getting bored. She’s one of the largest presences in Hololive, so most people who end up in the Hololive rabbit hole will end up at Marine’s stream eventually. There were two factors that got me to warm up to Marine despite the mediocre first impression off the “horny” clip mentioned earlier, and those were:
- She is a veteran Touhou fan, and a few of her original songs were composed by IOSYS, an old Touhou music group that I listened to a lot back in the day. She even has a full Touhou collab album, which I plan on buying as soon as I can put in a bulk order. Having an old fandom in common made me feel a bit “closer” (not sure what word to use here lol) to Marine and warmed me up to her.
- I kept on gaining respect for her as I heard more about her from others. Another streamer mentioned that Marine had hired a private English tutor so she could communicate with her English-speaking viewers, which made me realize that this was a person who took her job very seriously. Another thing that I heard from other Hololive members about Marine is that she acts exactly the same in real life as she does on stream, and I can’t help but be fond of streamers who are true to themselves on stream. Sometimes, she talks about more serious topics on stream and her advice always seems to be backed by life experience, which makes it very easy for me to look up to her. There’s a running joke about her age since she’s supposed to be eternally 17 (since VTubers are semi-fictional characters), but her extensive knowledge of late 90s/early 00s anime and internet culture and stories about corporate work experience suggest otherwise.
Shirakami Fubuki
Every now and then on the internet, you meet a “god gamer” who has the Midas touch for every game they play. Shirakami Fubuki is like that, but extending beyond just games. An extremely multitalented individual, Fubuki boasts extensive knowledge of most major aspects of nerd culture, a great singing voice and a high degree of control over her speaking voice which suggests acting experience. On top of this, Fubuki is not at all afraid of learning difficult techniques in any game she plays, and has streamed Undertale speedruns just days after her first clear of the game, ending up somewhere in the middle of the leaderboards in the newest patch category.
While her default voice is a cutesy high pitched voice, she can play an evil alter ego, imitate a yukkuri (old text to speech program à la Microsoft Sam) voice even while singing, and do impressions of Monster Hunter creatures, among many others. Fubuki is one of the biggest streamers in Hololive, so any Hololive fans are bound to run into her via YouTube suggestions at some point. Personally, I became a fan of her because Marine mentioned that she was also an old Touhou head. I think Fubuki is the most likely of all VTubers to become the gateway VTuber for most people.
It also tickles my Melee brain that she is a fox character with personality traits and gaming habits that make her a great fit to main Fox McCloud.
Gawr Gura
Simply an amazing streamer. She isn’t all that talkative, but when she’s in her element, she always talks at just the right frequency and makes sure that her chat feels like they’re a part of the stream even with tens of thousands of viewers, and never lets her viewers get bored. Her singing voice is also one of the prettier voices in Hololive, and her karaoke streams are unique since she sings a mix of English and Japanese songs, and isn’t afraid of made-up languages (seriously, I never thought I’d ever hear anyone sing Nier’s Song of the Ancients in a karaoke stream). When Gura is having fun with a game, it’s hard not to also have fun watching her as she vibes with the stream and gameplay. I get extremely similar vibes from Gura and Miko and often mention that they’re like sisters separated at birth, as they have similar mannerisms and senses of humor. I think there is another timeline not far from this one where Gura becomes my gateway VTuber instead of Miko.
Inugami Korone
Korone probably needs no introduction as she’s probably the most well-known VTuber in the west. She frequently tries to clear games in one sitting, which results in her streaming for over 12 hours at a time at least once a week. She’s infamous for pulling all-nighters in Japan, which is convenient for me as she ends in the afternoon in Pacific time, so I can watch and get invested in her beating whatever game she’s playing. Her reactions to games are always hilarious, and her unique accent has only grown on me more with time.
Rather than a single stream or clip, you should really just check the Korone Noises twitter account.
Kiryu Coco
I found Coco because she’s a big Yakuza fan (having named herself after Kiryu Kazuma) and played through all the games on stream, but I stayed because she’s an American degenerate. While she lives in Japan and is a part of Hololive’s main Japan branch, she originally hails from the American South and has found a niche in bridging the cultural gap between Hololive JP and overseas viewers via memes and curse words. At some point, her greeting changed from “Kon-dragon” to “Good Morning Motherfuckers”, and she holds a weekly “Reddit Shitpost Review” stream during which she invites a guest from the main Japanese branch and translates the top posts from the Hololive subreddit, and teaches them to say “motherfucker” at the end of the stream.
Takanashi Kiara
The host of the interview that first introduced me to Miko, and in some ways, the VTuber who first pushed me into the rabbit hole. Kiara is Austrian, but is highly proficient in both Japanese and English, and provides quality live translations and has a series called HoloTalk on which she interviews members of Hololive JP for the purpose of introducing them to the western audience. When I first heard her in her Miko interview, I was extremely impressed at her fluency and how thorough her translations were.
Kiara has done 8 HoloTalks to date, including interviews with Marine, Fubuki, and Suisei.
Shiranui Flare
I was introduced to Flare through Miko and Suisei’s GTA collabs. She makes an amazing counterpart to the goons known as Miko and Suisei, playing the role of the eternal laugh track as the other two keep getting in trouble and getting the three of them killed, and accomplishing absolutely zero mission objectives in two hours. I haven’t gotten around to watching too many of Flare’s solo streams, but from following her on Twitter, I can immediately tell why people say she’s one of the nicest people in Hololive, and one of the most verbally appreciative of her fans.
Ninomae Ina’nis
Ina has a uniquely relaxing vibe to her stream, especially among the chaotic HoloEN group. She’s an incredibly talented artist and has a surprisingly pretty singing voice despite her usual quiet speaking voice. She seems to be located on the east coast US based on her stream times, so she usually ends up streaming drawing streams or laid-back game streams while I’m at work, which makes for perfect work BGM. She’s also a big fan of Yuru Camp, which left a good impression on me because I adore Yuru Camp.
Ookami Mio
There’s a joke that in real life, there are feral wolves and therapy dogs, and in Hololive, there’s a feral dog (Korone) and a therapy wolf (Mio). Overseas fans call her Mio-mama because of her motherly presence and voice. I usually am not interested in Minecraft, but Mio’s calming demeanor made it hard to click away from her Minecraft stream, so I ended up watching her build an automatic door to completion. I am also a huge fan of the fact that Mio uses a pine tree as her fan emoji on social media because her hair has the same silhouette as a pine tree.
Nekomata Okayu
Korone’s main streaming partner. Unlike Korone, who is known for her loud and hilarious reactions to games, Okayu is known for staying calm and relaxed throughout her game playthroughs. She has a uniquely low voice among Hololive, and while she is known to be self-conscious of her voice at times, it is quite a palate cleanser with all the cutesy voices in Hololive. She also has a lovely deep singing voice that provides a unique spin on popular songs usually performed in a much higher key. The Hololive Gamers group is composed of Fubuki, Mio, Korone, and Okayu, and all four of them are different fluffy animals with different flavors of comfy.
Tsunomaki Watame
This sheep has one hell of a powerful singing voice. I first heard Watame when watching V-Carnival, a concert Suisei and OkaKoro performed in. I went on to find out that she not only has a soft speaking voice and an adorable hint of a Kansai accent, but is also a huge softie who semi-frequently tears up when people send her nice messages in chat. Her stream’s atmosphere matches her appearance, relaxing with a comforting environment. She does a lot of short music content that I frequently rewatch:
Tokino Sora
The original Hololive VTuber. Now known as the “last proper idol” of Hololive, as she’s the only one who didn’t turn into a degenerate as her streaming career went on. It doesn’t seem like she’s keeping up a façade of being proper either; she truly doesn’t have a degenerate bone in her body. Her streams have a pleasant at-home feel to them, and Sora herself has quite the stage presence when she performs in concert. Unlike Suisei, whose performances are focused on her singing ability, Sora is more of a classical idol who combines a cutesier singing style with lively dancing, which provides quite a different idol experience.
The Route Down The Rabbit Hole
I created an extremely hard-to-read graph to trace my steps from knowing just a handful of VTubers to waist-deep in the Hololive swamp. In the beginning, I had already been exposed to Sora, Korone, and Gura’s streams from friends who were into VTubers, but I wasn’t quite hooked yet. Marine might belong in the top row since I knew about her previously, but I hadn’t been exposed to her streams, only clips.
Kiara is in the top row as well, but I didn’t know about her until her HoloTalk with Miko. I placed her there to make the arrows neater. As mentioned before, Kiara is technically my gateway VTuber, but I still consider Miko to be my gateway VTuber since she’s the first one I got hooked on, and it was the combination of Miko appearing on HoloTalk and streaming Yakuza that did me in. Either way, it may make the most sense to start looking at this chart from Kiara.
Let’s step through this in chronological order:
- I was introduced to Sora, Korone, Gura from friends in 2020, but didn’t get hooked on any of them quite yet.
- I was introduced to Kiara’s HoloTalk with Miko in January 2021 and watched it all the way through because I was impressed by Kiara’s Japanese skill.
- I got hooked on Miko through her Yakuza streams.
- Once I was warmed up to Miko and VTubers in general, I started watching Gura, Korone, and Okayu more. I knew about Okayu from Korone, as they frequently stream together as OkaKoro.
- From Gura, I started watching Ina because of the chill vibes in her stream, and Kiara more from the Kiara-Gura collab streams.
- I watched Okayu’s birthday concert in February a lot because I really liked her performance of LiSA’s Homura. As a result, I got suggested more singing streams, which eventually put Suisei in my suggestions.
- Suisei converted me from random passerby into dedicated fan in a matter of days.
- Miko and Suisei collabed with Flare for the legendary GTA stream.
- Eventually, the Marine stories from other Hololive members got me interested in Marine. I have the arrow in the diagram starting from Miko because Miko’s performance of Marine’s original song “Ahoy!” piqued my interest.
- Watching through Marine’s streams, I found a collab where Coco helped Marine host a Reddit Meme Contest that made my cheeks sore from grinning. I began watching Coco more as she does meme reviews with other Hololive members every week. Marine also got me more interested in Fubuki by mentioning that Fubuki is into Touhou derivative works.
- I joined Suisei’s unofficial fan Discord, Suiseicord. The people in this Discord absolutely do not fuck around when it comes to following Suisei, posting every single Suisei update and planning group watches of every upcoming concert. Through Suiseicord, I decided to check out a VTuber concert, V-Carnival, which made me a fan of Fubuki, Mio, Watame, and Sora.
- I didn’t actually get around to watching Mio’s streams until Marine mentioned hanging out with her IRL and did a few impressions of Mio which were fairly accurate. I headed over to Mio’s stream to check if she did any impressions of Marine, and she did while building her automatic door in Minecraft.
- [PRESENT DAY]
Conclusion
And that’s my story of how I wanted to go on a walk in a city, played Yakuza on a whim, and ended up deep in the VTuber rabbit hole in a matter of weeks. There isn’t much else to say, but I would like you to scroll up and see which two VTubers on the bag of VTuber Chips are currently taking $5 of membership fees from me each month. On of the topic of VTuber Chips, I realized that my first step into the rabbit hole might not have been in the fictional world of Kamuro-cho, but instead in its real-life counterpart, Kabuki-cho. Animate Shinjuku, the shop where I saw the VTuber Chips, was only a few steps away.
