From a negligible number during Summer Comiket, the Comiket 95 that just ended on December 31st saw 391 doujin circles selling Virtual YouTuber-related material. That made Virtual YouTubers the seventh most popular fandom at the event, behind the likes of Love Live! and the Touhou Project, and surpassing Vocaloids and Azur Lane.
Virtual YouTubers, by far the most famous of which is Kizuna AI, with 2.4 million subscribers at press time, are YouTube vlogging and gaming personalities that appear as animated avatars. They tend to be cute anime girls, but each one brings something different to the table.
Kizuna AI is famous for her gratuitous use of the F-word when she gets frustrated with video games. Kaguya Luna and Mirai Akari (second and third on the Virtual YouTuber popularity rankings, respectively) are both a lot more voluptuous than Ai, but while Luna delivers a performance best described as an angry mom who had too many mimosas with brunch, Akari’s energy is bubblier and more flirtatious. To round out the wide range of flavors on offer, Virtual Noja Foxgirl YouTuber Old Man (number ten), Nojaoji for short, is a middle-aged man who offers a stream of consciousness narrative on his life as a convenience store clerk from the body of the fox girl avatar he created.
My personal favorite Virtual YouTuber currently ranks fifth on the chart: Nekomiya Hinata. A lazy catgirl gamer, Hinata’s gimmick is that she’s very skilled at the games she plays. While Ai screams in frustration and Luna almost never plays games, Hinata makes cute anime noises while fragging out in Fortnite or her favorite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
The Virtual YouTuber phenomenon originated in Japan, with Kizuna AI claiming to be the first. All but one of the top 30 Virtual YouTubers perform in Japanese, though their dedicated fans are often quick to add English subtitles. If you’d rather hear your Virtual YouTuber speak English, Natsumi Moe ranks 22nd on the chart, and is your Anglophone anime girl. Zemlya Chan, or Earth Chan, currently sits at 111th with 41,000 subscribers as the biggest Russian-language Virtual YouTuber.
As big as the Virtual YouTuber fandom has grown, it’s no surprise that some of the top names are now appearing in their own anime. A newly formed studio called Lide is producing Virtual-san wa Miteiru with the English title Virtualsan-Looking. The show centers on Mirai Akari (third), Siro (fourth), Nekomiya Hinata (fifth), Tanaka Hime and Suzuki Hina (seventh), and Tsukino Mito (eighth), and promises to feature more than 30 Virtual YouTubers over its 12 24-minute episodes.
And while the top two, Ai and Luna, have not been revealed as part of the cast, Kizuna AI herself sings the show’s theme song in the OP video Lide released:
The project includes enka singer Sachiko Kobayashi in her “Virtual Grandmother” form and got the nod from Hideaki Anno to dress the cast in the iconic school uniforms from Evangelion.
The series airs at 24:00 on January 9th, effectively midnight January 10th in Japan, and will stream live on Niconico and Periscope. I’ll be tuning in to see if my gamer girl cat-daughter gets any sick frags on the rest of the cast.
Source: Reddit
