Japanese fans are hopelessly devoted to VTube avatars
Japan’s virtual YouTubers can earn over US$1m a year from followers who see them as family
Mayu Iizuka sheds her softly spoken personality and starts cackling, screaming and waving wildly in a makeshift studio in Tokyo as her avatar appears on a live-stream before hundreds of fans.
Virtual YouTubers like Iizuka, who voices and animates a character called Yume Kotobuki, have transformed a Japanese subculture into a thriving industry where top accounts can rake in more than a million US dollars a year.
The videos are designed to make fans feel they are interacting directly with their favourite animated idols – with viewers sometimes paying hundreds of dollars to have a single comment highlighted on a live-stream.
“When I’m playing video games on my channel and succeed at something, my fans congratulate me … [and pay tips] as a way to show their support and appreciation,” Iizuka says.
The 26-year-old uses a laptop, webcam and a motion sensor worn around her neck to appear on screen as Yume, whose facial expressions are controlled by a producer. With her squeaky voice, short skirt and huge purple eyes, Iizuka’s avatar follows a popular model for “VTuber” characters, which often resemble the hyper-feminine heroines of Japanese anime.
Since emerging about five years ago, the VTuber world has grown quickly, with about 16,000 active streamers globally
Regional governments in Japan have used them for promotion, and The Batman stars Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz even gave a recent interview to a top Japanese VTuber.
VTubers generate money in ways similar to traditional live-streamers, including through YouTube’s “Super Chat” system, where the more a fan shells out, the more attention is drawn to their comments.
In fact, the world’s nine top-earning YouTube accounts for “Super Chat” in 2021 were all VTubers.
All nine are affiliated with one Tokyo-based talent agency, and each earned between US$700,000 and US$1.7 million from the cash gifts, according to data analysis site Playboard.
Most fans spend only a few hundred yen per comment, but the most dedicated sometimes splurge 50,000 yen (HK$3,000) to post impassioned missives to their virtual idols.
Kazuma Murakami, a 30-yearold car parts inspector, has been known to spend 10,000 yen to get his comments highlighted in red and seen by his favourite VTuber.
“I really want her to notice I’m here again, visiting her channel,” Murakami says.
Another VTuber fan, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Kazumi, has adorned his tiny one-room flat near Tokyo with posters featuring his favourite character, Mio Ookami.
The 30-year-old computer engineer spends time after work and on weekends immersing himself in Mio’s videos and crafting digital illustrations of the black-haired “wolf girl”.
“I dedicate five, or maybe 10 hours to thinking just about her,” he says. “She is like family to me.”
That devotion, and the willingness of fans to pay big money, is linked to the way other fan subcultures function in Japan, says Noriyuki Nagamatsu, a digital business specialist at advertising firm DA Consortium.
VTubers usually keep the person behind the character – often referred to as their “soul” – out of the picture, and like many fans, Kazumi says his love is directed towards Mio the avatar, not whoever plays her.
But the line between virtual and real can become blurred. A Japanese court recently ruled in favour of a VTuber actor who argued that online slander against her character amounted to an attack on her.
Meanwhile, for Iizuka, a professional voice actress, making the rare decision to reveal her identity after four years of making videos as Yume was nerve-racking.
“Part of me was afraid that fans of Yume, who has these big, shiny eyes and a perfect belly, might be disappointed to find out what the ‘real’ person inside looks like,” she says.
But “so far the response from fans has been very kind”.