Yesterday, I read that Hoshimachi Suisei was named this year’s Forbes Japan 30 under 30 for her exploration of her path to Hololive and her performance at the Budokan, one of the most famous arenas in Tokyo, Japan. This didn’t surprise me because Vtubers have become a stunning form of YouTube channels and have attracted millions of audiences worldwide. In this article, I’m going to share my story while watching Vtubers.
Hoshimachi Suisei on the Forbes magazine cover
The Starting Point: Kizuna AI
I wasn’t an anime or related content lover until I first saw Kizuna AI in 2017. People’s discussion on whether she was run by an AI model attracted me. As a 2025 frequent AI user, I know that it’s impossible to make an AI YouTuber that frequent in 2017, but at that time, I almost believed it! Kizuna AI was a 3D character, using an ankle and face tracking device to mirror the actress’s motion and face expression onto a 3D model. This set of hardware provides an accurate and natural traction for the actress, building a high-quality Vtuber for audiences.
The setting of silly Kizuna AI was a powerful attraction. In her channel, she uploads gaming videos and makes live streams. She is a less skillful player who often makes unbelievably unskilled plays. Compared with players who can finish Sekiro without getting hit, I like YouTubers who fail in ways I can never make.
Her albums attract me as well. She has a series of origin albums, which are available both online and offline. The songs and the concerts brought a lot of fun to me. I have a physical CD album on my bookshelf to remind me that Kizuna AI was the beginning of Vtubers.
My days with Hololive
In 2018, Shirakami Fubuki, the white fox, brought Hololive to me. Unlike Kizuna AI, Hololive is a group made up of various Vtubers. Hololive arranges united live streams to enhance the relationships between the members. In the first place, I liked Fubuki best, but Minato Aqua and Gura were my most followed members.
Technically, Hololive is based on a less expensive way. The members have a live 2d model, which reflects only the actress’s face, so that all they need is a computer and a camera. These live 2ds sometimes make mistakes, leading to strange performance of the models. However, audiences seem to be happy with these mistakes. You can see some memes on the forums.
Minato Aqua
Natsu Matsuri
Hololive also publishes albums. Shiny Smile Story is the most impressive one to me because it contains all of the girls’ voices. I could identify every one of them!
Extending to China: Asoul
Vtubers make large profits, so some Chinese companies try to emulate their success. Among all the groups, Asoul was my favourite one.
Unlike hololive characters performing like idols, Asoul characters behave closer to ordinary people, so the fans are crazier when interacting with the Asoul members. They train, they make mistakes, and they get emotional when reading comments. The most impressive one to me was the video Diana read a diary about a sad day and cried on her stream. Despite their identity as idols, I feel that these characters are the same as me off their models. That’s why Asoul became a trending group.
People make interesting memes for Asoul. For example, we call Diana “Saint Diana” because we admire her, and we call ourselves mice because we think Asoul members are so perfect that we can only secretly look at them. We create a virtual city, Zhijiang, and write novels about Asoul’s life in Zhijiang. People dream about watching their concert in the Beijing National Stadium. I have to admit, watching Asoul was a really exciting experience. I must thank Diana and Asoul for bringing me so much fun. I share it with friends. We are “Diana Candy”(嘉心糖) and we are “one soul”(一个魂）. We shout when we see Asoul at anime exhibitions, and we can all memorize the meme article “I really want to become Diana’s dog”.
Diana from Asoul
Another interesting part of Asoul to me is the professional amusement companies and world-leading investors behind it. Run by Yuehua and invested by Bytedance, when the project was first launched, people criticized it as “another anime project run by a non-anime company to earn profits from anime without high-quality products.” However, the five members (now only 3 members left) finally showed their dominance in the market and made these people shut up.
Multilingual Vtubers
Sometimes, personal Vtubers become interesting for their languages. As a Chinese native speaker, I like Vtubers who speak languages other than Chinese Mandarin and Japanese. These languages bring me a brand new experience.
For example, Pheebo is a German Vtuber that I like. Often shown up as a clown, she engages in funny dialogue with her “king”. I used to believe that German speakers, especially skilled ones, are serious and rigid. However, her videos surprisingly bring much fun to me.
Pheebo
Another attractive Vtuber to me is Gelee. Gelee is a Shanghai dialect Vtuber and often uploads Shanghai dialect-related videos. For me, the Shanghai dialect contains emotions and meanings that Mandarin can never express. The dialect is so familiar to me that it makes me feel like talking to my classmates. To make the whole thing better, Gelee doesn’t speak Shanghai dialect well. In Shanghai, if you make mistakes when speaking dialect, you are regarded as “yang jing bang（洋泾浜）”, which means an unskilled speaker. Things get even worse if you speak like northern Jiangsu Province because people make fun of these accents.
Gelee
Sadly, Vtubers in China now are not as popular as Hololive and Asoul used to be. The only relief to me now is these personal Vtubers sharing their diverse content.
If you know other interesting Vtubers, please contact me. 😋😋😋
References
BiliBili. (2025a). Pheebo菲宝的个人空间-Pheebo菲宝个人主页-哔哩哔哩视频. B23.Tv. https://b23.tv/ZWW21Jv
BiliBili. (2025b). 日露槿Gelee的个人空间-日露槿Gelee个人主页-哔哩哔哩视频. B23.Tv. https://b23.tv/GcIIy0S
Forbes JAPAN 編集部. (2025, August 25). 【発表】「世界を変える30歳未満」30人 「Forbes JAPAN 30 UNDER 30 2025」に選ばれたのは？ | Forbes JAPAN 公式サイト（フォーブス ジャパン）. Forbesjapan.com; リンクタイズ株式会社. https://forbesjapan.com/articles/detail/81496
Latinig. (2020, December 31). 被小作文整破防的嘉然. Bilibili.com. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1bz4y1z7uu/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click
Pheebo 搬运站. (2024). 到底是谁家宝贝这么可爱啊 - 小红书. Xhslink.com. http://xhslink.com/n/6Okl0DzpT1R
日露槿Gelee. (2025). 日露槿Gelee的动态 - 哔哩哔哩. B23.Tv; 哔哩哔哩. https://b23.tv/trHtl5b