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VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

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Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#2
That's a bit... late to the party. I can't find when the article was published, but the phenomenon "went worldwide" several years ago by the means of COVID. These days the vtubing as an industry is in a somewhat stable state, if not a possible decline, going by viewership hours over the same period. Many big EN and JP names have already retired too.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#3
The two largest vtuber agencies/companies are publicly traded in Japan.

https://finance.yahoo.co.jp/quote/5253.T?term=2y

https://finance.yahoo.co.jp/quote/5032.T?term=2y

The stock prices are not great all things considered- I think that the vtuber audience needs something new/different to broaden beyond it's current market base AND I think investors would rather put money into AI related stocks than IP/vtuber related stocks.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#5
post #2

That's a bit... late to the party. I can't find when the article was published, but the phenomenon "went worldwide" several years ago by the means of COVID. These days the vtubing as an industry is in a somewhat stable state, if not a possible decline, going by viewership hours over the same period. Many big EN and JP names have already retired too.

It quotes figures from Q1 of 2026, so it was definitely published this year.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#7
post #2

That's a bit... late to the party. I can't find when the article was published, but the phenomenon "went worldwide" several years ago by the means of COVID. These days the vtubing as an industry is in a somewhat stable state, if not a possible decline, going by viewership hours over the same period. Many big EN and JP names have already retired too.

Yeah it really hit its peak with gen 1 of Hololive English I want to say, along with the explosion of indie vtubers on twitch and stuff that followed.

A lot of female content creators I followed online became vtubers. HikaruStation used to be a singer, but now she’s a whale Vtuber by the name of Bao.

AmaLee (of LeeAndLie) also got famous through anime song covers, but she’s mostly a vtuber now.

I think the current vtuber “market” is a lot harder to break into now than it used to be though.

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#8
lol the assumptions remind me of the late 90s and early 2000s

where routine benign things such as playing an offline game with a character that didn’t look like you and a different gender was considered to mean something it didn’t, outside of the gaming community

Re: VTubing: How a Japanese Phenomenon Is Going Worldwide

#9
post #4

The first time I encountered VTubing, I thought the point was just to hide your face, for various reasons. Being sensitive about your looks, not wanting to attract stalkers, whatever. But there's apparently a lot more to it; I was surprised.

There's a lot of indie vtubers who do it for that reason. It's just that the biggest ones are corporate.
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