The Value and Variety of VTubers

Consumer interest in VTubers (“virtual YouTubers”)—which got their start in Japan in the mid-2010s—has expanded significantly since the start of the pandemic, both in these digital influencers’ country of origin and abroad.

VTubers are anonymous creators who use motion-capture and other technologies to create an animated avatar, usually anime-like in style, that does everything a human influencer would do, and more. These personas have fictional names and background stories that become almost real to their avid fans. They document their lives on social media; interact with their followers; have careers or avocations as singers, gamers, artists, and the like; and, if popular enough, enter into merchandise collaborations, promotions, and brand ambassadorships. Unlike their human influencer counterparts, some have out-of-this-world characteristics, such as animal features or supernatural powers.

Their content is distributed on sites such as YouTube, Twitch, and Bilibili. Some are independent, but most work with VTuber agencies in Japan and elsewhere, who distribute their content on proprietary channels, promote them, and manage their business activities, both in groups and individually. The most popular have subscriber bases numbering over a million.

While Japan and other Asian countries, including China, South Korea, and Indonesia, remain the epicenter of this form of entertainment, the VTuber phenomenon started to expand to English-speaking countries in the 2020s, as the popularity of anime in the West began to expand in earnest. VTuber agencies representing English-speaking talent started to spring up; the U.S.-based music label Capitol Records signed its first virtual artist, FN Meka, in the summer of 2022; and the western and English-speaking Gawr Gura has become one of the most successful VTubers globally.

Recent news items involving VTuber agencies give a sense of the growing importance of this sector on the world stage:

• One of the biggest VTuber agencies, Anycolor, became the first to go public when it filed for an IPO in April 2022. It has seen profits and revenues jump significantly since then, although its stock has not performed as well as had been hoped. The 112 VTubers on the company’s roster that year—the total continues to expand quickly—attracted 300 million hours of watch time in the fourth quarter of 2022, including 73 million hours for the 26 members of the Nijisanji supergroup. Nijisanji includes the some of the top individual VTuber stars and offers content on an English-language YouTube channel called Nijisanji En, as well as giving Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian VTubers exposure on its Japanese channel.

• The other giant in the VTuber agency world, Cover Corp. and its Hololive Production unit, held an English-language concert in Los Angeles in May 2023, featuring some of its most popular VTubers. With channels for Japanese, English-speaking, and Indonesian content creators, Hololive manages most of the top 25 VTubers on YouTube. All told, it represents about 70 VTubers with 70 million subscribers across its channels.

• Reality Studios, which operates a variety of VTuber agencies, announced in May that it is launching Specialite, a new VTuber agency specializing in female characters, with a focus on gamers. It has launched its first round of auditions for talent.

• Brave Group, which manages several VTuber groups in Japan, launched a U.S. subsidiary to develop talent that will appeal to English-speaking markets. The first initiative is V4Mirai, which launched with two new VTubers in June 2023. In January of 2023, Brave Group raised 300 million yen (about $2.2 million) from a Japanese subsidiary of Animoca Brands, bringing its total funding level to date to 3.04 billion yen ($21.9 million).

• VShojo, an American VTuber agency founded in 2020 that specializes in gamers whose content appears on Twitch, expanded into Japan in 2022, with popular Japanese VTubers Kson and Amemiya Nazuna joining its portfolio of influencers. VShojo is also starting to bring some of its VTubers into the real world at places like TwitchCon, with the influencers appearing on a life-sized screen where they can interact with fans in real time and sign posters using a tablet synchronized with an on-site robot arm.

• Sony Music Entertainment Japan launched a multinational VTuber agency called the Prism Project in January 2021, part of a trend of music labels entering this space. The company, which also has a talent management division called VEE Virtual Entertainment that represents VTubers, signed 15 virtual influencers in its first year. The Prism Project’s goal is to utilize VR and 3D animation technologies to allow VTubers to have a presence in traditional media like television as well as offline environments like live theater.

• VTubers had the biggest presence to date at Licensing Expo this month, with both Cover/Hololive and Anycolor/Nijisanji among the exhibitors, underscoring the agencies’ global intentions. Bilibili, “the YouTube of China,” also represents 70 VTubers and was highlighting their availability for licensing at the show as part of its roster of properties. (Bilibili is also part of a joint venture with Nijisanji called VirtuaReal.)

Just like human influencers, VTubers are frequent collaboration partners for promotions and merchandise collections, especially in Asia.

Nijisanji’s recent partners, for example, have included COCO’s Restaurant in Japan, which featured nine VTubers from Nijisanji’s “Luxiem” and “ROF-MAO” groups in limited-time dishes and on file folders (a popular premium in Japan), standees, and other merchandise; children’s apparel e-tailer E-zakka, for a collection of products including t-shirts, pants, tote bags, towels, and three-piece outfits tied to six VTubers; and KFC China for a menu collaboration featuring five new VTuber talents.

Hololive, meanwhile, has collaborated with a variety of partners. It worked with Innersloth, creator of the video game Among Us, for a co-branded collection of plush keychains, keyholders, stickers, and acrylic standees. Japanese karaoke parlor Pasela paired with four VTubers for themed snacks, décor, songs, and merchandise. Technos Japan’s video game franchise Nekketsu Kouha Kunio Kun (whose titles are known as Renegade and River City Ransom in the U.S.) was paired with a VTuber called Inugami Korone for a co-branded collection of t-shirts, keychains, card holders, and standees. Aniplus Café in Singapore featured menu items, premiums, and limited-edition merchandise, including mugs and washi tape, tied to three of Hololive’s Indonesian and five of its English-speaking Vtubers. And, back in 2021, Hololive paired with the Japanese Pacific Baseball League to highlight 12 VTubers dressed in uniforms from the league’s six teams, including the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and Seibu Lions, on hats, tote bags, face towels, bats, and standees.

FYI: We have posted our detailed recap of the 2023 edition of Licensing Expo, which was held June 13-15 in Las Vegas. The story covers trends observed on the show floor and through conversations with exhibitors and attendees. Read it here.