A report by Japanese website UserLocal has shown that Vtuber growth has been on an exponential boom, with more than 16000 streamers identifying as Vtubers as of October 2021.

Defined as livestreamers who use a CG avatar in lieu of their own face, UserLocal’s report says that the trend started late 2017, with 1000 known vtubers by March 2018.

No one could have predicted the Vtuber growth of recent years though, with many going down the rabbit hole into becoming fans of the livestreamers, be them attached to bigger companies like Hololive or even more independent ones.

They also published a top 10 most-subscribed Vtubers, which sees one of the first vtubers, Kizuna Ai, overtaken by Hololive EN’s Gawr Gura.

• 1st place Gawr Gura 3.49 million people
• 2nd  Kizuna AI 2.98 million people (* Game ch 1.53 million people)
• 3rd  Usada Pekora 1.74 million people
• 4th Mori Calliope 1.74 million people
• 5th Inugami Korone 1.7 million
• 6th Houshou Marine 1.66 million people
• 7th Shirakami Fubuki 1.64 million people
• 8th Watson Amelia 1.48 million
• 9th Uruha Rushia 1.44 million people
• 10th  Minato Aqua 1.41 million people

(via Gamer Santai)

What Does This Mean

While the report itself didn’t hazard any guesses, it’s pretty easy to draw your own conclusion-

For one, the popularity of Vtubers is a big pull- seeing how much fun someone has parading as an anime girl is very likely to pull people into trying it out for themselves.

Secondly is the big companies continuing to double down on Vtubers- Hololive has seen incredible growth over the years, with 5 generations on their main Japanese branch as well as two generations worth of Indonesian and English Vtubers. Their competitors, such as Nijisanji have also expanded aggressively over the years, gshowing a lot of corporate interest in having more talents on board.

We’ve also seen non-Vtuber companies like Netflix and AirAsia get in on the craze, so it’s no wonder the numbers have gone up as drastically as they have.

Finally, there’s also the democratization of the knowledge on how to be one. Over time many people have learned how to rig on Live2D, with many artists offering it as a service. With this, virtually anyone can be a Vtuber, as long as you can either handle the design and rigging on your own or pay an expert to handle it for you.

Another interesting insight is the status of the perceived language barrier- while earlier on Vtubing was seen as a largely Japanese-speaking affair, three of Hololive EN’s Vtubers have broken the site’s top 10, with Watson Amelia famously speaking next to no Japanese at all.

Anecdotally from comments on their own streams, it says a lot about the Vtuber viewing experience, in that language isn’t necessarily a barrier since many viewers will get their entertainment from clippers who translate the streams, or just by watching along for context clues.