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It’s easy to see Vtubers as a monolith. What started as a niche corner of the internet you’d somehow wind up at 5 years ago is now a slightly less niche corner of the internet that’s present everywhere from games partnerships to local convention scenes.

Like any fad that grows, it’s actually not that hard to track the growth of Vtubing- even a large group of anonymous anime characters will move in patterns, and you can separate them as easily as you can Panic! At The Disco’s discography. And now, on a beautiful spring-ish day, I’m going to stay indoors and do just that.

Vtubers And The First Wave

I like to think that currently there’s 3 major waves of Vtubers. Your first wave would be the pioneer batch- these are your Kizuna Ais, your Tokino Soras. Here, Vtubing didn’t really have a lot in the way of rules aside from the anonymity- the main focus would just be keeping things Otaku-centric. Hololive would experiment further in the first wave, with what’s referred to as the 0th Gen. It’s important to note that while gaming is viewed an integral part of the Vtuber experience, many of these older Vtubers are actually better known for their stage performances instead.

That’s not to say that was necessarily the norm though- Kizuna Ai popped off for her gaming. There’s a certain inelegance that defines the first wave of Vtubers- the kind that you only get when you’re treading new ground. Kizuna Ai sprang straight for the full-body 3D model, something that later Vtubers would only advance to months into their career. Hoshimachi Suisei had designed her character from scratch even pre-Hololive- whereas new Vtubers are given bodies by talented artists employed to make the next season of body pillows.

The point is that the first wave is defined by that newness- Everyone moves in every direction, figuring out what niche works for them.

The Second Wave- We’re Idols* Now

On to your second wave of Vtubers- if we’re using Hololive as the yardstick your second wave starts when they started introducing the Generations. Basically, what a Vtuber is has been boiled down to its essence. Charisma, cool design, musical talent. Mix around the numerical values but now Vtuber companies like Cover Corporation have the confidence to roll them out pretty consistently.

It should be noted, with Hololive there was this particular stigma of idol culture. For as many wild personalities as the second wave Vtubers had, they were still largely bound by what was deemed decent at the time. There’s outliers, of course- Akai “Haachama” Haato, Kiryu Coco and Natsuiro Matsuri pushed boundaries for just how wild you could get while hiding behind an avatar of a pretty girl.

In general, though, there was an air of inapproachability- not so much in an unfriendly way, but moreso the fact that there was a clear demarkation between the “Vtuber realm” and the “Fan world”. Vtubers exist only in a magic world where they have scandalous sleepovers with each other, and anything so much as the voice of a man in the background could cause big trouble from overly attached fans.

Rather than the type of talent, I think the second wave represents corporations taking an interest and investing more in Vtubers as a concept. Hololive had a short-lived China branch and a still-going Indonesian one , which is pretty much the best sign that you’ve got it down to a formula- when you can ship it overseas. Nijisanji, too, spread out to Korea in this period.

The Third Wave- Gawr Gura Goes Global

While incredibly popular in Asian countries, Vtubers were still a mostly-niche thing in the West. Sure, a clip of Sakura Miko unknowingly saying a racial slur went viral, but for the most part Vtubers were still by-and-large just another weird thing from the anime community.

The next big step would come in 2020, where the third wave really starts. The tentpole event for starting the third wave is the debut of Hololive English. Unlike Kiryu Coco who spoke English and talked about her American heritage as kind of a feature of her mostly Japanese habits, Hololive English’s more international cast of Vtubers opened up the door for more experiences- meaning new on-screen performances which resonate with more people.

You see it in Vtubers like Gawr Gura- whose crude yet quirky sense of humor would make an idol 5 years ago blush. Going from talking about sniffing feet to making a moe voice to get out of trouble is a good signpost of what the current Vtuber is- authentic enough to be unflattering, but genre-savvy enough to play it up when she needs an out.

The other important feature of third wave Vtubers, though, is that they tend to be fans of Vtubers themselves. Many, mid-debut will talk about the Vtubers who inspired them, or fawn over the possibility of working together with their very heroes. I mean, just look at Hololive 6th Gen’s La+ Darkness- it’s an open secret how much she adores 4th Gen’s Tokoyami Towa, to the point it may as well be part of her backstory. I think this is where Vtubers really started to shed the sort of idol standards- what felt like ironclad rules in the second wave felt more like guidelines, as long as they can get a good performance first.

I don’t think you can undersell how much this feature defines the third wave- at this year’s HoloFes concert, Vtubers who weren’t on stage performing held watch parties with their fans, complete with fangirl squealing. If you thought watching a cute dog girl do cartwheels wasn’t sick enough, imagine doing it while pretending you’re on a voice call with another cute anime girl. Vtubers no longer had to just be the thing you watch- they could also be the friends you watch it with, parasocial relationships be damned.

Where To Next

Of course, there’s no clue where Vtubers are going next. The third wave’s normalizing of English speaking vtubers has also done a good job of watering down just what a Vtuber is- for a while plenty of streamers were getting their own Vtuber avatars, completely blowing the whole “secrecy” rule out the water. It’s pretty much the defining feature of each wave- it represents Vtubers as a whole moving away from preconceived notions. The second wave said Vtubers could be done writ large, while the third said rules that might have defined their success can be challenged.

Personally, I doubt they’d ever truly, properly break into the mainstream- the entertainment industry has spent a lot of time and money telling us to care about people for their looks, I don’t think they’d be so quick to accept anime-faced celebrities and also respect their anonymity. If I had to hazard a guess, we’d probably see the fourth wave as one being far less obsessed with the kayfabe of it all. One of the most awkward periods of a Vtubers career is the early chunk when they’re still playing with their lore and working it into their performances, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the fourth wave starts with Vtubers who are back to just being people chilling out.

I should disclose that I don’t mean to say that many of the innovations defining each wave start there- Kiryu Coco spoke English and broke idol conventions long before Hololive EN was a thing. But the idea for each wave is the normalization of those ideas- what made Coco so unique when she debuted is now, mostly, commonplace in the third wave.

Similarly, it’s not like Vtubers who debut in one wave wouldn’t be affected by the later ones- Houshou Marine’s I’m Your Treasure Box is an incredibly raunchy masterpiece that, let’s face it, just wouldn’t have been done a few years prior. Just like how Fall Out Boy debuting in the age of Emo Rock doesn’t exclude them from releasing a soulful ballad like Heaven’s Gate, so to can an anime girl be affected by the doors opened by newer anime girls.

Considering how much the Vtuber industry has grown, I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see the next wave for a while. New Vtubers come out so much that I’m only getting my Yuzuki Choco scale figure now, while waiting for all my new oshi to get merch too. Cooling down isn’t death- you can’t have all growth all the time, regardless of what the shareholders say.

Feature written by Wan Amirul, GamerBraves resident Vtuber fan