Anime Girl VTubers Are Selling Out Concerts, but Are They ‘Real?’ Depends on Who You Ask

I am at The concert sold in Hollywood, and I am the only one in the 1,200-plus-power venue who doesn’t know any songs. A job has just just finished, and everyone around me starts with chanting their light sticks and swinging. We don’t have to wait long: Ko Maria is one of the headlines. Not on the stage itself, but the completeness of its length is on a huge screen. (She will never attend the stage because she is a sexy 6,669 year old blonde vampire anime girl, who exists in virtual reality)) Maria starts to sing in Japanese. An elderly person next to me seems to be at the door of the tears.

I am here to find out why fans are here to pay 180 $ 180 (a VIP pass) for the opportunity to watch these activities instead of their own curtains from the ease of their own homes in a live venue with IRL musicians.

Photograph: Erica Hernandez

If you have never seen a Vituber before you before, it’s probably a matter of time. Vitubes have been in Japan for almost a decade in Japan, hosting everything from the online weather station to the iPhone launch, but they gained popularity outside Japan during Covid Coranotine. If you want to see something online – cooking, gaming, history – it has a Vituber version. The name is a portmano of ‘Virtual YouTube’, and as it suggests that it is a livestream or video creator, but instead of showing their faces, the audience sees virtual 2D or 3D avatar.

Technically, a Vituber that can take any presence or theme (my dear: a Former Jaguza in prison stripes who talk about real -life organized crimes), However, the most popular is the anime girls with beautiful voices. Some of these are also singing Vituba and the output range from the Stream to the common Karao to the entire music video. If Vituba is big enough, fans can listen to their music in most main streams. The market is growing: Last week, Major Vituber Agency Hollave Opened Label a record. Which brings us back to the concert.

For most of the three -hour show, there are three human musicians on the stage: a drummer, a resident and a guitarist, who plays companions for anime girls’ parade that appear on a large monitor (one in the center one, two right and left sides). Two DJs, Mono Monit, a VTUBar with Purple Hair Haps from Filter House to Gabbar, and Join, a real human DJ who physically attend the night to close the night with a more freak set, can easily mix in any rave (musicically). But the meat of the show is a casual audience probably called “Anim Music”, from sometimes glorious mems to songs (Isa Karva: “I hate sealantro, baby / I hate you almost / as much as I hate sealantro, baby“) Equally stupid link-in-by-on Rap (Kottelva:”Shouting my ghosts / that shows my fond love”).

The aforementioned sexy anime Vampire Maria started Vitabing in 2021, at a time when everyone was looking for a parasosial friend, Quarantine-Jalani began to rise to popularity. From his content to gaming (occasionally only members-cables), he has published a single streaming service from one to Karao to ASMR videos.

I saw some of his currents, but I didn’t know what to expect in his concert. The promotional element of the event promised that there would be a live human band, but how would he interact with them?

So I arranged to talk to him a few days before the show. The video call begins and he appears exactly as it does in his currents. I mean it literally: I am talking to the avatar I see with his fans.