A short history of early English VTubing
Someone has to write about this before Discord and Twitter explode.
Do you know who was the first English VTuber?
It sounds like something that should be common knowledge. After all, anyone with even a passing interest in VTubing is certainly aware of the first Japanese one. And yet, I’d bet most people don’t know who was Kizuna AI’s anglophone counterpart.
Though to be honest, the answer isn’t straightforward. You could of course point at Ami Yamato, who was doing it even before Kizuna coined the term. Or to Ironmouse or Nyanners, who both used generic Live2D avatars early on. Still, none of them considered themselves VTubers at the time, and so I think it’s fair to exclude them from this title. If we want to restrict ourselves to individuals who were inspired by AI and others in the early VTuber scene, there are two that can conceivably be called “the first English-speaking VTuber”.
Comdost (Commy) uploaded “[Speed drawing] Virtual youtubers [Virtual comdost]” on the 14th of February, 2018. She calls herself a Virtual YouTuber, being the first to do so in English, but only in her 2nd video, posted on the 27th, does she have proper motion capture. Meanwhile, Deat, a French VTuber focused on skits, posted “Becoming a Virtual Youtuber?” on the 21st of the same month.
While they both obviously deserve recognition for being the pioneers, I don’t know which one should have the title of “the first”. Probably Deat, but there’s an argument to be had for both. Regardless of the answer though, they were the ones that started it all. With these two, the English VTuber scene was born.
Now, if you think that the first two English VTubers popping up in the span of like two weeks is a pretty big coincidence, well…
Mira Pink debuted on the 1st of March 2018, which does NOT make her the first English VTuber, despite the title. I don’t think anyone can blame her for it, though, when the ones who beat her to the punch did so by such a small margin.
Nope, it’s just you three. Twitter screenshot from 18/03/2018.
In her introduction video, Mira mentions wanting to build her own community, since she’s found many cool VTubers that she can’t interact with due to not speaking Japanese. I’m not aware of Comdost’s or Deat’s motivations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they shared at least some of this sentiment. At that time, few people outside of Japan were aware of this niche subculture, and even fewer had heard of anyone beyond Kizuna AI and maybe Kaguya Luna. If you wanted a space to talk about VTubers in English, you’d either have to join one of the few English-friendly discords or threads in 4chan’s /jp/, a choice I would not wish on anyone.
As such, when these English VTubers appeared, they had a bit of a lukewarm reception. The Japanese side didn’t understand them, and on the English side, many viewed them as more of a weird novelty, with some people arguing if they should even be discussed in the same spaces as Japanese ones.
Very funny to read “Westerners aren’t into Vtubers” in 2023, but it was a (sort of) defensible position then. There was simply not a solid English fanbase.
A little side note that I’m not sure where to fit: Despite how early these three were, they were NOT the first Western VTubers. I’m pretty sure that honor belongs to Mana, formerly Earth-chan, a Russian VTuber who debuted in January of 2018, but I honestly might be wrong. There were around 60 VTubers outside of Japan by June 2018 (per this video), though I imagine most were in China and other Asian countries. Still, I only found 11 English ones, so there’s probably someone I’m unaware of.
Over the next couple of months, more English VTubers slowly trickled in. Kotaro Doi and Lucy Koumori made their channels in March. Cartaku, a VTuber focusing on car-related content (and 2nd channel of the popular car YouTuber Bladed Angel) did the same in April, while Otonashi Rhythm, Vera, and Kaheru debuted in May.1 Out of these, I believe it’s worth talking a little bit more about Rhythm.
The most important German word, according to Rhythm.
Otonashi Rhythm was a German VTuber and possibly one of the first ones to bring awareness of the existence of English-speaking VTubers to a larger audience. Debuting on May 2nd with a series of videos in Japanese, she posted her English self-introduction on the 14th, calling herself an International VTuber. While her initial content being in Japanese may feel strange now, it was common for English VTubers back then to add subtitles or make videos speaking Japanese, whether that be in hopes of attracting the (much larger) Japanese audience or simply because it was what everyone did.
Only 10 days after her debut, it was revealed that Otonashi Rhythm would be one of the initial members of upd8. Upd8 was a VTuber project started by Activ8, the company that managed Kizuna AI and which made their involvement with the number one VTuber public with this announcement. According to Rhythm, who helpfully provided an explanation in English, upd8 aimed to support the VTubers under it, offering to manage appearances in events, collaborations, information exchange, and legal support, among others, while not restricting independent talents in any way.
The initial members of upd8. From these, I think only YuNi and Omega Sisters (right) are still actively posting.
As one can imagine, having an English VTuber standing next to Kizuna AI brought more eyes to her. By July, she had just under 5k subs. That seems a meager number now, and it certainly didn’t give her a spot in the top 100, but it was the most popular an English VTuber had gotten.2 Some went as far as calling Rhythm the future AI of the West and predicting she’d be the one who would bridge the gap between the two fandoms, a future that sadly didn’t come to pass as she quietly deleted all her social media in March 2019. There was never a reason given, but it was fairly obvious she had graduated.3 Upd8 also would end up disbanding a few years later, but that’s a different story.
Still, Otonashi Rhythm was perhaps the first English virtual content creator to gain some sort of international recognition, so I don’t think she should be forgotten. Before she quit, she produced several videos, streamed on Twitch, and even got her very own 3D model. I recommend checking out this archive of her early videos if you want to experience the 2018 VTuber culture.
June was fairly big for English Vtubing. The month had just begun when there was word of a new VTuber agency, going by WINKs. They claimed to focus on international talents of varying nationalities, including Russian, Pakistani, Chinese, American, and others. Yes, for the first time, we had corporate English VTubers. Jabberwocky Malice debuted on 30/6, representing the UK, while their American ambassador, Caroline Brown, did so a month later.
Malice and Caroline, respectively. Their channels have both been deleted, so you’ll have to bear with my 5 years old screenshots.
WINKs was… not the most successful. I don’t know if there was an honest attempt at trying something new or if they hoped to hop in early to the international VTuber trend and reap the rewards when it grew, but in any case, it didn’t work out. The management was disorganized and while I don’t wanna slander them without really knowing what happened, the impression they gave was that there was more focus on gaining popularity than on actually taking care of the VTubers under them. None of their superiors spoke English (according to Malice), there were often technical issues such as streams not working properly or new members not showing up on their website even after debuting, and it was rumored Caroline had nearly been forced to graduate due to low viewer counts. The company would end up shutting down within a year, with both Malice and Caroline graduating soon after.
That wasn’t the only major event for English VTubing in June. 22/7, an idol group focusing on both 2D girls and their real-life counterparts, debuted their first VTuber, a bilingual girl named Sakura Fujima, voiced by none other than Sally Amaki.
This garnered a lot of attention, as you can probably tell by the fact the views on this video surpass those of any other in this post so far. Funnily enough, it also led to the creation of what might be the first VTuber clip ever.
I believe it’s fair to say most of the English audience was there not because they were particularly looking for an English VTuber, but simply because they were already Sally or Japanese idol fans. This is supported by the comments, which often mention her (a lot of the time, not even bothering to use the Sakura name) in comparison to Kizuna AI, meaning they were likely seeing their second-ever VTuber.
22/7 was and still is decently successful. They’ve had an anime production, and their singles sales grow every year. However, the VTuber part of the project seems to have been mostly abandoned. Sakura hasn’t posted since 2019, and none of the other members are particularly active.
In any case, Fujima Sakura showed us it was possible to get an English audience interested in a VTuber. Even in her most recent upload, which was posted over 9 months after the last English-voiced video, there are still several comments in English, showing that there were at least a few people who stuck with the channel. Once again though, the interest seems to be more on Sally and 22/7 in general, rather than VTubing. As such, while Sakura had a big debut, I don’t think this translated into a bigger interest in English VTubers.4
The English community was still dispersed. Many preferred to simply watch the biggest Japanese VTubers with English subtitles, and even those that followed English-speaking virtual personalities often kept to a single one. I’d say only a very, very small minority of those who watched Fujima Sakura’s debut video went on to look for other English VTubers.
Things would continue like this for a little while. Other English VTubers debuted in the following months, including but not limited to: Tia Sunshine, an American-born girl who had been making videos in Japanese, Kitsune Katsu, Argama Witch, Cierra Runis, Yuikai, Sapphy Stars, Bunny, and Yumemi Yumeiro. They all more or less followed the standards set by their predecessors, e.g. they mainly uploaded videos and, in some cases, appealed to both an English and Japanese audience.
July would see two new English VTubers, both of which would become the most popular ones for the foreseeable future.
The first of these was Miya Kimino, who debuted on the 18th of July, made videos nearly exclusively in English, and 3 months later was in the top 50 of most subscribed VTubers. How did she do it?
Well, she was supported by XR Entertainment, a company run by both Chukyo TV Broadcasting Co. and Ideacloud Inc., who had the means to run ads for her. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Since the English-speaking audience was so small, trying to grow naturally was almost a lost cause. Her content wasn’t low effort either. She focused on videos explaining otaku terms and introducing various Japanese places and cultures, being later joined by Kokon, her producer.
An English VTuber with 5000 whole subs?! no way.
Still, the consequences of using ads to grow her channel are clear by the end of her career, with videos that rarely went over 10k views despite her having over 200 thousand subscribers. With the YouTube algorithm being the way it is, I doubt her new uploads or streams got recommended at all to anyone who was not already part of her core fanbase, even after English VTubers started receiving more attention. She would end up having her graduation stream on the 26th of September, 2021.
Miya introduces a certain Japanese VTuber. A really interesting watch if you’re a current Hololive fan, tbh.
Despite that, Miya was quite important for the English VTuber scene, and honestly for VTubers in general. I think there’s a not insignificant amount of fans nowadays to whom Miya Kimino was the first exposure to English VTubing, or even to VTubers in general. Her videos on relatively simple topics and PG attitude were very approachable even to those who were less into otaku culture and helped English audiences “warm up” to the concept of VTubing. She did her best to try and grow the international community as well, joining upd8, helping smaller VTubers, doing several collaborations and even going as far as creating an (admittedly, fairly loose) international group called UniVirtuals.
Miya and her producer deciding on a name for their “World VTuber Club”.
I must admit I didn’t follow Miya after her initial videos, but her influence in the early English VTubing community was second perhaps only to Natsumi Moe. And while it feels a bit futile to write about Moe when she was already so popular, this article wouldn’t be complete without her.
Standard Moe greeting.
Natsumi Moe, originally known as OtakuMOE, uploaded her first video on the last day of July 2018, debuting as part of the Eilene Family VTuber group. Eilene is another pivotal figure in VTuber history, being one of the first ones to the scene and producing famous VTubers such as Mirai Akari.
Moe’s videos were highly edited, with both Japanese and English subs made by a number of the most prominent fan subbers of the time and behind-the-scenes help by Comdost and Deat. Her personality, at least initially, was quite crass and edgy, almost the exact opposite of Miya.
Being associated with Eilene (starting with the fact she was using one of her old channels) granted her immediate attention. Both her subscribers and views increased rapidly and unlike others, this growth didn’t diminish over time. At the end of 2018, she had 137,204 subs, which put her as the 22nd most subscribed VTuber channel. YouTube rewards popularity with more popularity, and her videos started getting recommended to more and more people. If we’re talking purely about numbers, it’s safe to say Moe was the first successful English VTuber.
Perhaps it was the fact she grew organically (i.e. those who found her were already open to exploring this subculture) or maybe it was bound to happen due to the sheer number of viewers, but many who watched Moe started either looking for or getting recommended other English VTubers. Looking at the r/VirtualYoutubers subreddit, created at the end of 2017, we find several posts and comments like the following:
I think Moe was more or less as popular as an English VTuber could be in those times. She single-handedly proved that it WAS possible to attract Western audiences to this still relatively new thing that was VTubing.
She would keep posting, eventually going indie and separating from the Eilene family. A few months into 2023, she took an indefinite hiatus.
Zoomers won’t understand, but this was literally Avengers Endgame for 2018 English VTuber fans.
Even as we reached the six-month anniversary of the first English VTuber, the most popular ones were still doing videos with Japanese captions. Not that that makes them any less English; but it shows that the English-speaking audience, even at its peak, was still quite small compared to the Japanese one. Many still doubted VTubing as a whole would ever be popular in the West, even after Moe’s success.
And well, this trend continued into 2019, and even 2020. English VTubers kept growing at a slow pace, though their audience was bigger than ever thanks to Moe. Some moved to Twitch as VTubing generally became more about streaming and less about videos. It was only when Hololive had its popularity boom due to a mix of Corona’s lockdowns, the YouTube algorithm, and the collab with Azur Lane, that English VTubers started to grow exponentially in both number and numbers5, culminating in HololiveEN.
It’s easy to see early English VTubing as a failed experiment, an attempt to copy a popular Japanese subculture when there was little to no audience in the West for it. But I mean, things had to start somewhere. If anything, we should recognize and praise early English VTubers for daring to explore this unknown territory, when no one knew if the concept of VTubing would ever be in demand outside of Japan. Maybe, even if they hadn’t started their activities, the Hololive explosion would have happened anyway; but we’d be less rich without the videos of these pioneers.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope this article taught you something new, or at least let you reminisce on the old times. I’m not a native English speaker, but I tried my best. If you have any topics about early VTubing you wish me to cover, leave a comment :D
I try to link to every channel I mention, but there’s a bunch that have been since deleted. My sources for these were mostly from several discords (Kanata Hikari, Eilene, Deat) and warosu archives.
Around the same time, Natsuiro Matsuri and Choco from Hololive had 7500 and 6000 subs, respectively. How times change.
Yes, I am aware that she has reincarnated. I don’t like talking about VTuber identities, but you can google most people I’m talking about here to find out whether they came back or not.
Her English-speaking videos also became her worst-performing ones after a while, which I’m sure is at least part of the reason she stopped making them.
To the point where the VtuberEN hashtag, originally meant for subtitled videos, got taken over by English VTubers. No I’m not mad.