The History of 18+ VTubers: Part 1
Skirting around Youtube's guidelines since 2018.
Hello again. Obviously, this article deals with adult topics, so don’t read it if you’re under 18. I won’t have any super explicit images on screen, but I don’t recommend reading this in public nonetheless.
With that out of the way, I wanna preface this piece with some thoughts. The goal of this Substack is to record parts of VTuber history that have been forgotten or aren’t well known, in a way that’s interesting to read for both new and older fans. Due to their nature, lewd VTubers1 often have their accounts wiped off Youtube or end up deleting all of their content when they graduate, which in turn means there’s less information out there about them. With that in mind, I thought it might be helpful to write a quick article to both help preserve their history and inform people who got into VTubers later than I did.
As you can probably tell, this isn’t a quick article. In fact, it turned out to be so long I had to split it into two parts. The one you are reading right now will be about the world of NSFW VTubers pre-2020, and (hopefully) soon I’ll upload a second part dealing with everything after. It turns out there is a lot more to this than I initially thought, and there has been little to no effort in recording it. A lot of the VTubers I mention here have scant info about them online, even in Japanese, and while I did remember a few things, there were a bunch more that I was simply never aware of, so this ended up taking much longer than I anticipated. Still, I think it turned out well.
Having said all that, let’s get into the article proper. Keep in mind that the first time I mention a VTuber (excluding titles), I’ll link to their Twitter, so please go follow if you find someone that interests you.
2018 - The Beginning
Magura Ene
It’s not easy to figure out who exactly was the first “18+ VTuber.” Of course, there were plenty, even as early as 2017, who didn’t shy away from doing fan service or who had big-chested models. However, if we’re restricting ourselves to VTubers who made actual adult content, the first prize would go to none other than Magura Ene.
Magura Ene’s Q&A video, archived here. While you can always reupload the raw footage, it’s quite sad that subtitles from VTubers who had their channels deleted are essentially gone forever.
Debuting in February 2018 with a short self-introduction, Ene surprised the VTuber world with her vulgar attitude and attire. Barely a week later, she got a community strike thanks to a Genital Jousting stream and was limited to only uploading videos on her channel for about 3 months.
She tried moving to Twitch, where too she was banned before long, and then to Openrec, which became her go-to for the remainder of her YouTube exile. Ene also started streaming lewder content on the famous Japanese R-18 website FC2, where she would remain active even after her strike expired.
Now, she wasn’t completely gone from YouTube during this time, appearing in collabs with other indie VTubers and often interacting with them on Twitter. This eventually led her to join the BANs, an early VTuber group whose members either had been banned or were liable to be banned from YouTube for various reasons. Most of BANs members were using avatars from copyrighted characters, with the most famous being Kaiji, who eventually rebranded as Tenkai Tsukasa. Others, like Ene, were in the group due to their lewd behavior.
BANs fanart by yamagata0725, with Ene at the center.
Ene came back to YouTube in May and celebrated her return with a live featuring Tsukino Mito and Utako from Nijisanji.
Thumbnail of said stream. Surely she won’t be banned again, right?
Now released from Youtube jail, Ene went back to doing regular variety, gaming, and ASMR streams, along with occasional 18+ ones on FC2. She got some aesthetic updates later in the year, with a better 2D FaceRig and her very own 3D model.2
The 2D update allowed Ene to show the viewers new expressions and gestures.
In November, Ene revealed that she had sadly been diagnosed with diabetes. This took a toll on her mental health, which was already fragile due to previously existing disorders such as ADHD and anxiety. At the same time, her Youtube partnership application was denied and she found herself unable to monetize her videos. All of these issues piled together led to her taking a break until early 2019.
Once she returned and was able to restore monetization, Ene kept up her semi-regular livestreams until March 2021, when her channel was deleted due to repeated violations of Youtube’s nudity and sexual policy. Unfortunately, this is a common end for 18+ VTubers’ channels, and it was no different for their pioneer. Nonetheless, she created a new channel and vowed to continue her activities.
Nowadays, she has reduced her online streaming content. She goes live infrequently both on her Youtube channel, where she debuted a new 3D model in April 2023, and on FC2. She also uploads adult ASMR to DLsite and Fantia and has a Game Room account, where you can pay to play games and VC with her.
Ene in VRChat with her new model. She has over 23000 hours in the game.
Outside of the streaming world, Magura Ene is also a manga author. Her first manga, based on her own VTuber activities, was serialized in 2018 in the app MangaPocket. In late 2023, she released a new title, a romance harem comedy about a guy pretending to be a female VTuber who has his IRL identity leaked and gets hit on by his yandere VTuber colleagues.
Ene is the Great Senpai of AVTubing, the very first porn-focused VTuber. She had a great number of issues during her career, which I’ve only barely outlined here3, but despite everything, she’s powered through and keeps giving her best to entertain her viewers to this day. If you have ever enjoyed the likes of Projekt Melody or Comdost, know that it all started with this girl.
Eve Varlaine
The girl who succeeded Magura Ene as the most popular HTuber was Eve. Debuting on the 31st of May 2018, this succubus-in-training lewd videos paired with a very good 3D model for the time resulted in over 10 thousand subscribers a week after her first video, a growth rate that was nearly unheard of back then.
Her uploads consisted of high-quality scripted ASMR, as adult-oriented as you could be on Youtube. Sure, she had to use euphemisms for certain words, but with several videos including the word JOI4 in the title, it was obvious they were intended for sexual pleasure. Needless to say, they were all age-restricted immediately upon uploading. But if that wasn’t enough for you, she sold even more explicit audios in places like DLsite, Booth, or Fantia.
A tweet made by Eve for Kiss Day, around a week before her YT debut.
Despite some criticisms about her upload frequency, Eve’s popularity didn’t wane, and by the time of her first livestream in September, she was celebrating 40 thousand subscribers. These also included Western fans; most of Eve’s videos had English subtitles, graciously provided by the English VTuber fan community, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Eve was some of my reader’s first introduction to erotubers.
Six months into 2019, Rufuret, a new and more experienced senpai succubus, debuted on Eve’s channel. Even with two VTubers on board though, uploads were sporadic at best, and more and more time passed between each one as we got to 2021. That didn’t mean they were forgotten, as most of Eve’s videos still boasted hundreds of thousands of views. Her popularity also extended to the real world, as she collaborated not only with the Japanese company Tamatoys to create several sex toys based on her but also with AV producer TMA to produce the second-ever official VTuber porn video.5
Eve’s channel circa November 2020.
A screenshot from Rufuret’s debut video.
As you might have already surmised, Eve’s channel didn’t survive until today. In January 2021, one of her JOI videos was taken down by YouTube. She soon privated most of her content and began uploading and streaming on a 2nd channel alongside her main one. Eve also took this chance to start posting several gaming-related videos and hosting chatting live streams with a new 2D model. No one is a sex fiend all the time, after all. Not that the smutty ASMR content disappeared, of course; she created an FC2 account around this time, where she’s been doing monthly 18+ streams to this day.
Despite all her precautions though, Eve’s main channel would end up being deleted in early 2023 for violating Youtube’s sexual content policy, much like Ene’s before her. She created a new one and even tried moving to Twitch, but both attempts resulted only in more banned channels. For now, she’s been streaming on her subchannel to a modest 22k subscribers.
As for Rufuret, she has essentially disappeared, with her last tweet being on the 27th of December 2020, about a week before Eve’s channel’s uploads were made private.
Virtual AV Actress Karin & others
Now, there were a few indie R-18 VTubers who, despite arriving early to the trend, never garnered quite the same attention as their pink-haired comrades. Even so, I believe there’s still merit in talking about them since they too are pioneers of this niche within a niche. One of these is Karin, who debuted in March 2018, making her the second-ever lewdtuber. Unlike her predecessor though, she has only reached about 3000 subscribers and 10k followers on Twitter.
Karin introduces her new model. Her original self-introduction has been privated.
This self-proclaimed first Virtual AV actress is still active to this day, though she has, perhaps wisely, chosen to stream mainly on her FC2 account and keep to occasional SFW activities on YouTube. This has allowed her channel to remain safe, even after all these years.
There’s another reason why I chose to highlight Karin in this article: In 2020, she launched the Virtual sex shop X-Oasis, where customers can pay to either talk to one of the cast members (many of which are VTubers themselves) over the phone, or have a “virtual sex experience” using a VR headset. You can even pick your “course”, i.e. roleplay setting, and optionally pay more to control the chosen girl’s toy. Offering the possibility of one-to-one virtual sex with your oshi is certainly an attractive prospect that, to my knowledge, has yet to be replicated in the VTuber world. Perhaps due to this uniqueness, X-Oasis has been covered by the media a surprising number of times, including by Western outlets.6
They even have English support, you have no excuse not to try it.
Some of the available “courses”.
The cast of X-Oasis as of the writing of this article. I appreciate the tags.
I would like to do a deeper dive into all the other niche R18 VTubers that debuted in 2018, but this article is already so long I had to split it into two parts, so I’ll keep it brief with a quick lightning round:
Futainari and Futatama, a pair of (what else), futanari VTubers7;
Meteron, an “Androgynous Angel” who made several ASMR videos boasting millions of views but who has since stopped using the VTuber label;
Akira Mazono, a “virtual sandbag” with a focus on ryona (essentially, physical abuse) videos;
Eri Ayamune, with content related to hypnosis;
Yugi Asase/OLChannel, an office lady with a penchant for ear-licking. I’m told she was fairly big in the early AVTuber scene, but with five banned channels and both her main and sub Twitter suspended, it’s become quite difficult to find information on her. She’s still occasionally active on Youtube, though.
Kouteichan, a catgirl lewd ASMR enthusiast. Her doujin circle, which also includes Yugi and Futatama, has been releasing R-18 voice works of great quality for 6 years now;
Hukami Anko, with a model that was about as unsafe for children as you can be without actually stripping naked.
While these certainly had fewer viewers than someone like Eve, they were all nonetheless important in establishing an early 18+ VTuber community.
Hukami Anko’s 3D model. I suppose it is genius in the sense that VTubers can get away with only showing above the neck. Didn’t stop her channel from getting banned, though.
It’s also interesting to denote what fetishes were the first to appear in this new virtual setting. Futanari and gender-ambiguity in general is fairly common in the VR world, so it’s not too surprising to see it pop up, but the popularity of ryona is a bit strange to me. Mazono wasn’t even the first one; Housewife Reiko had already explored the idea, though they didn’t make explicit content.
DeepWebUnderground
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention DeepWebUnderground, A.K.A. DWU, before ending this 2018 section. Known for her edgy and risquè content early on, including but not limited to rating d*ck pics from Twitter DMs, interviewing a Japanese man who attempted to join ISIS, smoking THC on camera, parodying famous dark web videos, and others, DWU was also the first VTuber to release an official onahole, alongside many other similar goods like lotion, condoms, and 18+ body pillows. At around the same time, it was revealed she had a JAV made with her as a motif, making her the first-ever VTuber to have an official porn video.
Her list of achievements doesn’t end there: DWU was also the first to collaborate with a hentai game. She appeared for a limited time as part of a gacha within Kamihime Project, and players who pulled her could get access to sex scenes voiced by DWU herself.
The promotional poster for DWU’s JAV. She also interviewed the actress Karin Nishida who played her part in an upload that, like many of her early videos, has unfortunately been made private.
DWU is a curious figure in the history of AVTubers. She never did the typical content you would expect, like adult ASMR or FC2 streams, and her YouTube content is barely lewd, especially when you factor in recent uploads. Nonetheless, any article that deals with R-18 VTubers wouldn’t be complete without mentioning someone who broke so many barriers in this world.
2019 - The calm before the storm
After a hectic beginning, the niche of adult-oriented VTubers kept growing, albeit at a slow pace. Some famous figures debuted this year, including Yuzuki Rin, who would end up becoming the first member of Emoechi Productions, the first-ever AVTuber agency, in 2020. Since I’ll write about Emoechi extensively in the 2nd part of this article, I’ll leave any talk of Rin’s accomplishments until then.
For now, let’s take a look at two more pioneers of 18+ VTubing.
Yumeno Shiori
Yumeno Shiori was one of the VTubers who dabbled in risquè content this year. This fallen angel succubus actually debuted in May 2018 and initially gained popularity thanks to her ASMR videos on bilibili and Youtube. While she always uploaded somewhat racy content, even having both an all-ages and a “Gentleman’s Only” Fanbox, she upped the ante in 2019 and began actual R-18 activities, including adult streams on FC2 and similarly adult-rated audios on Booth. In April, she revealed her first lewd merch: a succubus-grade lotion, making her the first-ever VTuber to sell this kind of product.9
Shiori’s lotion. It’s no longer available for purchase.
Nowadays, Shiori is still mostly active on bilibili, where she has 258,000 followers, though she does do Youtube streams sometimes. She seems to have stopped her FC2 activities, and any explicit content is kept behind paywalls on websites like ci-en or the previously mentioned Fanbox(es). Sadly, as of the writing of this article, there’s been essentially no content of that genre this year, likely due to her medical issues.
Shiori’s most popular stream, sitting at a surprising 1.4 million views. Fun fact: Her illustrator is Par1y, who also did Nijisanji’s Ars Almal, Kagura Mea, and others.
Unlike others mentioned so far, Yumeno Shiori never really became a full-fledged 18+, retweeting-hentai-on-main VTuber— NSFW content was always a secondary priority to her. This is probably a more healthy attitude to have if you’re an indie R-18 virtual creator; again, no one is pent-up 24/7. Unless you’re happy with making AVTubing your entire online persona, it’s likely a good idea to have some different uploads to space out the goon sessions. Even VTubers like EvE who started with essentially exclusively adult content took this route as the years passed.
Saya M-Cup
Now here’s someone who has completely disregarded it.
With an impressive 174k followers on Twitter, Saya M-Cup is the most popular VTuber that debuted in 2019 and remains one of the most popular R-18 VTubers on that platform to this day.
Saya’s current model. She has M-cup in the name for a reason.
She joined Twitter in September 2018 and made no effort to hide what kind of content she’d be making, uploading adult pictures from her very first post. There was no veneer of wholesomeness or clever innuendos here; you followed Saya because you were horny for her, and she knew that.
A sample of Saya’s tweets. They aren’t all like this, of course, but there’s a lot.
Saya’s constant retweeting of NSFW fanart and unashamed attitude earned her a massive 20 thousand followers in little more than a month. One must remember that even the most popular erotubers at this time, that being EvE and Ene, were far more conservative than this. Really, if we’re talking purely in terms of how lewd they were online, Saya had almost every other VTuber beat by a mile.
With that said, there’s a reason I’m including her in the 2019 section; despite her popularity, she didn’t create her channel until early that year, and her first video was only published in July.
Saya’s self-introduction video. Her likes include watching anime and tokusatsu, sex, and “graduating” virgins.
It would take a few months until Saya uploaded to Youtube again. Nonetheless, she kept growing on Twitter, publishing short suggestive audios, “selfies” and reports on her night life. She also started a Fanbox in April, where you can pay for explicit ASMR, exclusive pictures, and other perks.
A sample of one of Saya’s ear-licking audios, posted on her Twitter.
In early 2020, Saya joined an adult VTuber group by the name of HAKS. This group also included Yuugi Asase, Kouteichan and Futatama, all early birds to the AVTuber landscape. Unfortunately, it seems they ended up not using their shared channel outside of one stream, and few archives of their activities together remain. You can be sure they weren’t safe for work, though.
HAKS fanart by tomiokasena.
A great friendship.
About a year later, in June of 2020, Saya had her first Youtube livestream, which is no longer public. She debuted a new model not too long after, which she has been using since then. Outside of the video world, she released her first proper voice work on DLsite in December of that same year.
While she can certainly be coarse in her videos and livestreams, Saya has apparently learned from her predecessors and holds back enough that her channel has survived to this day. She’s still active on it, with ASMR, chatting, and gaming streams happening semi-regularly. With that said, most of her fans have decided to stick to her Twitter, leading to a difference in followers VS Youtube subscribers of about 140k people. Not too surprising, considering she has a near-constant stream of 18+ content on the former bird platform.
Thank you for reading this far. This took a lot of work. If you have any questions, or if I missed someone, please leave a comment. I'll see you in part 2, where I’ll cover Projekt Melody, the rise of AVTuber agencies, and other fun topics.
Also known as erotubers, lewdtubers, AVTubers, and a couple of other names I’ll be using throughout this piece.
There was actually some controversy about this. She had a 3D model previously but stopped using it as it came to light the modeler had stolen some assets to make it.
I chose to not bring up her marriage because they divorced just 2 years later, and I don’t think it ultimately matters much. I’m just mentioning it here so someone doesn’t leave a comment after looking at Ene’s page in the wiki.
Stands for Jerk-Off Instructions, in case you didn’t know.
“But what about the first?” I’ll get to that, don’t worry.
I actually reached out to Karin in early April to get her thoughts on the early AVTuber scene, since she speaks English. She seemed open to talk but sadly didn’t reply to my questions until the publishing of this article. If she does end up doing so (and I hope she does, since her input would certainly be interesting), I’ll mention it in part 2.
Unfortunately, Futainari deleted all her content prior to her re-debut in 2020, so I was unable to find out which one of these two can claim the certainly prestigious title of the world’s first futanari VTuber.
Anene was involved in a serious controversy. Apparently, she “sold” her PC and other items to several people on Twitter at the same time, and then faked her death, presumably to run away with the money. She ended up apologizing and returning everything, but she disappeared from the internet after that incident. You can read more about it in this article (in Japanese).
Beating out DWU’s “Love Juice Lotion” by about two months!