Kou Mariya hasn’t proven her work to her household. That’s as a result of Mariya, not her actual title, resides a twin identification, and to guard her privateness, solely essentially the most sacred of confidants — or enterprise companions — can know her true persona.
Mariya, to her greater than 84,000 followers on YouTube, is a pleasant, flirtatious vampire singer, as excited to speak about her digitized outfits and equipment as she is to sing a late ’90s pop tune. She performs as an animated avatar utilizing movement seize know-how, which matches her facial expressions and physique actions to the drawn determine.
Mariya spends a good portion of her days as this cartoon character, without delay wholly actual whereas being fully synthetic. She is an expert performer, though her stage is digital. As a substitute of a glimpse right into a room or a house, her environment are totally drawn — she might be in a seashore setting in the future and an ornate workplace the following.
As a VTuber — that’s, digital YouTuber — Mariya is a part of a motion, one led by these weaned on Japanese animation who are actually discovering methods to make fantasy world-building really feel individualized and private. We join through video conferencing software program, her location within the U.S. a secret, and Mariya seems in her anime type, her silver-white hair sometimes obscuring her welcoming oval eyes, which blink typically as she speaks. Her voice is pleasant and heat, and it ever-so-slightly dips into an higher register when she laughs or wants to emphasise some extent. She nervously chuckles that she’ll be aged “so unhealthy” when she admits the primary anime she fell in love with was “Velocity Racer.” Whether or not I’m speaking to Mariya the vampire character or Mariya the performer is rarely fairly clear.
Kou Mariya, internet hosting a Thursday night time live performance in Hollywood, is a pleasant vampire VTuber.
(Kou Mariya)
This weekend Mariya will likely be internet hosting a live performance in Hollywood with different standard VTubers. There will likely be reside musicians, however the VTubers will likely be digital. Mariya says she’ll be acting from an off-site location to guard her identification.
These in Los Angeles may have a number of alternatives to participate in a VTuber crash course over the Fourth of July vacation. Mariya on Thursday will host the Incredible Actuality introduced by IRIAM live performance on the Vermont Hollywood, a efficiency that makes digital and actual musicians and options Ironmouse, a horned, operatic demon who was briefly essentially the most subscribed streamer on Twitch.
Much more mainstream, a bunch of VTubers related to Japanese agency Hololive will invade Dodger Stadium for the second yr in a row. Saturday night’s Hololive Evening will function three of firm’s English-speaking abilities — Ninomae Ina’nis, IRyS and Koseki Bijou — nearly cheering on the group, singing the seventh-inning stretch after which main a post-game dance celebration on the sector. A particular occasion ticket will embrace taking part in playing cards of the VTubers.
Hololive, a division of Cowl Corp., is among the largest VTuber expertise businesses on the earth, with nearly 90 lively performers throughout its varied divisions. The corporate’s U.S. workplace relies in L.A., and its partnership with the Dodgers is to acknowledge, partly, that the group has a big Japanese fanbase, due to megastar Shohei Ohtani. Cowl CEO Motoaki Tanigo, nonetheless, has a broader purpose, and that’s to additional carry VTubers to the lots.
“There are two causes,” Tanigo says, through a translator, for why Cowl has focused L.A. as one in every of its key markets. The primary, he notes, is because of the truth that a big a part of the corporate’s fanbase resides within the L.A. area. The second, he stresses, pertains to his enterprise objectives, particularly the online game corporations Cowl hopes to associate with. “Doing occasions within the Los Angeles space just isn’t solely vital for our person engagement, but it surely’s an important alternative to point out to our enterprise purchasers that now we have a powerful following.”
VTubers have averaged 50 billion YouTube views yearly over the previous three years, in response to a current YouTube Tradition & Traits report. A YouTube pattern of 300 digital creators discovered that they drove 15 billion views throughout the positioning, with 1 billion coming from the U.S. alone. Virtually all of those VTubers are steeped deeply in anime lore, tradition and tone. And whereas there are standard male VTubers, a lot of essentially the most well-known are female-facing. Cowl’s roster, as an example, is greater than three-quarters feminine.
Hololive characters on the Dodger Stadium scoreboard eventually yr’s occasion. Hololive Evening returns on July 5.
(Cowl Corp.)
“It’s very thrilling,” says Susan Napier, creator of “Miyazakiworld: A Life in Artwork” and professor at Tufts College who makes a speciality of Japanese tradition. “It permits for an unlimited quantity of creativity, and an actual sense of possession over your creation, and a method of taking part in and melding together with your creation. Folks have been followers and figuring out with favourite tales, anime and manga for years. That is, in a method, a really outdated phenomena. It’s individuals desirous to take part in a fantasy world that they love.”
Mariya notes she determined to turn out to be a VTuber through the worst days of the worldwide pandemic of 2020. “Everybody was in entrance of their computer systems and had a way of loneliness,” she says. “And VTubers [had] that sense of, ‘I’m not alone. I’m not trapped. There’s an entire world on the market for me.’ Being an enormous fan of that, I wished to strive that myself. I didn’t count on to have the ability to make this right into a profession, however one way or the other individuals favored me, and I believed I might preserve going with this.”
And the way, in fact, did she land on her character, a vampire with a bat clip in her hair and an open-chested cocktail server-style outfit? “That one is hard as a result of technically I used to be born a vampire,” Mariya says. “We’re not scary. We ask permission earlier than getting into doorways, which is best than lots of people. We do chew. That’s the one draw back.” Proper.
We’re not scary. We ask permission earlier than getting into doorways, which is best than lots of people. We do chew. That’s the one draw back.
— Kou Mariya, on being a vampire VTuber
The Japan-led VTtuber pattern predates the pandemic. The primary correct digital artist to realize fame is broadly credited as Kizuna AI in 2016, however VTubers have grown alongside different related developments. See, as an example, digital live performance artist Hatsune Miku, who carried out at Coachella in 2024. VTubers are additionally intently aligned with video video games, typically streaming them for his or her followers. The sport medium, in fact, has lengthy been related to digital avatars, be it Nintendo Mii figures, the personas of “Second Life” or in the present day’s platforms of “Fortnite,” “Roblox” and “Minecraft.” And this summer time, in one of many largest releases of 2025, VTuber Usada Pekora has a job within the PlayStation 5 sport “Demise Stranding 2,” with famed director and auteur Hideo Kojima admitting he’s a fan.
For creator, voice-over actor and Anime Expo attendee AmaLee, the uncommon VTuber who, whereas utilizing a stage title, does present her face, anime’s fantastical but mature storylines reached her as a younger teen when she was exploring her creativity. “It’s bridging a niche,” she says of VTubing. “Ever since I used to be a young person I cherished anime. It’s music, lovely animation and appearing multi functional. VTubing brings it into the true world. You are able to do a lot together with your VTuber lore story. You’re form of creating your personal anime.”
VTuber Ironmouse will carry out on the Incredible Actuality live performance on Thursday.
(Ironmouse)
Essentially the most interesting VTubers carry a degree of real-life authenticity into their work. “Should you return and watch my very first streams, I’m very cemented on this cleanly elegant actor [persona],” AmaLee says. “My voice is completely different. I dropped it to be cooler. I noticed shortly how exhausting that was to maintain, and I didn’t like not being authentically me. I’m a bit of clumsy, a bit of blond and I’ve main tech points.”
Mariya describes herself as introvert, saying she wouldn’t be streaming — or possible even performing — if it weren’t for VTubing.
“With VTubing, there’s a way of anonymity that I feel is admittedly good for the viewers as effectively,” Mariya says. “Some individuals don’t need to see a bodily particular person in entrance of a display. They need to see anime women. I feel individuals latch onto the concept that it’s one thing that’s completely different and greater than me and greater than them. It’s a brand new world.”
Final yr’s Hololive Evening at Dodger Stadium featured a drone present. Search for an on-field dance celebration led by the VTubers this yr.
(Cowl Corp. )
Creator and professor Napier says it’s a contemporary, digitized Renaissance faire, if you’ll, reflecting fundamental human wishes to decorate up and play. As for why it simply so occurs to be so related to anime, Napier theorizes the medium fosters the concept of fantasy creation.
“Fantasy and science fiction are very fashionable tradition inventive venues to play and to cosplay,” Napier says. “Anime is admittedly good at presenting you with these — it’s brilliantly expansive. No matter you’re into, you’ll discover it in anime. So in the event you’re seeking to VTube, there’s all this anime materials sitting in entrance of you. You may choose and select and begin taking part in.”
The dream for the Cowl company, says Tanigo, is to develop VTubers past the world of streaming websites equivalent to YouTube and Twitch — therefore, the Dodgers collaboration. In August, Hololive will stage one other U.S. live performance, this time at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor in New York. Music, says Tanigo, is a gateway. “I consider that’s a method of reaching new individuals,” he says. “It’s an attention-grabbing factor to go see. There are additionally individuals who is probably not excited by VTubing or anime in any respect, however they will hearken to the tune that’s launched and revel in it as a bit of music by itself.”
For the performers, with VTubing comes a way of security — and even consolation — that isn’t all the time current in additional conventional streaming.
“I did a variety of on-camera streaming at first of my streaming profession, however I hated having to prepare, do my make-up, put on one thing good,” AmaLee says. “Even after an hour of on the point of do a stream, somebody was nonetheless [commenting], ‘You look drained in the present day.’ I hated that. There could be days I’d cancel streams as a result of I didn’t need to prepare. Now I’ve my VTuber mannequin and could be a little gremlin in my pajamas and nobody has to know as a result of Monarch is all the time excellent.”
An anime character, in any case, is all the time able to go.
