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pienhime · 6 months

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10 female vtubers who are popular with ryousangata and jirai girls!

Two important things to know before you read any further: I am NOT alleging any of these vtubers to be jirai kei. That'd be incredibly inappropriate for me to do, as I don't know any of them well enough to know if they are a part of the jirai kei subculture. I am simply listing vtubers who seem to be the most popular within the ryousanjirai crowd, that is those whose female fanbase seems to have a higher proportion of ryousanjirai girls than most.

The other thing I'd like to get out of the way is that some vtubers on this list are known for using "menhera" as an insult. Sadly, thats grown popular in the vtuber scene and online spaces in japan. For vtuber fans reading this who think that's a weird thing to say, the word "menhera" has been around since 2001 and was the name given to an internet subculture revolving around mental health safe spaces, awareness, and vent art. Even tho it was literally created to help erase the "mental illness makes you dangerous" thing, the stigma took over once the term went mainstream, so its often used to mean "yandere psycho". The subculture still exists if you know where to look, but barely ever uses the name it gave itself anymore because it attracts trolls, edgelords, and fetishists.

One last thing- a few of these girls fit the "loli" archetype, and consider it a part of their appeal, but no minors will be featured on this list.

absolutely zero past-life discussion

I'll do my best to summarize what the vtuber is known for and the reasons i think are likely why their female fanbase has a larger proportion of ryousanjirai girls.

1. Sakamata Chloe (Hololive HoloX)

Given that she recently got a new outfit that looks a lot like a dark girly kei coord, you've probably seen Chloe on your feed recently. Despite her yamikawaii punk-ish look, she's so cute and probably couldn't survive in the wild if she were a real orca. The "pon" is unreal. Her original songs talk about her own inner pain in a way that may be relatable to jirai girls, and she's covered a lot of songs popular with us too (such as Cute Loving and Devil Janai Mon). Between her cutesiness, choice in fashion, and her songs, it's easy to see why she's loved by jirai kei girls.

2. Minato Aqua (Hololive Gen. 2)

You probably know about Aqua if you follow me, since I just posted a link to one of her more recent song covers. It's one about a ryousangata girl falling in love with a host, and knowing his affection is fake but wanting it anyway. She covers a lot of songs about topics that are familiar to ryousan and jirai girls, like kyuukurarin, darling dance, goodbye declaration, and internet overdose to name a few. Her original songs are also hits with the ryousangata crowd, with "aqua iro palette" being the choice of song in so many tiktoks and reels of ryousan wotas showing off their lavish birthday celebrations for their oshis. She's also a cosplayer, frequently wearing maid outfits, making her relatable to a lot of girls who work at concept cafes. She also did a duet with Shion, a cover of "menhera janai mon", which is a song i often see misinterpreted outside of japan because of the need for cultural context on jirai kei, ryousangata, and menhera both as a subculture and insult. Should I do a post explaining the lyrics and overall themes?

3. Makaino Ririmu (Nijisanji Gamers Generation 3)

Listen. If you're in the jirai kei subculture, I guarantee you've seen Ririmu. This girl's fanart is probably on every jirai kei blog known to man. If you don't recognize this model, you'd recognize the maid outfit with bondage elements thats paired with a coat that looks suspiciously like REFLEM's bunny ears coat (the one that took yamikawa lovers by storm a while back). Ririmu's popularity with jirai kei girls isn't just because she likes similar fashions to most of us. Ririmu has been open about her past suffering with agorophobia, suicidal ideation, and being a NEET. She's shared bits and pieces of her recovery with her fans! Of course, she also does yandere bit that might be more than a bit, and covers a lot of songs popular with ryousan and jirai girls, like more kyun, chuupuri, and vampire.

4. Mikeneko (Indie)

Mikeneko isn't new to the scene at all, but has recently come out of a partly mental health related hiatus to a much larger following than before. Mikeneko collects models like they're pokemon cards, going thru four in total now, two of which have been in one year. She wears tons of yamikawa fashions, and plays up her chuunibyou for streams. Aside from her on-and-off NEETdom, Mikeneko is open about a lot of her health issues, including bipolar, and about her medication and trips to the psychiatric hospital. She calls herself menhera, often in the secondary meaning, but she's also rumored to have been a part of the actual subculture for a long time. Her original songs, drop and you&me ring really true for a lot of jirai and menhera girls such as myself.

5. Meloco Kyoran (Nijisanji EN Generation 7)

Meloco is the only vtuber on this list to be a part of an company's EN (english-speaking) branch. She's included on the list because she's also big in japan- because she's japanese. She's almost fluent in english and was accepted for the english branch, but frequently slips into japanese and appeals to her japanese fans. Her outfit is gothic lolita inspired with bondage elements and plenty of edge, to fit her overall spooky exorcist theming. Her creepy-cute nature and cool alternative onee-san demeanor have attracted her many jirai kei fans, and inspired a lot of ryousan girls' oshi nails.

6. Sukoya Kana (Nijisanji Tulip-gumi Unit)

Admittedly, Kana's probably got more menhera (as in the subculture) fans than jirai or ryousan, but she still has enough that I wanted to include her. Her nurse theming isn't just a gimmick, her actual "day job" is as a nurse. As in, when she's not streaming, she works in a hospital as staff after passing her qualifying exams in 2022! She must be super busy! Her morbid interests and fetishes, as well as her medical themed design, have no doubt appealed to many jirai girls too. Besides that, she's covered a lot of songs, including quite a few beloved by landmines such as lavie, nainai girls pride, and godish.

7. Natori Sana (Indie)

Listen, I just know you've seen her figures by now. Every menhera, yamikawaii, and "cutecore" account in the west has at least one of this nurse girl's figures. She's ultra cute, with a sickeningly sweet smile and design. Her lore is interesting- she claims to work at a sanitarium, but has hinted very heavily many times that she is in fact not a nurse, but a patient in denial. Whether this is just lore for fun and appeal or is a dramatized reflection of Sana's own feelings and mental health is up for speculation.

8. La+ (Laplus) Darkness (HoloX)

Remember that disclaimer regarding using menhera derogatorily earlier? Yeah that's 90% because of Laplus's inclusion on the list. It feels like she accuses someone of being menhera (derogatory) like every other VOD. Apart from that, Laplus is a grade A kusogaki, complete with constant angry outburst when things don't go her way. She's a demon whos intelligence was... "sealed away"... sure. Her gothic appearance and explosive personality seem to be what's gained her such a large jirai kei following.

9. Houshou Marine (Hololive Gen. 3)

Dear god. Alright, so you've definitely heard at least two of her songs if you're on japanese jirai kei SNS at all. This cosplaying pirate is so horny that it's literally considered her catchphrase. Her original songs about wanting to be seen as desirable and be... pleasured seem to be especially popular with landmine girls (which is maybe related to how many jirai girls are in a certain profession). She enjoys gothic lolita fashion, girls love/yuri, and enough fetishes to lose track of if you're counting.

10. Shigure Ui (Indie)

Did you really think I could make this list without including hololive star Oozora Subaru's mom and voice of the song that's plaguing japanese social media, ESPECIALLY landmine social media rn? Sure, it's everywhere, but go check every insta kaiwai dedicated to jirai subculture and see how many of their reels have this song. Even though she's just now broken out to this degree of fame, she's been around a while, and is the "mama" (artist) to several other vtubers. She often collabs with hololive members! She loves taboo fiction, which is also especially popular amongst jirai girls.

Last but not least, I want to add three honorable mentions from Hololive that are also popular with ryousanjirai girls. Tokoyami Towa is a super popular choice of cosplay amongst jirai girls specifically. She has a cute-but-cool look, and lots of her outfits definitely have subcultural influences from japanese ゴスパンク (gothic x punk) and general "egirl"-type styles. Murasaki Shion is a very popular choice of profile pic for ryousanjirai girls, and it's easy to see why. Her "kusogaki" appeal and lolita outfits, as well as her "Menhera Janai Mon" duet with Aqua all appeal to that demographic. Finally, last honorable mention is Amane Kanata, purely because of how popular she is with lovers of Tenshi Kaiwai, which has a lot of overlap with the jirai subculture. She basically predicted the trend before the magazine that popularized it even existed. Mizuiro x white cybercore outfits, a nurse cosplay, and angel theming make her a spot-on icon in that scene.

That's it! Now I have to stop procrastinating on the pien kei characters post...

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northwest-cryptid · 8 months

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You know I've spent a year as part of a few indie vtuber teams and my experiences were awful so here's a bit of random things I learned:

1. They're not friends; they're coworkers who aren't getting paid. It creates a weirdly hostile work environment because everyone is expected to "pull their weight" by which they mean you need to bring in views so that if they collab with you they actually get something out of it. However since none of us are getting paid for this so I can't take up time I'd otherwise spend with my partner/at work/living my own life to be there for "meetings" and such to discuss upcoming collabs and the like.

2. The Vtuber identities are not created for the team rather they join into the team; and what this means is that you could be in a "gen" with people who do not at all remotely fit your aesthetic and vice versa, and that would be fine but half of them take the RP element super seriously and the other half, like myself; see ourselves as streamers with a virtual webcam so you get this awful back and forth where someone in RP asks you a character question when you're just trying to vibe and you don't know how to respond and then you recognize that your humor doesn't line up because they start poking fun at you for not being able to just improv on the spot even though that's not your thing and you didn't know you'd be asked of it. Then you never want to collab with them again.

3. They have this obsession with growth to the point they will insist on getting "gen 2" streamers involved because they know bigger teams = bigger reach = bigger audience. So even though your team has no footing and absolutely no one is even aware you guys are a team or what that even means, you're already trying to bring in others. This means you are now expected to get along with every single new member even if they're not the sort of person you'd like to spend time around, because go back to point 1. You're not friends, you're co-workers. So if your gen mates decide to bring on some random person who literally says "to be honest I just see you as a man" you're just expected to put up with that because if you put your foot down you're told that you were hostile for even saying "hey I don't feel comfortable with this" Because they don't want to say "we don't want you around if you're going to potentially stop us from bringing in a bigger audience" since that sounds bad.

4. They all try to be Hololive or Nijisanji but they don't fundamentally understand why those groups are successful so they burnout in a month when they learn they don't immediately have 50,000 followers and tons of money.

I have a lot of thoughts about this sort of thing because I think Vtuber teams are really cool in concept but bad in execution because of how they're typically executed, if you're curious about my opinion on this at all it's all below the cut including an example of what I think a good team would look like:

The concept behind a Vtuber team works, and seems cool but only if they are done right. Let's assume for a moment that this is not a paid thing, you're just part of a team being put together from scratch, brand new streamers with no history, no company backing, and no funding. How do you do it so that you can ensure success? Well it's actually really easy, you decide right off the bat if you want being a team to be a fundamental part of your identity.

If the answer is NO then do not form a "team" or "group" instead I strongly urge you to just collab with one another and hype each other up while going about your own streams and the like.

If the answer is YES you need to solidify what it means to be a "team" in your mind. To me a team is the following: A group of individuals who stream under the same label in which they connect with one another and often stream with each other. However I'd argue to take it a step further, a team is themed.

This might not be the case for you but if you want to succeed you need 2 big things: 1 you need to ensure that "being a team" does actually mean something more than "I'm streaming with friends" because if that's the case look back at "NO" and take into account how you lose nothing by not being a team. If you think "being a team is part of our identity as streamers" or "being a team is part of our theme" or "being a team means I'll put time aside to readily collab with my peers" or whatever, then carry on. The other big thing is, 2. You need to be friends. I cannot stress this enough, I mean FRIENDS. People who know each other, people who can spend more than 3 hours in a room with each other, REGULARLY. I knew a lot of people who called me their friend and then neglected to respect my gender identity, I knew people who called me a friend and then literally raised their voice at me because I simply told them I disagreed with them on a subject. I knew people who called me a friend and then tried to cancel me for disagreeing with them even after they told me I had a good point and should bring it up with the group. MAKE SURE YOU ARE ACTUALLY FRIENDS.

Okay so you want to be a team, you have some friends; and you know you want a theme and all that. Cool alright now we get onto character design. You know one of the big reasons Hololive works so well? I'll tell you it's very simple, themes are easy to "market" HoloCouncil is a great example of that. The group aren't just people who collab together, they're each "the warden/guardian/keeper of [something]" be it time, nature, civilization, chaos, space, etc. This is why Irys can so easily be marketed as part of Council, because she's this angel/devil of hope and all that. If you want your group to be easily marketable as a group instead of as individuals (which is important mind you since you'll be primarily growing at an accelerated pace due to being in a group which I'll get to in a bit.) You need to have some kind of central theme. I literally do not care if you want to be a group of magical girls, power ranger parody, or even a generic RPG party (which I actually think would be really cool but I've never seen done before) it can be as super generic as you want because at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter. Funny that.

Your theme is going to determine 2 things, your aesthetics looks wise, and what you stream. Yeah I know seeing that you probably think "hold up fam I'm not letting my aesthetic dictate what I stream!" You're right, that's not what I mean though. If you're thinking that, you've got it backwards.

For example let's roll with the RPG Party concept right? So let's say you have 5 streamers, we'll call them:

Philip - Optimistic, Upbeat, Energetic, Friendly Roland - Stoic, Quiet, Artistic, Calm Walter - Uptight, Smart, Matter of fact, Logical Julia - Happy, Kind, Calm, Empathetic and Yuna - Calculated, Relaxed, Confident, Loyal I pulled these names and generalized personalities out of thin air shush. Let's quickly assess each person's real life (we're not talking characters here) personalities and preferences, we're looking for some overlap here.

So we know that Philip is upbeat and energetic and we know Julia has these kind of happy but calm vibes that's great we can make them collab partners since their general audiences will likely mesh with each other.

Roland, and Yuna are both calm / relaxed and the confident / stoic nature might play off each other well, their audiences will likely get along well and enjoy each other's personalities given the similarities.

I think Walter being smart and matter of fact means he's a good fit to collab with Yuna's calculated and confident personality traits while being uptight and logical almost makes him a great collab partner for Roland's more stoic and quiet personality.

Knowing what we know here we can see that at least in some regards we have a good spread of collabs here, but we're only looking at personality. It's also important to note that BEING ACTUAL FRIENDS any of these people should be able to collab with each other when they want. Since their personality features we're highlighting here aren't exclusively their only traits.

So let's look at what kind of games/activities they like to stream. Again we're looking for overlap in some places, just not everywhere.

Philip = FPS games, action games, and beat em ups/fighters Roland = Management games, cooking streams, art streams Walter = Puzzle games, strategy games, card games Julia = VR Hang outs, action games, farming/life sims Yuna = Card/Strategy games, MOBAs, Action RPGs

okay cool I think I've got it...

Philip is the party's Paladin, he's this upbeat confident personality who "leads them courageously to their next adventure" meanwhile Roland is the group's bard who records the party's adventures via art and cooks for everyone. Walter is the group's old sorcerer who studies magic strictly and effectively knowing more spells than most of his peers due to his years of dedication to the craft. Julia is the team Cleric who's never without a bright smile, even when she's smashing goblins and skeletons under her giant mace, she loves her team but doesn't actually know any healing magic because she cares so much about her party that she just fights anything that dares to hurt them. Lastly Yuna is the team Rogue who's always being a goblin under her hood secretly housing a few trick card decks, loaded dice, and in case of emergency a dagger under her cloak. Her confidence may be genuine or it might just be that she knows she's already rigged the game.

TA DA YOU HAVE A TEAM, YOU HAVE A THEME, YOU HAVE AESTHETICS, AND GUESS WHAT YOUR CHARACTERS FIT THE GAME STYLE YOU'RE LIKELY GOING TO BE STREAMING ANYWAYS.

Now let's review real quick because I know some people may have got lost in the weeds here with all the specifics.

Why does our team example here work while none of the teams I joined via twitter did? For the sake of explanation the example team I've proposed here will be referred to as the RPG Team while other REAL teams will be referred to as Twitter Teams.

RPG Team:

Are all actually friends who can get along and respect one another's time and effort without pushing each other for their own gain.

Designed characters and aesthetics around their own personal interests and worked out possible collab partners.

Has enough outreach in different places that they will be seen by many audiences from the art side of things to FPS games to farming sims to strategy games to Mobas, and they have enough in common that when they collab the viewers who are coming from one of their streams will likely actually enjoy the content and personality of the other members enough to watch them as well.

Can easily advertise as a group since their designs mesh well together and give a clear indication that they're a team.

Twitter Teams:

Constantly push other members to stream more, advertise more, brand more, market yourself more, gain more followers; not for your own growth but because otherwise they won't get anything from collaborating with you.

Were all designed independently without any interest in possibly even remotely working out a common theme among them, no one knows anyone here so we have no idea who will mesh well with others and what kind of audience they have.

We all found each other through the same game, which meant we didn't have outreach beyond those few games, meaning that we all shared a common audience instead of bringing in viewers from various corners of twitch.

People had no idea we were in a team when we didn't have some kind of branding/logo/team name obnoxiously front and center that meant nothing to people who didn't realize what a team was to begin with. So there was no point in being a "team" to begin with because it didn't add anything to our characters.

We weren't all on the same page as to how in character someone should be during collabs which resulted in a lot of awkward conversations.

We were more like co-workers than friends so if someone decided to be a transphobe I had to essentially bring it up with HR, except HR was a panel of peers who basically looked at who had more followers.

You might be saying "okay so if I want to make a team you're saying I need to only do this with my closest close friends and we have to make entirely new characters and start over?"

No but that would probably be way easier :P

If you vibe with someone, talk to them about it; and try to figure out who all you know well enough to make something like a team work. You don't have to enter into a team right away, you could all stream separately at first and collab here and there to see how you all vibe, and if you decide you guys think becoming a team sounds cool here's what you do...

Try to create a central theme from all your characters. It needs to be from ALL your characters though, and don't be afraid to get create with it just make sure it's cohesive. Like if you're all wildly different characters just saying "it's like in smash bros where everyone is from different things" isn't likely going to be seen as "creative" so much as a cop out. I'd argue it's better to create an entire universe around your group of characters than try to say they all come from a multiverse or something.

Once you have some kind of central theme, figure out what each person is going to "be" and then figure out how in or out of character you care to be. At one point I was part of a team in which I had a whole intro and such but I never cared to be in character so I'd still just give my little intro and then move on and just be me and everyone who watched me was chill with that.

Now all of you keep your own shit going on, you have your own characters, you have your own streams, the whole nine yards; but you're also now bound to a central narrative/theme/concept/aesthetic and ta da your team is a TEAM.

Now get out there and collab over things you like and make sure that you promote the whole team when you promote yourself, because if everyone does that it'll boost your exposure organically to people who likely already vibe with your style of content.

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