Kou Mariya has not shown his work to his family. This is because Mariya, not his real name, is to live a dual identity, and to protect his privacy, only the most sacred confidants, or commercial partners, can know his true personality.
Mariya, for her more than 84,000 followers on YouTube, is a friendly and flirtatious vampire singer, so excited to talk about her attire and digitized accessories to sing a pop song from the end of the 90s. She acts as an animated avatar using movement capture technology, which coincides with her facial expressions and her body movements with the figure drawn.
Mariya spends a significant part of her days like this cartoon character, at the same time totally real, while she is completely artificial. She is a professional interpreter, although her stage is virtual. Instead of glimpsing a room or a house, its surroundings is completely drawn: it could be on a beach one day and an office adorned the next.
As Vtuber, that is, Virtual Youtuber, Mariya is part of a movement, one directed by those weaved in Japanese animation that now find ways to make the construction of the fantasy world feel individualized and personal. We connect through the videoconference software, its location in the US. A secret, and Mariya appears in its anime form, its silver white hair occasionally obscures its welcoming oval, which flashes often while speaking. His voice is friendly and warm, and immerses himself very well in a superior register when he laughs or needs to emphasize a point. He laughs nervously that he will age “so bad” when he admits that the first anime he fell in love was “Speed Racer.” Whether he is talking to Mariya, the character of Vampire or Mariya, the interpreter is never entirely clear.
Kou Mariya, organizing a concert on Thursday night in Hollywood, is a friendly Vampire Vtuber.
(Kou Mariya)
This weekend, Mariya will organize a Hollywood concert with other popular Vtubers. There will be live musicians, but Vtubers will be virtual. Mariya says that he will act from a location outside the site to protect his identity.
Those in Los Angeles will have multiple opportunities to participate in a Crash Vtuber course during the July 4 holidays. Mariya on Thursday will be the host of the fantastic reality concert at the Vermont Hollywood, an performance that makes virtual and real musicians and presents Ironmouse, a demon of opera horns that was briefly the streamer most signed on Twitch.
Even more conventional, a large number of Vtubers associated with the Japanese firm Hololive will invade the Dodger Stadium for the second consecutive year. Hololive night on Saturday night will have three of the company's English -speaking talents: Ninomae Ina'nis, Irys and Koseki Bijou, practically encouraging the team, singing the section of the seventh inning and then leading a dance party after the game in the field. A special event ticket will include the Vtubers cards.
Hololive, a Cover Corp. division, is one of the largest Vtuber talent agencies in the world, with almost 90 active artists in its various divisions. The company's US office is based in Los Angeles, and its association with Dodgers is to recognize, in part, that the team has a large base of Japanese fans, thanks to Megstar Shohei Ohtani. However, the CEO of the Motoaki Tanigo CEO has a broader objective, and that is to take Vtubers to the masses.
“There are two reasons,” says Tanigo, through a translator, why Cover has pointed to the one of its key markets. The first, he points out, is due to the fact that a large part of the company's fans base resides in the Los Angeles region. The second, emphasizes, is related to its commercial objectives, especially video game companies with which companies hope to associate. “Making events in the Los Angeles area is not only important for the participation of our user, but it is a great opportunity to show our commercial clients that we have a strong follow -up.”
Vtubers have averaged 50 billion youtube opinions annually in the last three years, according to a recent report on YouTube culture and trends. A YouTube sample of 300 virtual creators discovered that they led 15 billion visits throughout the site, with 1 billion from the USA. UU. Solo. Almost all these Vtubers are deeply immersed in tradition, culture and anime tone. And although there are popular male Vtubers, several of the most famous are feminine. The cover list, for example, is more than three quarters of women.
Hololive characters on the Dodger Stadium marker at last year's event. Hololive Night returns on July 5.
(Cover Corp.)
“It's very exciting,” says Susan Napier, author of “Miyazakiworld: a Life in Art” and professor at the University of Tufts who specializes in Japanese culture. “It allows a huge amount of creativity, and a true sense of property about its creation, and a way of playing and merging with their creation. People have been fanatic and identified with favorite stories, anime and manga for years. This is, in a way, a very old phenomenon. They are people who wish to participate in a fantasy world they love.”
Mariya points out that she decided to become Vtuber during the worst days of the global pandemic of 2020. “Everyone was in front of their computers and had a feeling of loneliness,” she says. “And Vtubers [had] That feeling of, 'I'm not alone. I am not caught. There is an entire world for me. Being a great admirer of that, I wanted to try myself. I did not expect to be a career, but somehow people liked it, and I thought I could continue with this. “
And how, of course, he landed in his character, a vampire with a battle clip and an open chest cocktail style outfit? “That is complicated because technically I was born a vampire,” says Mariya. “We are not afraid. We ask permission before entering the doors, which is better than many people. We make bite. That is the only inconvenience.” Good.
We are not afraid. We ask permission before entering the doors, which is better than many people. We are born. That is the only inconvenience.
– Kou Mariya, on being a vampire vtuber
Vttuber's trend led by Japan is prior to pandemic. The first adequate virtual artist to gain fame is widely accredited as Kizuna AI in 2016, but Vtubers have grown together with other similar developments. See, for example, the Virtual concert artist Hatsune Miku, who acted in Coachella in 2024. Vtubers are also closely aligned with video games, often transmitted for their fans. The media, of course, has long been associated with virtual avatars, whether nintendo mii figures, people of “Second Life” or current “Fortnite”, “Roblox” and “Minecraft” platforms. And this summer, in one of the biggest launch of 2025, Vtuber used Pekora has a role in the playstation 5 “Death Stranding 2” game, with the famous director and author Hideo Kojima admitting that he is a fan.
For the creator, the voice actor and the assistant of the anime exhibition, Amalee, the rare Vtuber who, while using an artistic name, shows his face, the fantastic but mature stories of the anime reached her when she was a young teenager when she was exploring her creativity. “It's closing a gap,” he says about Vtubing. “Since I was a teenager, I loved anime. It's music, beautiful animation and performance in one.
Vtuber Ironmouse will perform at the fantastic reality concert on Thursday.
(Ironmouse)
The most attractive Vtubers contribute an authenticity level of real life to their work. “If you return and look at my first transmissions, I am very consolidated in this cleanly elegant actor [persona]”Says Amalee.” My voice is different. I dropped it to be cooler. I quickly realized how difficult it was to maintain, and I didn't like not being authentically. I am a bit clumsy, a little blond and I have important technological problems. ”
Mariya describes herself as introverted, saying that she would not be transmitting, or probably even acting, if it were not for Vtubing.
“With Vtubing, there is a feeling of anonymity that I think is also really good for the audience,” says Mariya. “Some people don't want to see a natural person in front of a screen. They want to see anime girls. I think people cling to the idea that it is something different and bigger than me and bigger than them. It is a new world.”
Hololive night last year at Dodger Stadium presented a drone show. Look for a dance party in the field led by the Vtubers this year.
(Cover Corp.)
The author and professor Napier says that it is a modern and digitized Renaissance fair, if you wish, reflect the basic human desires to dress and play. As for why it turns out to be so connected to the anime, Napier theorizes the medium encourages the idea of fantasy creation.
“Fantasy and science fiction are very popular cultural artistic places to play and cosplay,” says Napier. “The anime is really good to introduce you with these: it is brilliantly expansive. Whatever you like, you will find it in the anime. So, if you are looking for Vtube, there is all this anime material sitting in front of you. You can choose and start playing.”
The dream for the cover corporation, says Tanigo, is to expand Vtubers beyond the world of transmission sites such as YouTube and Twitch, therefore, the collaboration of the Dodgers. In August, Hololive will organize another American concert, this time at Radio City Musical Hall in New York. Music, says Tanigo, is an entrance door. “I think that is a way to reach new people,” he says. “It is interesting to see. There are also people who may not be interested in Vtubing or anime at all, but they can listen to the song that is thrown and enjoy it as a musical piece by itself.”
For artists, with Vtubing comes a sense of security, and even comfort, which is not always present in the most traditional transmission.
“I did a lot of transmission in the camera at the beginning of my transmission career, but I hated having to prepare, make up, use something good,” says Amalee. “Even after an hour to prepare to make a transmission, someone was still [commenting]'You look tired today'. I hated that. There would be days that I would cancel the transmissions because I didn't want to prepare. Now I have my Vtuber model and I can be a bit gremlin in my pajamas and nobody has to know why the monarch is always perfect. “
An anime character, after all, is always ready to work.
