Falling down the Rabbit hole – A journey to the world of V-tubing, Hololive and Nijisanji

The best place to probably start is what is the meaning of the phrase ‘falling’ down the rabbit hole? It all started when Alice chased a rabbit, literally fell down a rabbit hole, and found herself in the strange world of Wonderland in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Going by this bit from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “Falling down the rabbit hole” was originally used to mean stumbling into a bizarre, disorienting alternate reality.
It is now also used to mean a person who becomes interested in something — fully immersed to a degree.

This was exactly what happen to me in 2020. During the later half of 2020 I was looking for some tutorials on how to use the open source application Krita when I came across a tutorial by Ninomae Ina’nis from Hololive EN.

 

All Holomyth/Hololive Characters and the distinctive likeness(es) there of are Trademarks & Copyright of Hololive Production and Cover Corp. Holomyth illustration by artist by Ninomae Ina’nis.

It was a strange to see what was an anime girl teaching me how to use the software but I was hooked from there. I started watching more of Ina’s video archives and watched her live streams and collabs and slowly learned more about Hololive, (including Hololive EN, Hololive ID) and got hooked on other streamers in those branches.

This eventually this spread to learning more Nijisanji another V-tuber organization via ZEA Cornelia an Indonesian V-tuber and member of Nijisanji ID. I ended up catching one of her chat streams by accident and got hooked from there as well and eventually found out about Lazulight the first wave of EN V-tubers from Nijisanji.

All Nijisanji Characters and the distinctive likeness(es) there of are Trademarks & Copyright of Nijisanji Production and ANYCOLOR, Inc. Original source of image Lazulight - Diamond City Lights official music video

The V-tubing trend

V-Tubers are online content creators using a virtual animated face in place of their own.
In the year 2020 during the pandemic when everyone was spending more time online than ever before, there was a boom in the popularity of V-tubers.

The idea of came about in the Japanese idol industry with the rise of Kizuna Ai, and there are a bunch of Japanese virtual idol industries like Nijisanji and Hololive, with the latter being one of the most famous ones on a global scale.

Both Hololive and Nijisanji idols have each formed and gained a fandom rivalling some of the other most intense modern artists. Most of these talents end up becoming popular because of their interactions with the fandom, through memes, skits, gaming, chatting and other stuff rather than what you think might be singing (they do all try to record their own original song though and do the odd cover).

Every idol has their own niche and appeal to a certain audience.

But what's the appeal?

I’ve never been into live streamers, and the whole watching real people play games on Twitch and YouTube has never appealed to me.

But why did V-tubers appeal to me?

It's hard to describe, really. For me, I suppose it’s the interaction and the fact there is someone real behind that anime avatar.

In the case of Ina in hololive, she is actually a priestess of the Ancient Ones. After picking up a strange book and then started to gain the power of controlling tentacles. But behind that avatar she is a normal person using some phone cameras to project an anime girl persona and staying in character, but the real her had similar interests to me such as art and video games that I like. She also comes across has quite a comfy streamer.

I think, personally, the content of the streams alone aren’t what keep me coming back. If that were the case, I would’ve been able to get into regular streamers (real people) long ago.

I think it's because of the fantasy world, being able to interact with an anime character unlike when you watch anime itself there is no connection.

The lore of the characters of these V-tubers portray and the universe they live in, but also the real life stories you get mixed in with their anime personas. The sense of camaraderie and interplay between the members is also what makes their streams seem more like an over-arching narrative rather than just isolated individuals.

Positive aura

I had a couple of rough years and during 2020 having the pandemic on to of everything certainly did kick me whilst I was down.

Despite having friends in my life that I could chat and interact with returning to work after a long absence, trying to maintain work, earning money and getting my life back together was a really hard thing to do.

A lot of things I enjoyed I didn’t have time to do any more, whereas in the past I would have watched a lot of anime, it was not something I could do now, work left me very tired, I couldn’t binge-watch things like I used too, my hobbies like reading, art and gaming sat an on the wayside whilst I had to struggle to re-coup my lost energy.

Watching V-tubers is pretty much pick up and play I guess in this sense, you get to remain in a world our familiar with (anime) but you also get to watch streams that are plain fun and sometimes silly, you can enjoy the reactions, the games that they play but the silliness and the stories.

It helps to get my mind off things, and you don’t have to worry much about storylines and plots, which sometimes when you are just too tired It's hard to follow.

Other side effects have also included me dusting off my art skills again. I long set down my pencil, so to speak, but Ina’s drawing streams have been incredibly useful and helped me to bring this hobby out of retirement. Sure I’m not going to be a great artist like everyone else on the internet, but the important thing is I enjoy it and can learn new things.

And that’s the main thing.

Since I fell down the Hololive and Nijisanji rabbit hole I’ve felt a bit more energized, happy and can get my way through my day. It's certainly a welcome reprieve to my life and helps me to avoid reality sometimes.

Is there anyone you would recommend?

This is a hard one, I think there is someone for everyone in the V-tuber universe.
Take a look at Hololive and Nijisanji, but don’t just restrict yourself to these fan bases, check out other V-Tuber groups and indie V-tubers too.

For me, though, I guess it's mainly dependent on my free time and timezone.

I currently watch from HoloEN: Ninomae Ina'nis and Takanashi Kiara as they stream when I finish work. But saying that, I do check in on the other HoloEN streamers when my free time lines up.
 

From HoloID: Probably all from HoloID but mainly Ayunda Risu, Kureiji Ollie, Pavolia Reine, Airani lofifteen, Moona Hoshinova and Anya Melfissa (I have them on sometimes whilst I’m working though for Anya it's more her late night streams that happen to be my evening time).

From Nijisanji in the first wave ID (3SetBBQ) it's ZEA Cornelia who streams in my afternoons and  Lazulight is Pomu Rainpuff though she tends to stream much later when I’m fast asleep, but there are occasions when the stream time lines up.
 

Give V-tubers a try, there might be someone you like.