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VTuber

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A VTuber (short for virtual YouTuber, also called a virtual streamer) is an online entertainer who streams or posts videos as an animated 2D or 3D avatar that a human performer voices and controls in real time, usually through face and body tracking.[1][2] The term is traced to Kizuna AI, a character who began posting on the YouTube channel A.I.Channel on 1 December 2016 and called herself a "virtual YouTuber"; its abbreviation, "VTuber", became the name of the genre.[3] VTubers appear on YouTube, Twitch, Niconico, Bilibili and other platforms, either independently or under talent agencies such as Hololive Production (COVER Corporation) and Nijisanji (ANYCOLOR Inc.).[1][2]

A 2025 CHI study of professional VTubers attributes the growing popularity of VTubing partly to advances in motion capture, computer graphics and virtual reality technology. The setups it describes range from a webcam or an iPhone tracking the face of a 2D avatar to a VR headset, controllers and extra body trackers driving a full-body 3D avatar, and it names social VR platforms such as VRChat as a venue where VTubers stream with 3D models.[4] Some early VTuber tools were built for VR hardware: Dwango's VR live-streaming service Virtual Cast launched in April 2018 and required an HTC Vive for a user to appear as a character, and Dwango described its own VRM avatar format as a new 3D avatar file format for VR.[5]

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Claims checked against the full text of the CHI 2021, CSCW 2024 and CHI 2025 papers, Crossref/Semantic Scholar abstracts of the other papers, and the cited BBC, PANORA, User Local, COVER, BRIDGE, ACN, Dwango, Sony, HTC, YouTube and SoraNews24 pages. About review dates.

Definition and terminology

Lu and colleagues define VTubers as "virtual 2D or 3D avatars that are voiced by a human" and describe a VTuber as "an animated virtual avatar that delivers performances in live video streams or recorded videos".[1] The performer behind the avatar is referred to in Japanese as the nakanohito (中の人).[1][2] Many VTubers play a defined persona that differs from the performer's own personality; some use an avatar of a different gender, and in some cases several performers have portrayed the same avatar.[4] Kizuna AI, for example, was presented as a newly developed artificial intelligence with the look of a 16-year-old girl, although Lu and colleagues note that "her performance was actually driven by several Nakanohitos".[1]

VTubers differ from earlier virtual idols mainly through real-time interaction. Lu and colleagues trace avatar-based idols back to Kyoko Date and Yuki Terai, created in Japan in 1996 and 1997, and to Crypton Future Media's Vocaloid character Hatsune Miku (2007), but argue that these idols "have arguably never achieved real-time interactivity with their fans", whereas VTubers read and answer viewer comments during streams in the same way as other live streamers.[1] The same paper points to Instagram virtual influencers such as Lil Miquela as a related phenomenon outside East Asia.[1]

A VTuber can be run by an individual or by an agency. Independent performers typically own their character outright, while agencies own their VTubers as intellectual property; Lu and colleagues report that in January 2020, 94 of the 100 most-followed VTubers on YouTube were run by agencies.[1] In Japan, men who stream with feminine avatars are called babiniku and have been the subject of anthropological research.[6]

History

Precursors

Animated presenters existed on YouTube before the term. The animated vlogger Ami Yamato, presented as a British woman living in London, has vlogged since 2011, and Mattel's Barbie made her debut as an animated vlogger in 2015.[7]

Kizuna AI and the 2018 boom

Kizuna AI, produced by the Tokyo company Activ8, opened A.I.Channel on 1 December 2016 with a self-introduction video.[3][7] Kevin Allocca, head of culture and trends at YouTube, told the BBC in 2018, "We saw this start to take off right at the end of 2017"; Kizuna AI's channel grew from about 200,000 subscribers in December 2017 to more than two million ten months later.[7] The BBC described performers being fitted with motion trackers on the head, elbows and hands in a studio, with software reconstructing full-body motion from those few points and mapping it onto the character while a voice actor supplied speech.[7] According to the BBC, GREE planned to invest 10 billion yen over two years in virtual talent, live-streaming and filming and animation studios, and Japan's national tourism board selected Kizuna AI to appear in videos aimed at foreign visitors.[7] Lu and colleagues describe her as the ambassador of a 2018 international culture campaign by the Japan National Tourism Organization.[1]

The Tokyo web analytics company User Local, which counts VTubers that have applied to its ranking service plus major VTuber channels, reports that VTubers began to increase in number in December 2017 and published the following milestones (selected):[8][9]

Date VTubers counted by User Local
19 March 2018 1,000
27 April 2018 2,000
10 July 2018 4,000
12 September 2018 5,000
15 January 2020 10,000
10 November 2020 13,000
19 October 2021 16,000
28 November 2022 20,000

Agencies

The companies behind Hololive and Nijisanji both date from this period. COVER Corporation was founded in Tokyo in June 2016; according to its chief executive, its VTuber business began with the development of a VR-based streaming application.[10] Its own company history lists a VR table tennis game, Ping Pong League (February 2017), the start of the VTuber Tokino Sora (September 2017), an AR application named "hololive" (December 2017), the formation of the female VTuber group hololive (June 2018), hololive Indonesia (April 2020) and hololive English (September 2020), and a beta of the permanent lobby of its metaverse service Holoearth (November 2022).[11] COVER was listed on the Growth Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 27 March 2023.[10]

ANYCOLOR Inc. was founded in 2017 under the name Ichikara by Riku Tazumi, launched the Nijisanji group in 2018 and took the ANYCOLOR name in May 2021. In April 2022 BRIDGE, citing User Local data, reported that Nijisanji comprised more than 110 VTubers.[12] The company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 8 June 2022.[13]

International growth

In User Local's November 2022 ranking by fan count, Gawr Gura led with 4.24 million, ahead of Kizuna AI with 3.06 million.[9] In an April 2025 report, YouTube's Culture & Trends team said that a sample of 300 "Virtual Creators" had earned more than 15 billion views across videos, livestreams and Shorts in the previous year, one billion of them from the United States.[14] Kizuna AI went on indefinite hiatus after the event Kizuna AI The Last Live "hello, world 2022" on 26 February 2022 and announced her return exactly three years later, on 26 February 2025.[15]

How it works

Avatar types

Kim and colleagues group VTuber avatars into three types. The simplest uses a sequence of still images, for example one with the mouth open and one closed, swapped while the performer speaks. Most 2D avatars use the Live2D format, in which body parts such as the eyes and mouth are separate layers with their own deformation settings, animated by button presses or face tracking. Because high-quality Live2D rigs need many layers, they mostly cover facial expressions and the upper body, and the authors give commissioning prices of US$2,000 to $5,000 or more.[4] Live2D Inc. describes its Cubism Editor as software that "directly animates drawn illustrations", and mentions VTuber models and VTuber streaming among its uses.[16]

3D avatars have a skeleton for the body joints and blend shapes for facial expressions, like other humanoid avatars in computer graphics; VTuber models often add extra anime-style blend shapes such as altered irises or blush. They run in game engines and social VR platforms but need more powerful hardware, and custom 3D avatars from professional artists cost between US$500 and $15,000 according to the same study.[4] Template tools such as VRoid Studio are used for anime-style 3D avatars, while artists building from scratch use 2D illustration programs with Live2D, or Blender for 3D models.[4][2]

The VRM format

VRM is a file format for humanoid 3D avatars built on glTF 2.0, intended to let the same avatar move between livestreaming software, games and social VR applications.[17] Dwango introduced it with Virtual Cast in April 2018 as a "new 3D avatar file format for VR".[5] In January 2019, 13 Japanese companies including Dwango, pixiv, Unity Technologies Japan, GREE's Wright Flyer Live, Cluster and Crypton Future Media announced plans to form a VRM Consortium to promote VRM as a standard 3D avatar format.[18] The Library of Congress format description gives April 2019 as the consortium's establishment and September 2022 as the release of the VRM 1.0 specification, and lists license metadata, expression (blend shape) settings, spring bones for secondary motion such as hair, first-person view settings and cel-shaded materials among the format's additions to glTF.[19]

Face and hand tracking

Most VTubers stream with only the upper body visible and drive the avatar's face with face tracking, a form of facial motion capture.[1][4] Webcams are the most popular option because they are affordable and easy to set up; the VTubing software analyzes the camera image with computer vision and applies the tracked expression and pose to the avatar.[4] iPhones with Face ID are widely preferred because the TrueDepth camera captures a depth map of the face; most of the professional VTubers in the CHI 2025 study preferred one.[4] Apple's ARKit exposes face tracking as an anchor whose blend shape coefficients describe the movement of individual facial features, and Apple's documentation notes that these coefficients can be used "to animate 2D or 3D content, such as a character or avatar".[20] The documentation lists 52 named blend shape locations covering the eyes, mouth and jaw, eyebrows, cheeks, nose and tongue.[21] ARKit face tracking works within 3 meters of the front camera and requires a TrueDepth camera on iOS 13 and earlier, or a device with the Apple Neural Engine on iOS 14 and later.[22]

Dedicated software connects the tracker to the avatar. VTube Studio, used mainly with Live2D models, offers webcam and iPhone face tracking, webcam hand tracking, and can use a connected iPhone or Android device as a face tracker; it runs on Windows and macOS through Steam and on iOS and Android.[23][4] VSeeFace, used for 3D models, is a free Windows program that animates VRM avatars from a regular webcam (eye gaze, blink, eyebrow and mouth tracking), adds optional hand tracking through a Leap Motion device, and exchanges tracking data with other programs over the VMC protocol; it supports only the VRM 0.x standard.[24] Hand tracking is less common than face tracking: in the CHI 2025 study only a few participants animated their avatars' hands during streams, using webcams or a Leap Motion Controller, and one used a data glove; the authors note that data gloves give the most accurate hand control but are used by few VTubers because of their cost and discomfort. Performers also map keyboard keys or macro pads to expressions that tracking cannot produce, such as heart-shaped eyes or blushing.[4]

Full-body tracking and VR setups

For full-body streams with 3D models, VTubers typically wear a VR headset for head tracking, use VR controllers for the hands, and add motion trackers on the waist and feet for full-body tracking; finger-tracking controllers such as the Valve Index Controllers animate the fingers.[4] Some participants in the CHI 2025 study combined a Meta Quest headset with HTC Vive trackers (a "MixedVR" setup) because Meta does not sell its own body trackers. A headset also blocks iPhone face tracking, so performers in VR fall back on microphone-driven lip movement.[4] Motion capture suits such as those from Xsens and Perception Neuron give the most accurate full-body tracking but are expensive, and some are susceptible to interference from magnetic fields in the room.[4] Consumer inertial systems have also been marketed to VTubers: Sony's six-sensor mocopi opened for US pre-orders on 29 June 2023 at about US$449 and began shipping on 14 July 2023, with Sony naming VTubers among its target users and VRChat among the supported platforms.[25] At MWC 2024, HTC demonstrated full-body VTuber tracking on Viverse with an HTC Vive XR Elite, two controllers and three Vive Ultimate Trackers on the waist and ankles.[26]

Full-body performance is physically demanding. One participant in the CHI 2025 study compared exaggerated acting in the equipment to carrying 3 to 4 kg on the body, another could stream for 4 to 6 hours with an upper-body setup but struggled to last more than an hour in a full-body setup, and participants noted that motion trackers cannot properly capture rapid movements; one reported that moving too quickly had made the avatar adopt unnatural poses during live streams.[4] VTubers or teams with 3D content expertise also build custom content in game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine.[4]

Setup Typical avatar Tracking hardware Typical software
Upper body 2D (Live2D) or 3D Webcam, iPhone with Face ID, optional Leap Motion or webcam hand tracking, macro keys VTube Studio (Live2D), VSeeFace (VRM)
Full body 3D VR headset, controllers, body trackers, or a motion capture suit Social VR platforms, 3D VTubing software, game engines

Summary of the setups described by Kim et al. (2025).[4]

VTubers and virtual reality

Virtual Cast, developed by Dwango and Infiniteloop and launched on 13 April 2018, was an early VR studio for VTubers: a user wearing an HTC Vive became a virtual character in a shared VR space and streamed the result to Niconico and other services, and up to five visitors could "drop in" to a broadcast and join it.[5][27] In the same announcement Dwango described a new motion capture studio in Shinagawa with a 12 m by 8 m by 3 m capture area for about ten performers at once, able to stream live.[5] Virtual Cast was later used for an international live performance between Australia and Japan at the SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 Real-Time Live session.[28]

Bredikhina and colleagues, writing for the IEEE VR 2020 workshops, describe a wave of Japanese social VR activity "motivated by VTubers and VRChat since 2018", including Virtual Market, an event modeled on the Comic Market fan convention, whose third edition had 700,000 visitors.[28] In VRChat and similar platforms, VTubers move full-body 3D avatars freely, interact with virtual objects and use in-world virtual cameras to film themselves from several angles during a stream.[4] VTubers also perform concerts: the BBC reported in 2018 that Kaguya Luna had held a virtual reality concert that year.[7]

Research

Academic studies of VTubers include work in human-computer interaction, media studies and anthropology.

  • Lu and colleagues (CHI 2021) interviewed 21 dedicated VTuber viewers in China, where many VTubers stream on Bilibili. Viewers deliberately kept the avatar separate from the performer in their minds, felt more distance from VTubers than from real-person streamers, and were more tolerant of offensive language and "stupid" behavior, though they still cared about performers when labor disputes with agencies arose.[1]
  • Wan and Lu (CSCW 2024) studied 16 Chinese-speaking VTubers. Avatars let creators present inflated personas and often exaggerated, sexualized gender expressions; the authors found that VTubing could potentially reduce sexual harassment while raising concerns about self-objectification. Asked about their most desired improvements, five of the eight VTubers interviewed said they would like a 3D avatar, and most interviewees mentioned a need for cheaper 3D avatars.[2]
  • Bredikhina and Giard (2022) surveyed and interviewed 24 babiniku performers, reporting that, together with their fans, they build a notion of femininity that lets them "act and live outside of societal pressures".[6]
  • Kim and colleagues (CHI 2025) surveyed 18 and interviewed 16 professional VTubers and proposed six design-space dimensions covering avatar creation and control. They concluded that VTubers carry a heavier workload than real-person streamers because of fragmented tools and constant multitasking (running content, reading chat and steering the avatar at once).[4]
  • Ferreira and colleagues presented a narrative review of the VTuber concept at the 2022 Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality (SVR), examining how VTubers absorb characteristics of the Japanese otaku, kawaii and moe subcultures and its growth within augmented and virtual reality.[29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Zhicong Lu, Chenxinran Shen, Jiannan Li, Hong Shen, Daniel Wigdor (2021). "More Kawaii than a Real-Person Live Streamer: Understanding How the Otaku Community Engages with and Perceives Virtual YouTubers". Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21). Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3411764.3445660. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445660. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Qian Wan, Zhicong Lu (2024-04). "Investigating VTubing as a Reconstruction of Streamer Self-Presentation: Identity, Performance, and Gender". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 8, no. CSCW1, article 80. Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3637357. https://doi.org/10.1145/3637357. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "キズナアイのYouTubeチャンネルが開設7周年 VTuberの歴史も8年目に突入". PANORA. 2023-12-01. https://panora.tokyo/archives/75792. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 Daye Kim, Sebin Lee, Yoonseo Jun, Yujin Shin, Jungjin Lee (2025). "VTuber's Atelier: The Design Space, Challenges, and Opportunities for VTubing". Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25). Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3706598.3714107. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714107. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "～ドワンゴのVR事業に関するお知らせ～ VRライブ・コミュニケーションサービス「バーチャルキャスト」開始". Dwango. Dwango Co., Ltd.. 2018-04-16. https://dwango.co.jp/news/6445032788950883041/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Liudmila Bredikhina, Agnès Giard (2022-03-10). "Becoming a Virtual Cutie: Digital Cross-Dressing in Japan". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 1643-1661. doi:10.1177/13548565221074812. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221074812. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Bryan Lufkin (2018-10-03). "The virtual vloggers taking over YouTube". BBC Capital. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20181002-the-virtual-vloggers-taking-over-youtube. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  8. ↑ "バーチャルYouTuber、本日1万6千人を突破（ユーザーローカル調べ）". User Local. User Local, Inc.. 2021-10-19. https://www.userlocal.jp/press/20211019vs/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "VTuber(バーチャルYouTuber)、ついに2万人を突破（ユーザーローカル調べ）". User Local. User Local, Inc.. 2022-11-29. https://www.userlocal.jp/press/20221129vt/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Top Message". COVER Corp.. COVER Corporation. https://cover-corp.com/en/ir/topMessage. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  11. ↑ "Company". COVER Corp.. COVER Corporation. https://cover-corp.com/en/company. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  12. ↑ Masaru Ikeda (2022-04-30). "Japan's virtual YouTuber management agency Anycolor files for IPO". BRIDGE. https://thebridge.jp/en/2022/04/anycolor-files-for-ipo. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  13. ↑ "Legend Capital Portfolio: Japan's No.1 VTuber Operator ANYCOLOR Lists on the Tokyo Stock Exchange". ACN Newswire. 2022-06-09. https://acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/75744/legend-capital-portfolio:-japan's-no.1-vtuber-operator-anycolor-lists-on-the-tokyo-stock-exchange. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  14. ↑ The YouTube Culture & Trends team (2025-04-17). "The rise of virtual creators: a new frontier on YouTube". YouTube Official Blog. https://blog.youtube/culture-and-trends/youtube-culture-trends-report-virtual-creators/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  15. ↑ Casey Baseel (2025-02-28). "Japan's original virtual YouTuber returns after a three-year hiatus with new music video". SoraNews24. https://soranews24.com/2025/02/28/japans-original-virtual-youtuber-returns-after-a-three-year-hiatus-with-new-music-video%E3%80%90video%E3%80%91/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  16. ↑ "Live2D Cubism Editor". Live2D Cubism. Live2D Inc.. https://www.live2d.com/en/cubism/about/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  17. ↑ "What is VRM? What can VRM do?". vrm.dev. VRM Consortium. https://vrm.dev/en/vrm/vrm_about/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  18. ↑ Karen Ressler (2019-01-03). "Dwango, Pixiv, Unity, More Form Industry Group for 3D Avatars". Anime News Network. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-01-02/dwango-pixiv-unity-more-form-industry-group-for-3d-avatars/.141553. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  19. ↑ "VRM". Sustainability of Digital Formats. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000564.shtml. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  20. ↑ "ARFaceAnchor". Apple Developer Documentation. Apple. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/arfaceanchor. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  21. ↑ "ARFaceAnchor.BlendShapeLocation". Apple Developer Documentation. Apple. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/arfaceanchor/blendshapelocation. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  22. ↑ "ARFaceTrackingConfiguration". Apple Developer Documentation. Apple. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit/arfacetrackingconfiguration. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  23. ↑ "VTube Studio - Official Website". VTube Studio. https://denchisoft.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  24. ↑ "VSeeFace". VSeeFace. https://www.vseeface.icu/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  25. ↑ "Sony Electronics Announces Mobile Motion Capture System "mocopi" in the U.S. market". PR Newswire. Sony Electronics. 2023-06-29. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-electronics-announces-mobile-motion-capture-system-mocopi-in-the-us-market-301866502.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  26. ↑ VIVE POST-WAVE Team (2024-03-19). "VIVERSE Shows Full-Body Tracking for VTubers at MWC 2024". VIVE Blog. HTC. https://blog.vive.com/us/future-of-vtubing-viverse-showcases-full-body-tracking-and-dance-integration-with-virtual-avatars-at-mwc-2024/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  27. ↑ y-takahashi (2018-04-13). "誰でもVTuberになれる！Virtual Castを使ったバーチャル生配信のやり方". Infiniteloop Tech Blog. Infiniteloop Co., Ltd.. https://www.infiniteloop.co.jp/tech-blog/2018/04/virtualcast/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Liudmila Bredikhina, Takayuki Kameoka, Shogo Shimbo, Akihiko Shirai (2020). "Avatar Driven VR Society Trends in Japan". 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), pp. 497-503. IEEE. doi:10.1109/VRW50115.2020.00103. https://doi.org/10.1109/VRW50115.2020.00103. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  29. ↑ Júlio César Valente Ferreira, Rafael Dirques David Regis, Paula Gonçalves, Gabriela Rodrigues Diniz, Vitor Pedro da Silva Castelo Tavares (2022). "VTuber concept review: The new frontier of virtual entertainment". Proceedings of the 24th Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality (SVR 2022), pp. 83-96. Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3604479.3604523. https://doi.org/10.1145/3604479.3604523. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
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