Redundancy Review: Day 119, “First Official VTuesday”

(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

Good morning modellers and riggers, welcome to Day 119 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

Now that I am back on a reasonable schedule, this is where I can officially announce that the Tuesday review segment where I review something in the VTuber space (primarily Hololive but I am aiming to branch out) is called…

VTuesday.

Which makes far too much sense in hindsight for a title because it just rolls off the tongue so well whilst being on theme.

Regular readers will know my love of VTubers, my most popular article this year was my story of going to VeXpo, a whole convention dedicated to the topic. So, I figured I would try my best to recount the story of how I got into this whole space all the way back in 2020…

…bastard year that it is.

It was definitely a slow start, as it was primarily just random clips of various HoloJP members such as Suisei or Korone… and Nyanners, cannot forget about Nyanners. Though the fascination truly began with the debut of Hololive English 1st Generation “Myth”, and who else but the legendary Gawr Gura.

Though, in hindsight, I find it very funny that Gura was my primary entry point into this whole space, because while she was my first primary exposure; I actually found myself drifting to Ninomae Ina’nis as my favourite member of Myth for her cosy vibes, gorgeous art, and delicious puns.

And of course, being involved in the EN side meant the door to the JP and ID (Indonesia) sides was soon to burst wide open through subtitled clips and watching streams of games where it did not really matter whether or not I could understand the streamer, I had a vague idea of what was going on.

This was especially apparent when it came to Shirakami Fubuki from HoloJP Gen 1 playing Monster Hunter World. It did not really matter what she was saying, I could understand what was going on and follow her through the tone of her voice.

Those streams in particular actually generated a meme between myself and my partner. During the fight against a monster called Seething Bazelgeuse, once the cutscene had ended, another monster called Dodogama actually started fighting against Seething, leading to Fubuki cheering on the fight with the phrase: “DODOGAMU!”

Mix this with the fact that Dodogama is in contention for being one of my top favourite monsters, and it stuck with me ever since.

So… why VTubers?

What I am about to say will probably be a little parasocial, which is definitely an issue within the VTuber space with fans overstepping their mark, but hopefully as I explain it things will make more sense.

Every VTuber I follow regularly, from the corpos to the independents, have had their own set of challenges to overcome, moments where they could have quit to pack it all in and try their hand at something new in life.

But so many of them have not.

And that inspires me so much. I have no idea who these people are, and quite frankly I have no desire to know who exactly is behind that persona – all I know is that this person has had their share of challenges and feels comfortable enough to talk about it with their audience.

My oshis have never given up, and even through my share of challenges, through my very uncertain future, I do not want to give up. They do not know me, and they likely will never know me, but they still inspire me all the same.

One person whose compilation videos have made it into my partner and I’s evening routine is Limealicious/Laimu. At VeXpo my partner only had one meet & greet booked with Laimu and after receiving a very sweet signed photocard as part of the meet he wanted to explore more of her content.

Her, along with Dokibird, Maid Mint, and Snuffy, recently released a cover of the iconic first level background music from Sonic Adventure 2: Escape from the City.

This is specifically a clip taken from Doki’s birthday concert at Anime Expo this year, which as one commenter notes is the first time that Laimu has sung in a proper context due to not being the type to do karaoke streams.

All of their voices harmonise beautifully when they all sing during the chorus, though their voices definitely provide a different vibe to a usually hype song. To me this version feels oddly relaxing to listen to, which is not a complaint or criticism, I actually really like how this sounds to listen to.

I have to give a shoutout to Snuffy’s singing as well. Out of the four she is the one I am least familiar with, but when she sings her sections she has such a refined singing voice that sounds so smooth.

Can you tell I am not really musically minded? I love listening to VTubers sing both covers and their original songs, but analysing music is not really something I have a massive amount of experience in.

Now just for the thumbnail…

…she really does have such a pretty model.

That will cover everything today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. I have been off work today for stress-related reasons so it has been nice to just relax and think about VTubers for VTuesday. Wherever you are I hope you are able to take things easy and keep your effort for the week steady.