VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream

Episode 6

As someone who doesn't watch a ton of streaming or VTubing, it's been interesting to see VTuber Legend depict the sheer variety of stuff these performers can partake in. It makes sense that the medium's entertainment value arms race would see people moving on from the standardized video game playthroughs. However, the anime still includes some gaming, for posterity. Otherwise, much of the material shown has been interactive, allowing the various VTubers to play off each other, which makes sense given how their character bits are the main appeal here.

So, as it's settled into the last few episodes, this week's VTuber Legend features Awa collaborating with a rotation of her co-stars. They're still working on introducing the next generation Live-On crew, so this episode starts with Awa, Hikari, and Nekoma guesting on a game show arranged by Eirai. Compared to how she was introduced as another one of the unhinged fourth-generation group, Eirai seems to have refocused on trying to play a straight man here. I mean, about as straight man as you can get when you're structuring things around sharing obscene trivia about flatworm mating rituals—but the relative effort is there.

Much of the preceding content in VTuber Legend had conditioned me to treat all the activities as outlets for the performers to make jokes and do their respective bits. So the twist with this animal quiz competition is that Eirai is actually attempting to run it seriously, admonishing the others when they try to play up obvious joke answers or even reaching for technicalities to make their answers "correct". It's a unique angle, anyway, even if it means Eirai gets overshadowed in what's supposed to be her spotlight segment. Ah well, I could listen to M.A.O. talk about millipedes all day, regardless.

Speaking of the vocal performances, those are understandably a big part of the appeal of a series like this. Real-life VTubers have carved out their own outstanding subculture of the voices they do, so having professional seiyuu imitate those kinds of effects feels a bit recursive. It's its own beast, really, allowing the writing to play into industry in-jokes and make meta references. Case in point: the bit with Hareru this week. It'd be easy enough for a series like this to appeal to me by just featuring a character doing pulls in my personal gacha purgatory that is BanG Dream! Girls Band Party. So the added layer of hearing Yōko Hikasa (who plays Bandori's Tomoe) going ape trying to pull a rare card of her bandmate Ran ups the insular ridiculousness of the whole thing in a way that works for this material. They got my ass.

That's just one sub-segment within this episode's other main feature, the newscast-cum-clipshow that Awa hosts with Shion. This kinda ends up the opposite of the Eirai stream, in how Shion, who always seemed like one of the more "normal" VTubers, swerves to calling Awa's baby-play bluff from earlier in the series. Between this stuff and the entire character of Kaeru (who gets her own moment in this episode), I get the distinct impression this is just one of the creator's "things". It's fine—per the series guidelines, it works so long as it's funny, and Shion's imposed babying of Awa hits some of those very deep ugly-laugh cringe comedy depths I've so come to appreciate about VTuber Legend.

It's weird but entertaining—and the episode even winds back around to something of an actual idea in all of this. It's not just a vehicle for watching fictionalized VTuber streams—I mean it is, but it isn't just that. Awa's still ostensibly the focus, after all, and here Shion asserts that the current version of Awa's influence is bringing out better sides and facilitating more fun with the other 'Tubers she collaborates with. She doesn't even have to drink all the time to do so—and it makes further sense given that off-the-cuff reactions to her co-stars were the other ingredient that made Awa's legend take off in the first place. As the anime has highlighted this element now, it'll be interesting to see if it takes it further or to any other places. For now, I'm still having fun watching everything Awa and the others can do and wondering how much weirder they can get.

Rating:

VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris actually tried streaming himself, for a little bit. It went about as well as you could expect. He's since resigned himself to words, which you can see more of over on his blog, while watching his Twitter for any ill-advised Strong-Zero-influenced posts.

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