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

Episode 7

With her fun influence established and several cute new kouhai still to mentor, Awa just keeps on collab-ing in this episode of VTuber Legend. First up this week is everyone's favorite baby, Kaeru. The lead-in to this hangout session is probably the most interesting part of it, as the anime once again deploys its visual gimmick to obfuscate things a bit at first—Awa and Kaeru don't initially realize who the other one is until some context clues and voice recognition lets them reveal themselves to each other. I don't know that this is how things typically go when VTubers meet each other IRL but it feels like it makes sense in context, especially since Kaeru's condition when Awa first finds her doesn't lend itself to formal introductions.

Awa coming across Kaeru lets the story dish out some details on the big baby. She's seemingly always preferred to work as a self-driven creator, attempting to make it as a manga artist previously. Kaeru simply isn't cut out for a life of more formal employment, reacting with violent revulsion and illness at anything that even resembles a job interview. It's a wonder she made it this far. She also strains against her age and how that affects her career options. If only she knew that the age of 30 was in demand. Kaeru clearly could use some actual help with her issues. Still, therapy is expensive, compared to doing baby roleplay online for strangers, which can actually make money.

Everything about Kaeru's story and personality is relatable, to some degree. Who amongst us hasn't seen the carefree creative front put up by streamers and VTubers and—absent awareness of how much work actually goes into doing that—wished we could faff about and play games for a living? Kaeru's embodiment of these desires and ideas is engaging and interesting in theory but the actual depiction in this stretch of the episode falls a little flat. The collab between her and Awa is a baseline repeat of the usual prompt-driven chat session—and despite that "ultra-mommy" moniker that Kaeru professes Awa to have, the duo's chemistry doesn't seem quite on the same level as past routines.

It's fine, it's not annoying or obnoxious or anything. But the sketches they landed on in their discussion didn't provide any big laughs for me, with a lot feeling like repeats of past bits. It's hard to make the baby-play thing work with Kaeru when the show just did one of the most outlandish versions of that with Shion in the previous episode. This is Kaeru's whole gimmick and someone else already did it better than her! Maybe that could feed into her defining inferiority complex but it's not something VTuber Legend really dwells on. It is, as it has been, nice to see Awa helping out a junior, and there's a genuinely sweet moment of connection between the two at the end, but it was longer and more languid than it needed to be to get there.

Things get brought back up in the second half of the episode, featuring an amusement park date with Awa and Chami. The setup of this is nicely distinct, as they are gathering material for a stream, but it's not structured as a live, online discussion. Instead, it's just a treat to see them hang out with each other in this real-world environment, engaging in the expected antics. Going on thrill rides, spinning teacups so fast Chami nearly pees herself. You know, normal stuff. It works to simply see Awa out on a date with one of her many girlfriends—and the face game alone in this bit drives up the funny factor.

There is a bit of reflection in this part as well. Chami's crippling social anxiety sees her use this outing as an attempt to become more normal. "Normalcy" can be a very fluid concept both in real life and in this fictionalized account of anime-avatar online women. Different people are going to define "normal" differently, and it's up to them if they're even going to strive to achieve it. In Chami's case, she mostly just wants to be out in public without peeing herself, as it's been shown that her lack of normalcy in the social arena has impacted her relationships. Granted, it's not that Awa is the best co-pilot for navigating things normally, but she tries. As in all things, Awa at least helps her co-stars have fun.

This was a more low-key episode of VTuber Legend than most. The back half showed how that can work but the prior part clarifies that the series needs a bit more going on to truly shine. I think a character like Kaeru, like everyone in this series with their various gimmicks, would work better if put in a more active situation, or perhaps grouped up with more co-streamers besides Awa. That potential for further escalations is what the rest of the series is for, I suppose.

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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