16 maio 2016 ano - VTuber breakout

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Kizuna AI's sudden popularity sparked a VTuber trend.[6][21] Between May and mid-July 2018, the number of active VTubers increased from 2,000 to 4,000.[25] Kaguya Luna [ja] and Mirai Akari [ja] followed Kizuna as the second and third most popular VTubers, with 750,000 and 625,000 subscribers respectively. Nekomiya Hinata [ja] and Siro [ja], two other early VTubers, each gained followings of 500,000 in six months.[21]

In the beginning of 2018, Anycolor Inc. (then known as Ichikara) founded the VTuber agency Nijisanji [ja]. Nijisanji helped popularise the use of Live2D models instead of the prior focus on 3D models as well as the shift towards livestreaming instead of edited video and clips that was the standard for VTubers like Kizuna Ai.[26] Cover Corporation, a company that was originally developing augmented and virtual reality software, shifted its focus to VTubers by establishing Hololive.[14]

After their initial success in Japan, the trend began to expand internationally via their appeal to the anime and manga fandom.[6] Agencies like Hololive and Nijisanji created branches in China, South Korea, Indonesia, and India, as well as English-language branches targeting a global audience. Meanwhile, independent VTubers began to appear in many countries, from Japan to the United States. In July 2018, VTubers had a collective subscriber count of 12.7 million, and more than 720 million total views.[27] By January 2020, there were over 10,000 VTubers.[2]

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an overall increase in viewership of video game live streaming in general in 2020, which helped contribute to the growth of VTubers into a mainstream phenomenon.[12] In August 2020, seven of the ten largest Super Chat earners of all time on YouTube were VTubers, including Hololive member Kiryu Coco [ja] at number one, who by that time had earned approximately ¥85 million (approximately US$820,000 in 2020).[28] At the same time, the popularity of VTubers continued to rise on Twitch, with a host of several notable English-speaking VTubers such as VShojo members Projekt Melody and Ironmouse.[29][30] Pokimane also experimented with avatar-based streams using a model commissioned from a VTuber artist.[12]

In September 2020, Anycolor, the management company for Nijisanji, one of the major VTuber agencies in Japan, created an "Aggressive Acts and Slander Countermeasure Team" to offer counselling to victims of harassment and take legal measures against perpetrators of harassment, specifically the online harassment plaguing the Japanese entertainment industry. This announcement came in the wake of Hololive VTuber Mano Aloe's retirement after only two weeks of activity due to online harassment.[31]

YouTube's 2020 Culture and Trends report highlights VTubers as one of the notable trends of that year, with 1.5 billion views per month by October.[32]

On March 30, 2021, Kizuna AI was chosen as one of Asia's top 60 influencers.[33]

In May 2021, Twitch added a VTuber tag for streams as part of a wider expansion of its tag system.[34] In July 2021, Gawr Gura—a member of Hololive's first English branch—overtook Kizuna Ai as the most-subscribed VTuber on YouTube.[35][36]

Cover's CEO Motoaki "Yagoo" Tanigo was selected as one of the Japan's Top 20 Entrepreneurs by Forbes Japan in its January 2022 issue.[37]

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