Ex-Nijisanji Ex-Nornis Asahina Akane (grad. May '23), who later became a
travel vlogger Sakurakochan, has starting vtubing again as
Usabara Ena.
(She doesn't publicize her tabelog but it's pretty darn interesting to read.)
She's using a pretty solid strategy for "new" content creators to follow. I see pieces of it here and there but she's really putting it together.
1. Daily shorts/TikTok game.
From doing 1-verse/chorus song covers over minecraft clips to Irasutoya slideshow voiceovers.
Vtubers don't really fuck with Instagram though, but the 2.5D singer types do. I wonder if Instagram has a riajuu stereotype to it.
2. V-tweeting until some milestone for a debut stream.
She made it 20k YT subs here, but I've also seen other people do twitter followers or views on a cover.
I feel like this strat only really works if you already have a strong following elsewhere.
There's also the finesse of setting a target that you know you're gonna hit in some expected time frame and not some lofty goal that you never reach.
3. Debut merch cash-out. I personally hate this.
People are generally "EN Vtubing bad" but I feel like western vtubers don't push as much dumbass merch as JP vtubers.
There's a larger conversation to be had here about the proliferation of poor quality acrylic stands, badges, and stickers (old-heads will remember when that kind of merch at anime conventions was basically given away because they cost like 5 cents).
The merch culture in JP vtubing is kind of off the rails and I really want to see some accounting to see if it actually works out, especially with how much of it is "limited time/edition" which seems like it's terrible for hitting MOQs.