First generation Hololive virtual YouTuber Haachama/Akai Haato finally smashed the 1 million subscriber milestone today, putting her on pace to match some of the talent agency’s most popular personalities. Her growth has also increased dramatically in the past year, which is undoubtedly due to some of her more outlandish content. Even her celebratory video isn’t exactly normal!
Looking at her profile on Social Blade, we can see that her rate of monthly gained subscribers increased significantly throughout 2020, and most especially around August/September. It is no accident that ‘Haachama Cooking’ started around then with the launch of ‘ARE YOU GYOZA? OH…YES!!!’ towards the end of June: this kind of content, presented in both edited video and livestream form, was something that had never been tried before, boosting Haachama’s notoriety and setting her on the path to 1 million subscribers.
There’s also the ongoing Haachama vs. Akai Haato split personality narrative, which has translated into a big jump in terms of net gain subscribers from 64,000 in December to 81,000 in January. This final push last month was what Haachama needed to finally get over the 1 million threshold: in doing so, she has joined the likes of Inugami Korone, Usada Pekora, and Houshou Marine as the sixth in the Japanese branch and the eighth Hololive member overall to surpass 1 million subscribers.
Nevertheless, she’s not the first in her generation to do so: that’d be Shirakami Fubuki, who reached 1 million subscribers back in November. Much like Haachama, Fubuki benefitted from content that reached out to English audiences, most especially her comedic shorts, and also enjoys a certain amount of exposure from her weekly radio show on Hibiki, which she does with Marine.
With Haachama’s latest 1 million subscriber milestone, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that VTubers are no longer an underground phenomenon and are instead becoming firmly mainstream. Hololive’s dominance in this virtual space is also being increasingly strengthened, especially as Amelia Watson is on the verge of becoming the third English-language Hololive member to surpass 1 million.