One of the most important moments in the history of Virtual YouTubing was the delivery of a single syllable. “A.” That was the first sound Gawr Gura delivered during her debut livestream in September 2020, an hour-long introduction also featuring ample chit-chat and a cover of Tatsuro Yamashita’s “Ride On Time,” finding the character dub herself “city pop shark.” Yet out of this emerged the VTuber industry’s primary ambassador, helping connect Japan with the rest of the world.
Nearly five years on and after becoming the most subscribed-to VTuber in the world, Gawr Gura announced today she would be “graduating” from her agency hololive on May 1, 2025. In an emotional stream on YouTube announcing the news, she cited “disagreements with management and company direction” as her reason for leaving.
“I love singing for you, and performing for you on stage or in my bedroom,” Gura said during the stream. “You helped pull me out of my shell, and I went from being too scared to sing alone in my shower to singing live in front of hundreds of thousands of people.”
Gura’s arrival signaled a shift in the greater VTuber community. Most immediately, she — along with four other personalities debuting as part of hololive’s English-language branch hololive EN — represented a deliberate move towards expanding an online world that was then flourishing in Asia to the Western world.
Yet she would end up becoming something of a bridge for English-speaking fans of VTubers to learn more about the Japan side of the industry too. By the time Gura debuted, VTubing had established itself as an emerging force domestically and across the greater region. Performers such as Kizuna AI and hololive’s own Kiryu Coco were becoming big business, even crossing over into the medium’s of TV and music.
Before 2020, VTubers were getting attention from the English-speaking world, but in a much different way. The rise of Kizuna AI inspired plenty of articles from Western media gawking at the idea of a “virtual artist” or generally being befuddled by it, a classic trope of the “weird Japan” genre. For fans of Japanese VTubers living abroad, it could be hard to follow along owing to a lack of information or the generally disparate times in which streams happened. Others might not even know where to start with it.
All of hololive’s first generation English-language VTubers served as a link between Japan and the English world, but Gura’s popularity made her the biggest representative for the online field and played a particularly vital role in opening up industry-leader hololive to the globe. For many, Gura was the performer who hooked them into the world of VTubing, and she did so by embracing both the cultural around this corner of internet creation and Japan itself, the country revolutionizing VTubing as known today. Via Gura, viewers could seamlessly discover more about the field.
Japanese VTuber Sakura Miko, as a Tokyo Tourism Ambassador in 2023, reflecting just how big an interest VTubers had become in recent years (worries about the graduation announcement started stirring in the previous few days when Gura herself vanished from the Tokyo site). Gura represented English-language VTubing on the world stage, making a cameo in an anime-indebted Taco Bell ad and, in one of the most surreal moments in the history of VTubing, sang “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” as part of “hololive Night” at Dodger Stadium last summer.
Gura’s impending departure from hololive comes after a string of other graduation announcements from prominent talents in the company, signalling big changes not only for the agency itself but also for the VTubing space in general. Whatever comes next, this new era is one heavily shaped by Gura’s popularity. The space is global now, with hololive not only debuting more English-language talent but actively focusing on the U.S. market via concerts, events and collaborations like the Los Angeles Dodgers tie-up. The number of English-language creators has grown too, while a once niche Japanese internet phenomenon is now projected to be an $8 billion USD industry by 2033.
Gura’s legacy, beyond being an entertaining presence and most-subscribed character in the space, is of helping to reveal the global potential VTubing has, all while helping viewers find their way to the Japanese side of the art. Even though she herself will step back from the spotlight, she made it possible for so many more to enjoy its shine too.
