The paradoxical performativity of streaming, especially VTubing, makes it a ripe device for exploring different facets of people within fiction. Even though the characters in VTuber Legend are designed to look like their online avatars at all times, finding out more about who they are “behind the mask” is still a key component of this series. Awa’s been grappling with this since her booze-fueled breakout stream, and in this week’s episode, she gets to experience it from another perspective when she visits fellow streamer Chami. Chami is an extreme embodiment of those paradoxes: she’s an online performer with a massive follow base who gets so nervous in IRL social situations that she has to retreat to the bathroom every few minutes. She specializes in ASMR ear-cleaning simulations but has never actually cleaned someone’s ears before. Compared to Awa’s success at streaming as her “authentic” self, Chami has succeeded on 100% propped-up artifice.

Despite the candy-coated costumes, VTuber Legend has, just in its first three episodes, already had a refreshingly rowdy ribald realness to it that fits with the believable appeal of VTubers. Yes, all the characters in this show are playing characters the same as Chami, but they’re elevated by the idea of being messy weirdos navigating their own neuroses. Chami’s need to recharge her social batteries is an all-too-relatable anxiety for many of us. It leads into discussions, multiple times in this episode, regarding how streaming, playing a persona of yourself in public, can help with getting over some social anxiety and attaining a degree of self-comfort. Alongside the assistance of alcoholism, naturally.

Awa herself embodies all these layers in the advice she imparts to Chami alongside her irregular, high-pitched antics. I’m honestly in love with Awa becoming more and more of a gross disaster as she interacts with her fellow performers. Yes, it’s a very cheap, easy decision to make your pretty anime princess lead character an openly horny lover of ladies to score simple relatability points. But, as I’ve said, relatability is a key component of what VTuber Legend is trying to present here. I know that performative lesbianism is an element of the VTuber scene, one which I don’t feel qualified to comment on. But in Awa’s case in this series, the combination of her energy in raving about her attractions and the lingo she uses makes it feel like she, at least, is being authentic. It might be interesting to see the series cover any aspects of her dating/romance life before joining the VTubing scene, but I don’t know that this is necessarily that kind of story.

Rather, Awa thirsts for the ladies almost as much as she does for Strong Zero works as simply another component of that relatable realness at the same time she’s working on ascending to legend status. Socially, she’s a gay disaster who is barely hanging on when tempted with a sleepover at the home of the co-worker she just finished a collab with. Toeing that line between the personal and the professional is a driving part of the appeal of the artifice of VTubing, after all. If Awa is more “authentic” in her streaming than Chami, she’s still being molded as a performer by finding out what works for her audience, balancing that with behavior like not destroying her liver with constant Strong-Zero-fueled streams.

Such a stream is still the focus of the latter half of this episode, devolving into more concentrated chaos than VTuber Legend has already. There’s honestly so much going on in this episode, between the asides and cutaways and accompanying visual gags and effects that it’s extremely possible to blink and miss some stuff. This too is an embodiment of the experience of watching VTuber streams, to be sure. The show continues to get the building blocks right, particularly Awa’s reveal of her new Live2D model on-stream, dragged in precisely the same way so many others have done so. The anime’s embellishment of a full magical-girl-style transformation sequence is a boost for the show format, and the inherent humor is compounded in the costume being a far more casual character design than the princess look for Awa the audience has been familiar with. And not for nothing, the new “Shuwa-chan” model is really, really cute. That Mashiron knew what she was doing.

It’s a fun and interesting analysis of how all personalities are doing a bit, to some degree, even as the pacing of the experience gets a bit exhausting. A lot of the gags and references aren’t low-effort, mind—I absolutely get a kick out of Awa looking like Hattoushin from the Fukkireta video, or trying not to further shatter Hikari’s innocence by telling her about Yuzusoft games. But there is still so much of it all going on. Perhaps that means VTuber Legend will reward rewatches. Though as someone who’s surprisingly invested in the interiority of these colorful PNG ladies, I wouldn’t complain about the series slowing down just a bit going forward.

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.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.