I’m at a Sold out concert in Hollywood, and I am the only one in the 1,200-plus capacity that does not know any of the songs. One of the acts has just finished, and everyone around me starts singing and blowing their light sticks. We don’t have to wait long: Kou Mariya, one of the headlines, appears. Not on stage itself, but on a massive screen that extends over the entire length. (She will never appear on stage because she is a sexy 6,669-year-old blonde vampire-anime girl who exists only in virtual reality.) Mariya starts singing in Japanese. A growing man next to me seems to be at the tip of tears.

Welcome to Fantastic Reality, a mini-festival in the Vermont Theater that brings eight main-vtuber performances-all anime girls of different eye and hair color-to a vibrant venue, accompanied by IRL musicians. I am here to find out more why fans are willing to pay up to $ 180 (the cost of a VIP pass) for the privilege of personally viewing these acts, rather than on their screens from the comfort of their own homes.

Photo: Erica Hernandez

If you’ve never seen a VTUber before, it’s probably just a matter of time. VTubes have been around for about a decade in Japan and offer everything from online weather stations to iPhone launches, but they rose in the Covid Quarantine in popularity outside Japan. If you like watching something online – cooking, spelling, history – there is a VTUber version of it. The name is a Portmanteau of ‘Virtual Youtuber’, and as it suggests, it’s a liver sauce or video creator, but instead of showing their face, the audience sees a virtual 2D or 3D avatar.

Technically, a VTUber can tackle any look or theme (my favorite: an ex-Yakuza in prison streaks that talk about the actual organized crime), but the most popular are anime girls with cute voices. Some of these VTubers also sing, and the output ranges from simple Karaoke streams to full music videos. If the Vtuber is large enough, fans can also listen to their music on most major streamers. The market is growing: The Major Vtuber Agency Hololive launched a record label last week. Which brings us back to the concert.

For most of the approximately three-hour performance, there are three human musicians on stage: a drummer, a bass guitarist and guitarist, who guides play for a parade of anime girls who appear on the massive monitors (one in the middle, two over the right and left side). The two DJs, Mono Monet, a vtuber with purple hair jumping from filter house to Gabber, and Joenn, a real human DJ that appears physically on stage to close the night with an even more cruel set can easily (musically) fit on any rave. But the meat of the show is what a casual listener would probably just call ‘anime music’, which occasionally wandered into songs ranging from goofy memes (Issa Corva: ‘I hate coriander, baby / I hate you almost as much / as I hate coriander, baby”) To equally goofy link-in-bio rap (cottontailva:“Screams for my gooners / who shows my fans love”).

Mariya, the above sexy anime vampire, began the boom of the revival of popularity in the quarantine-fueled popularity in 2020 when everyone was looking for a parasocial friend. Her content varies from play to chat with (sometimes members only) ASMR videos to karaoke, and she has also released a single to streaming services.

I watched some of her streams, but I didn’t know what to expect during her concert. Promotional material for the event promised that there would be a lively human orchestra, but how exactly would she interact with it?

So I arrange to talk to her remotely, a few days before the show. The video call starts, and she looks just like in her streams. I mean it literally: I talk to the avatar that her fans see.