The Evolving World of VTubers: Aiming to Create New Entertainment That No One in the World Has Ever Seen Before

Alumnus Motoyuki Oi (Graduate of the Faculty of Business and Commerce)

2023/07/28

Motoyuki Oi / President and CEO, ClaN Entertainment Inc.

Graduated from the Faculty of Business and Commerce in 2017. He joined Nippon Television Network Corporation the same year. The following year, he launched the VTuber business as an in-house venture and became its head. VTuber is an abbreviation for "Virtual YouTuber." It refers to CG characters (avatars) active on internet video sites and the streamers who use them to post videos and conduct live streams. At Nippon TV, he also served as a producer for numerous programs and events featuring VTubers, such as "Project V." In April 2022, he established ClaN Entertainment Inc. as a new company of Nippon TV, becoming its President and CEO in his fifth year with the company, at the age of 27.

-Mr. Oi, last year you became the president of ClaN Entertainment (hereafter ClaN), an entertainment company specializing in VTubers that was established by Nippon TV. I understand that the VTuber business was originally something you started as a new venture within the company.

Oi: From the time I joined the company, I wanted to start a completely new entertainment business that utilized digital technology. This was only about five years ago, but at the time, VTubers were still largely unknown. While there are said to be over 20,000 VTubers today, there were only about 1,000 in 2018. Now, the concept of the "metaverse," a 3D virtual space, is widely known, and VTubers, who were traditionally centered around beautiful girl characters, are rapidly diversifying to include male characters, animals, and more. I see great potential for a new entertainment business there, and I aim to develop a business in this rapidly evolving world that no one has ever attempted before.

-Have you been a fan of entertainment since you were a child?

Oi: Yes. I loved television, and my parents also enjoyed stage plays and musicals, so I was familiar with various forms of entertainment from a very young age. I still clearly remember the Broadway show I saw on a family trip to New York when I was in the sixth grade. At the same time, I was also a huge fan of The Drifters.

-The Drifters aren't exactly from your generation of entertainers, are they?

Oi: I first learned about The Drifters when their leader, Chosuke Ikariya, passed away. I was in elementary school. The comedy sketches shown on the TV tribute program were so funny that I spent nearly 20,000 yen out of my entire savings of about 50,000 yen, which I had saved from New Year's gifts and other sources, to buy a Drifters DVD set. I watched those DVDs over and over, and a few years later, I was performing their sketches in front of people. Even as a child, I was struck by their professional attitude toward comedy. I later became a fan of SMAP, and their appeal was also their professionalism in everything they did, not just singing and dancing, but also constantly taking on new challenges like acting and comedy. Also, the metropolitan high school I attended had a tradition where every class would perform a musical for the cultural festival. Many students put more effort into the festival performance than their club activities, and I myself became completely absorbed in musical production. That was the moment I discovered the joy of creating something as a group.

-You might have become a performer yourself.

Oi: No, I don't think that was ever a possibility. In high school, I experienced both performing and working behind the scenes, and each has its own appeal. I always wanted to be on the side that delivers entertainment to the world. Since elementary school, my favorite subject was social studies. That's because it's a subject where you can learn about the "mechanisms" of the world. In that sense, managing a company might be one of the things I can enjoy. A love for entertainment and a curiosity about how the world works—I think these two things are my driving forces.

-After graduating from high school, you went on to the Faculty of Business and Commerce.

Oi: The appeal of Keio's Faculty of Business and Commerce was that it has produced many executives of listed companies. I think I was already interested in management back then. When I entered university, my first thought was, "I'm finally free" (laughs). Until high school, everyone lived and studied according to a fixed schedule. But at university, you can choose your own courses, except for required ones, and create your own timetable. You can manage your own time. This freedom is the wonderful thing about being a university student. I enjoyed studying subjects like international business and bookkeeping, and from my second year, I spent my long summer and spring vacations studying abroad.

-In your fourth year of university, you studied abroad at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for a year.

Oi: UCLA is close to Hollywood, the mecca of the American film industry, and I also wanted to test how well I could do at a top global university. I even thought it would be great if I could find a job in Hollywood right after. There were many students at UCLA with a high awareness of entertainment, which was stimulating. On the other hand, it's also true that I didn't feel there was much of an intellectual gap between them and Keio students. I believe that as long as you have the English ability to communicate your own ideas, Japanese university students can definitely "compete to win" at the world's top universities.

-So you started job hunting after returning from your studies at UCLA.

Oi: Yes, besides television stations, which meant entertainment, I was also considering foreign consulting firms, which meant business. I ultimately decided on a TV station because there were many people there who were different from me. I tend to think logically, but many people at the TV station were more intuitive. I wondered which would be more interesting: a consulting firm with logical thinkers like myself, or a TV station with what you might call more intuitive types. I chose the latter. The fact that I received the job offer from Nippon TV on my birthday also felt like some kind of "fate."

-Please tell us about your desire to create a new entertainment business using digital technology from the time you joined the company.

Oi: After joining the company, I worked in CM sales for a while, all the while thinking about ideas for new businesses. Then, in my first year, I encountered Kizuna AI, a pioneer in the VTuber world. It was a piece of content where Kizuna AI did a physical fitness test. Seeing the character move so energetically and vividly in a virtual space, thanks to motion capture technology that digitizes human movement, I felt a sense of excitement and shock at encountering something new. I intuitively felt that in this genre, Japan could create and export entertainment to the world that could rival Hollywood. I immediately put the idea together, proposed it to the company, and by using the internal new business system, I was able to launch the VTuber business in August 2018, my second year at the company. It was a small start with just two members, but even then, I envisioned it becoming a separate corporation in the future. In 2020, we established a VTuber network called "V-Clan." The following year, we launched our first VTuber program. And based on these activities, last April, we were able to establish ClaN as a subsidiary funded by Nippon TV. Our company now supports the activities of about 300 VTubers.

-Did you face any difficulties in establishing the company?

Oi: The business itself was a completely new challenge, and I had to grapple with the various tasks of establishing a company while simultaneously running a business that had already started and was expanding. I can laugh about it now, but I never want to go through that experience again (laughs). I think the great thing about ClaN is that as an independent startup, we have a very high degree of freedom in back-office aspects like business operations and human resources. We've also gathered staff with diverse backgrounds and high skills, creating a system that allows us to tackle business with a sense of speed. At the same time, being able to develop our business using the know-how, resources, and credibility of a TV station is another of ClaN's major strengths.

-Please tell us about your future business development.

Oi: We are not a typical talent agency but an open network organization closer to the US agency model. Within that framework, we produce content using VTubers, support the activities of individual VTubers and social media influencers, and also produce VTuber programs as part of the NTV Group. In our future plans, we want to release a lot of ClaN's original content to the world. Our goals are the "mass adoption," "diversification," and "globalization" of VTubers. Although public awareness has improved considerably, it's true that the public image of VTubers is still largely that of beautiful girl characters. However, I see room for business growth beyond that public perception.

-What do you mean by "room for growth"?

Oi: Today, many VTuber characters have emerged, targeting various demographics, from men and animals to the elderly, but only a fraction of them are well-known. That's where the room for growth lies—there is definitely enjoyment and potential in VTuber content that many people are still unaware of. And since the content and the technology that supports it are evolving daily, what is impossible today may not be so in a few months. In the rapidly evolving world of VTubers, ClaN will create something that no one in the world has done before. Don't you think there's no job more rewarding than that? Moreover, Japan is overwhelmingly advanced in this field from a global perspective. While we need to adapt our presentation methods for different regions, "globalization" is by no means a dream.

-ClaN's slogan is "Entertainment That Changes Lives," isn't it?

Oi: Yes. In the past, whenever I was going through tough or painful times, entertainment saved me many times and helped me change myself. So now, I also feel a desire to give back to entertainment through my business. "Changing lives" applies not only to the audience, like my younger self, but also to those who create new entertainment. I want to realize the creation of a continuous stream of appealing new content that changes the lives of both the creators and the consumers of entertainment.

-Finally, do you have a message for current Keio students?

Oi: I want all of you to greedily accumulate experiences over your four years that only you can have. Your student years are the time when you can act with the least fear of risk, and opportunities arise from putting ideas into action. I feel every day that this is an era where "uniqueness" can shine, so I hope you won't be afraid to be different from others and will aim to excel at something, no matter what it is. I would be happy if you could unearth your own unique talents throughout your university life and have a truly rich and meaningful time.

-Thank you for your time today.

This article was originally published in the "Keio University alumni Features" section of "Juku" SPRING 2023 (No. 318).