While I am not personally a huge follower of the ever-growing Vtuber space, one of the few I would often listen to while doing work in the background or leisurely watching would be Amano Pikamee (天野ピカミィ), who most often simply went by the name Pikamee. Part of the VOMS Project, Pikamee was the first three vTubers associated with the agency, alongside Jitomi Monoe and Hikasa Tomoshika. As I mentioned in my tweet yesterday, being bilingual, Pikamee really managed to bridge the gap between English and Japanese-speaking communities, seamlessly bringing fun and happiness to both audiences.
While things were looking bright at the beginning of this year, a number of events happened. While it is not definitive whether this was the cause of Pikamee quitting, a drama revolving around her expressing interest in playing Hogwarts Legacy, like so many others did, saw them taking a month-long hiatus before VOMS Project announced her plans to retire. It is a shame, with them being one of the more fun, laid-back and engaged vTubers out there.
Last night from 10 pm JST until 12 am JST, Pikamee hosted a 2-hour long Graduation Stream via their now private Youtube channel, chatting with fans, getting a few more Papamee jokes in, and taking her 50k+ viewers on a tour of each of her models, from the original Pikamee design to the iconic chibified monster costume, to the more recent isekai designs. While many vTubers would disappear off the face of the Earth, it was good to see Pikamee come back for one more month, before a heartfelt and emotional, yet fun goodbye.
Unfortunately, a quirk about Japanese vTuber graduations is that their content tends to be privatised or completely deleted into the virtual ether, and unfortunately this is the case with Pikamee as well. As of now, none of her previous videos are available to stream on Youtube – public or members’ videos – while their social media channels such as Twitter have already been wiped clear.
Of course, being a popular vTuber in the community, you can bet there are many highlight reels from throughout the years, including the below clip of her final goodbye.
and this iconic clip from a few weeks back:
and this completely out there clip that I honestly watch everytime I need a bit of cheering up:
