I must say, I’ve never been much of a gambler. My luck usually turns out to be shit and my predictions are blown away by the winds of time like dust in the desert. However, today is a different story my friends. Late last year I wrote an article about how Uzaki-chan, a somewhat recently famous anime girl made her debut as a Vtuber to promote some content and noted how this could mark the beginning of already known characters turning into Vtubers. So far the most popular ones are still original characters, namely from Hololive and Nijisanji. On June 24th however, the official Japanese Sonic twitter account posted a brief video of Sonic talking to the viewers as a Vtuber.



The video was posted as part of the celebration of Sonic’s 30th anniversary and features the same Japanese voice actor for Sonic who took the reins back in 1998. I think we can be somewhat confident that this won’t become a regular thing and instead enjoy this for the one off gimmick that it is. Everytime something like this happens though, it reminds me of how Vtubers have grown over time and how their influence continues to seep itself into different aspects of the Internet. This in turn leads me to wonder “oh god, how long before Ash from Pokemon is turned into a Vtuber, or Goku from DBZ?”. And when I say this I mean in an official capacity as I’m sure it’s been done in an unofficial way already. 

For now it seems big companies are satisfied merely using the practice of Vtubing as a little gimmick to bolster attention and make headlines with “X character has Vtuber debut”, and personally I’m fine with that. I already mentioned how I’m a bit apprehensive about popular characters becoming full time Vtubers cause in many cases it seems like the joke would run out fast as many characters aren’t really suited to the task, whereas the whole point of Hololive is to create new idol characters that fit into the mold. Perhaps I could be surprised.

Careful now, Vtubing and shipping go hand in hand.

Regardless, Sonic has now joined the crowd of Vtubers and I’m positive he won’t be the last to do so. Have you guys enjoyed the Sonic franchise? Do you watch any Vtubers? Will this trend continue with more and more characters? Roll around at the speed of sound in the comments below!