Taiwan VTubers: Beyond the "V-Skin," Who is Bringing Virtual Idols into Reality?

30-Second Overview: On June 28, 2025, the human operators behind six VTubers were hidden behind LED walls at Zepp in New Taipei, completing a 3D Live through optical motion capture; over 1,500 audience members watched the characters sing, dance, and respond. ¹ From Yahoo TV launching Huni in 2017 to over 3,000 VTuber debuts by 2025, Taiwan has developed its own virtual entertainment ecosystem. ² It not only accommodates conservation IPs, educational characters, and rising stars who gather large audiences quickly, but also allows creators to use a character without showing their real face; political figures attempt to use animal personas for policy communication. ^3456789 However, this is not a path that can be completed solely by the "V-skin": high modeling and equipment costs, algorithmic pressure, and unpredictable income still keep many creators behind the screen. ¹⁰

Six Performers Behind One LED Wall

When the stage lit up at Zepp New Taipei on June 28, 2025, there were no human idols on stage. The figures from the "Deep Space Project" (極深空計畫) and two senior members appeared from a giant LED screen. Audiences waved light sticks in support, with broadcast footage merging the live audience and the characters. But behind the screen, six human operators, wearing motion capture suits, had their movements instantly translated into character actions by an optical system. This "NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side" (NEXUS 虛實之側) was Taiwan's first 3D Live featuring multiple VTubers simultaneously. Held on the same day as the Golden Melody Awards, it still attracted over 1,500 fans, generating approximately NT$6 million in revenue from tickets, online passes, and merchandise. ¹

Extended Viewing: On stage at NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side in 2025, members of the Deep Space Project waved to the audience; the lighting between the screen and the crowd created a performance where virtual and real intersected

A scene from NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side in 2025, with members of the Deep Space Project interacting with the live audience. Photo: Tsai Hsin-han / Youth Reporter. Source

This scene is fitting for understanding the core of Taiwanese VTubers: virtual characters have never eliminated human labor; they have merely relocated that labor out of sight of the audience. The character requires voice acting, real-time performance, modeling, stage technology, planning, and community management. Audiences who buy tickets are not watching a self-operating animation, but rather a group using a new stage language to sustain the character's life.

📝 Curator's Note: The "virtual" aspect of VTubers often leads people to think that technology has removed the human; NEXUS reminds us instead that technology is actually hiding the person, allowing the performance to be viewed in another way.

This is why Taiwanese VTubers are so significant in cultural history. It is not just a group of characters debuting; it is the convergence of live streaming, ACG, motion capture, concert production, and fan communities in one venue. Official data from YouTube in 2025 shows that among a sample of 300 virtual creators, they achieved over 15 billion views across videos, live streams, and Shorts in 2024. ¹¹ Taiwan's case is not equivalent to the global market, but it has grown its own scale and language within this platform culture.

Huni Brought Corporate Experiments onto the Live Stage

Going back to 2017. Yahoo TV launched the virtual host Huni in June to present game and anime content. Academic research from 2025 also lists $\alpha$ Huni as one of Taiwan's earliest VTuber cases managed by a corporation. ¹² At that time, VTubers were just beginning to explode in Japan, and Yahoo TV did not have a replicable Taiwanese formula. What they did resembled a media content experiment: having a host with character settings interact with the audience in real-time via live stream.

An interview in Digital Age in 2018 documented the scale of this experiment: Huni was backed by a four-person team, handling voice acting, technology, community management, and content planning. The team had to produce two to three streams or videos weekly. ¹² This division of labor shows that early Taiwanese VTubers were not just "putting on a skin" on screen; they were attempting to integrate traditional hosting, influencer communities, and character IPs into one production process.

When Hsu Chao-chin spoke about the human operator, he said: "She is her; she is Huni." ¹² This statement was not denying the real person but describing a performance contract: the audience is willing to treat the character as someone they can converse with, provided that the character's tone, responses, and daily life are consistently performed over a long period. The subsequent changes involving Huni also left another lesson—corporations can launch an IP, but they cannot replace day-in, day-out content management. Once the character, team, and platform strategy fall out of sync, the character's lifespan becomes exceptionally fragile.

A Non-Linear History of Taiwanese VTubers

If one were to write the history of Taiwanese VTubers merely as "from Huni to three thousand," one would easily miss the forks that truly changed the industry landscape. Huni represented a media company testing new hosting formats; in 2018, the Taiwan VTuber Alliance and Southern Technological University attempted to incorporate character design, animation, and live streaming into campus nurturing; in 2021, the Endangered Species Group incorporated conservation issues of snow leopard, Taiwanese black bear, and Eurasian otter into character IPs; in 2023, public media established the Golden V Award, giving community creations public visibility; in 2024, South Yi Book Agency brought knowledge-based characters to education technology exhibitions; and in 2025, NEXUS and Oumai Maimai demonstrated two different models: large-scale offline production and introducing existing influencer traffic. ^125313714

These nodes do not form an inevitable upward progression story. Corporate resources can bring production capability, conservation collaborations can bring distinct public themes, schools and publishers can supply curriculum and knowledge content for characters, and existing influencers can shorten the cold start time for new channels. However, every model must face the issues of whether the character can be continuously performed, whether the audience will stay, and whether costs can be reasonably shared. Industry commentary in 2020 categorized individual creators, group-based entities, and corporate entities as different operational trade-offs. By 2024, Entertainment Foresight, Spring Fish Creative, and Zodiac Project sequentially launched virtual male groups, indicating that the corporatization of Taiwanese VTubers is shifting from "having a character" to "designing content, merchandise, and companionship for a specific audience." ¹⁴¹⁵

Do Taiwanese Audiences Really "Prefer" Japanese VTubers?

This statement has its historical background but cannot be taken as a conclusion verified by national surveys. An industry commentary in 2020 judged that Japanese VTubers were more popular in Taiwan due to the gap in subscription numbers, the foundation of the anime and idol industries, voice actor training, and agency capabilities at the time. This reflected an observation of the early market, not the proportion of all Taiwanese audiences today. ¹⁶ To write it directly as "most Taiwanese people like Japanese VTubers" is not only to freeze time but also to erase the subsequent growth and differences in audience demand for local characters.

A more reliable perspective is that Taiwanese VTuber culture has developed under the strong influence of Japanese popular culture for a long time. Youth Reporter noted in 2025 that Taiwanese fans translate Japanese VTuber videos into Chinese. The founder of Spring Fish, who was interviewed, also believed that the related Japanese industry chain was more complete and society accepted ACG to a higher degree, while Taiwan often still needs to explain that a VTuber is not an AI simulation doll. ¹⁷ Consequently, the accumulated character pool, music, performance scale, training, and cross-national communities of Japanese corporations form a first-mover advantage; local creators are facing not just a competition over a single character, but an entire mature IP ecosystem.

Therefore, instead of asking whether Taiwanese people "like Japan or Taiwan," a more precise question is: how do local characters offer relationships that cannot be easily replaced alongside the standards established by Japanese corporations? Tâi-gí content, local themes, real-time responses to political and public issues, interactions like friends, and live stream planning that better fits the Taiwanese lifestyle rhythm may hold the answer. Preference is not a fixed national vote, but an ongoing choice formed among character quality, content pace, community language, and industry support.

Three Thousand Debuts Does Not Equal Three Thousand Stable Jobs

The number of Taiwanese VTubers has grown rapidly, but the terminology must be clarified first. A 2025 master's thesis from National Jinnan International University cited a list of Taiwanese VTubers, stating that there were 2,595 as of 2024. Youth Reporter reported in July 2025 that over 3,000 VTubers had debuted nationwide. ¹⁹² These two figures best illustrate the cumulative scale of "having debuted," and cannot be directly taken as the number of active creators or stable earners.

The establishment of the Golden V Award by Public Broadcasting in 2023 included male V, female V, original songs, planning, and potential rising stars. This elevated VTubers from an annual event within the circle to a content type that public media could discuss and judge. ¹³ However, industry visibility and creator sustainability are two different matters. The real turning point for Taiwanese VTubers is not just the increase in newcomers, but the beginning of mutual reliance among corporate entities, individual creators, motion capture studios, and offline performances: some provide technology, some provide characters and performance, and others tie these jobs together through memberships, tipping, fundraising, or ticket sales.

Not Every Growth Relies on Algorithms: Song Relay and Community Migration

New audiences for Taiwanese VTubers do not only come from platform recommendations or corporate advertising; they also move between creators. The singing VTuber Xi'er, interviewed by Public Broadcasting, mentioned "song relay": each creator takes turns hosting a 30-minute singing stream, after which the audience is directed to the next person's channel. ²⁰ This format seems simple, but it temporarily links channels that would otherwise be in competition into a joint program schedule, giving small creators a chance to be seen by unfamiliar audiences.

It also forces a reunderstanding of the "community" aspect of Taiwanese VTubers. Community is not just a collective term for Discord, live chatrooms, or fan-made clips; it is a referral network that connects the audience, creators, and planners. When algorithms are opaque and advertising budgets are limited, collaborative relays, cross-promotion, and channel switching do not guarantee who will go viral, but they can mitigate the loneliness of a cold start. For individual creators without corporate resources, this horizontal mutual aid is a small form of infrastructure in itself.

Oumai Maimai: Shortening Cold Start with Existing Traffic

Oumai Maimai offered another path to emergence that was different from slow accumulation. She was funded by YouTuber Fire and debuted on January 17, 2025. A report from udn Gaming Corner stated that her channel surpassed 150,000 subscribers on debut, with a peak concurrent viewership of nearly 19,000 in the first 10 minutes. ⁴ These numbers should not be taken as the average starting point for Taiwanese VTubers, but they clearly show: the brand, community promotion, and audience curiosity of an existing creator can rapidly propel a new character into public view.

Extended Viewing: The official character visual of Oumai Maimai, showing her purple hair, white headpiece, and costume design

Official character visual of Oumai Maimai. Source: Oumai Maimai Official Website; embedded from an external hot URL, not downloaded or cached.

Rapid success is not just a marketing story. It pushes the problems of Taiwanese VTubers forward: when immense expectations are accumulated before the first stream, whether the subsequent content, streaming pace, and character interaction can sustain this audience depends on the long-term production capability of the behind-the-scenes team. Oumai Maimai's case is therefore not a "success formula," but a clear demonstration of how traffic is converted into character relationships in the platform era.

A Bill Paid Under the V-Skin

Becoming a VTuber is usually not something that starts by turning on a camera. Interviewees cited in Public Broadcasting estimated that basic V-skin costs range from NT$10,000 to 80,000. High-end Live2D can reach NT$100,000 to 200,000. If moving to 3D, common commission prices are around NT$150,000, with more refined productions potentially costing NT$300,000 to 500,000; plus microphone, camera, motion capture equipment, and streaming software, there is a significant cost before debut. ¹⁰

Extended Viewing: A technical scene in a motion capture studio where workers wearing reflective motion capture suits prepare for the cameras to recognize body joints, prior to the character moving naturally on screen

Reflective motion capture suits in a motion capture studio. Photo: Tsai Hsin-han / Youth Reporter. Source

Costs do not stop after debut. Individual creators must plan content, schedule, edit, manage community, and deal with platform data themselves. Corporate entities can obtain production and business resources, but they also have to negotiate between the character IP, contracts, revenue sharing, and creative freedom. Multiple interviewed creators mentioned that income ranges from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, and is easily affected by live stream views, tipping, and algorithms; one interviewee described it as not being able to rely solely on passion to enter this industry. ¹⁰

Therefore, "high turnover rate" is a more suitable language for understanding Taiwanese VTubers than "average lifespan in months." The industry does circulate talk of short-lived VTubers, but there is currently no public statistic representing all of Taiwan. ¹⁰ What can be confirmed is that creators also function as small studios outside the character: maintaining performance on one hand, and maintaining commercial and psychological endurance on the other.

📝 Curator's Note: When a character doesn't need to show their face, audiences easily overlook that the performer still has to pay rent, account for equipment depreciation, and deal with digital anxiety. The V-skin protects privacy but may also make labor harder to identify; this is a reality that Taiwanese VTubers must seriously discuss.

Where Do Characters Go After Graduation?

The "graduation" of a Taiwanese VTuber is not just ceasing activity or changing jobs. When corporate characters, channels, models, and merchandise are invested in by companies, and the performer's voice, tone, and improvisation have already established a long-term relationship with the character, it is difficult to answer simply with "company assets" or "personal work." A graduated corporate VTuber interviewed by Public Broadcasting mentioned that confidentiality agreements might prevent her from including even the experience of being an operator in her resume. The company she worked for worried that the IP and existing customer base they invested in would be lost when the performer left. ²⁰

This is not simply a labor-management conflict, nor is it something that can be solved with a phrase like "who owns the V-skin." Legal texts divide VTuber debuts into three stages: character creation, human operator recruitment, and live performance. The artistic elements of the character, model, and code may involve different rights. The physical performances and spoken lines generated during a live stream may also have independent creative value. The article also reminds that while technology can replace the human operator, fans often cannot accept the replacement of the character's voice, personality, and performance. ²¹

Therefore, the sustainability of Taiwanese VTubers depends not only on subscriber counts or box office success of a show, but also on whether the time spent streaming, revenue sharing, IP extension utilization, scope of confidentiality, and post-graduation work experience can be clearly defined before debut. For the audience, graduation is like the character leaving the stage. For the human operator and team, it is more like an accounting of creation, career, and IP.

📝 Curator's Note: The "human operator" is not a replaceable part hidden behind the V-skin, and the character is not just an image. When both are recognized by audiences over a long period, whether the contract allows for labor to be acknowledged and creation to be taken away determines whether the next performer is willing to stay.

Not Showing Face Is Not Absence: How Characters Open Doors for Creators

One of the most intuitive functions of VTubers is transforming "not wanting their real face to be recognized" into a manageable character relationship. This does not mean that everyone who uses a V-skin does so for the same reason, nor does it mean the character automatically brings an audience. It simply allows creators to decide how much they want to reveal regarding their voice, expression, body, and personal identity. Miss Lin from Kaohsiung is an early and clear example in Taiwan. A 2021 interview by READr recorded that she transitioned to a VTuber at the end of 2019, using a camera to capture facial or bodily changes to drive the character; she was responsible for current affairs content and planning, while two online partners handled technology and styling. In her interview, she directly stated that she did not want to show her face and knew this might limit audience size, yet she chose to put political current affairs live streams, music, and life content into a virtual character. ⁸

This case should not be simplified as "anonymity making politics safer." Miss Lin's channel is still built on credibility accumulated by the same creator through voice, responses, and a fixed streaming rhythm. The character hides the face but does not eliminate the stance of the content, responsibility, or the need for scrutiny. It shows another possibility: for those who do not wish to show their faces but want to discuss current affairs publicly over a long period, VTuber technology can connect privacy management with a recognizable host persona.

Li Ting offered an opposite yet equally important reminder. His official channel released a subscriber Q&A video where he "finally showed his face," explaining that the virtual image and showing one's real face are not mutually exclusive but can be adjusted over time, by program, and by creator willingness. ²² Therefore, Li Ting should not be categorized as an entirely faceless case. A more accurate description is that the V-skin can also be a staged performance and channel identification, rather than eternally locking the real identity behind the character.

A raccoon named MrMarmot demonstrated that this model exists outside of Taiwan's Chinese creation sphere. He was a cross-border Chinese YouTuber operating under a raccoon persona, with official channels featuring live streams and podcasts, and he publicly discussed the topic in "Must an Influencer Show Their Face?" ²³ This cannot be counted as Taiwanese VTuber industry data, but it serves as collateral for creative forms: non-human characters can become stable channel identifiers, allowing current affairs, personal experiences, and live interactions without relying on a real human face.

The use of VTuber personas by political figures is another matter. In 2023, "Democracy's Unique Species" (民主特有種) had Wu Zheng, Tseng Wen-hsuan, and Miao Bo-ya correspond to an owl, a snow leopard, and a husky, respectively, planning to use animal characters for policy discussions and current affairs analysis. ⁹ This is closer to political communication experiments within a campaign context than the three candidates transitioning into long-term VTubers. The character's appeal can lower the barrier to initial engagement with politics, but it cannot replace political views, accountability, or public debate. Separating these two allows us to see both the transmission potential and the limits of virtual personas.

Extended Viewing: Promotional image for Democracy's Unique Species, presenting political communication plans using animal characters like an owl, snow leopard, and husky

Promotional image for "Democracy's Unique Species" animals. Source: Wind Media; embedded from an external hot URL, not downloaded or cached.⁹

📝 Curator's Note: Not showing face, partially showing face, occasionally showing face, or having candidates temporarily become animal characters—all are different media choices. The V-skin can manage visibility and provide character language to attract attention; but it cannot bear the content quality for creators, nor can it answer policy questions for politicians.

V-Skin Is Not a Firewall: Privacy, Harassment, and Boundaries

Not showing one's face reduces the degree of real appearance recognition, but it does not completely shield the creator from risk. Interviewees in Public Broadcasting spoke of gendered insults, death threats, and overly dependent private messages. Some also worried that if their offline residence or activity location were identified, in an environment like Taiwan with short geographical distances and fast social media spread, a virtual identity might not provide enough safety distance. ²⁰

This makes the meaning of "not showing face" closer to adjustable visibility management rather than a panacea. Characters can help creators set public personas and protect private lives, but they still require platform reporting mechanisms, community norms, collaborative teams, and clear private message boundaries to support them. Audiences should not mistake the sense of companionship on screen for an unlimited right to response. No matter how real-time the interaction is on screen, behind it is a person who needs rest, can refuse, and should be treated safely.

Tâi-gí Enters the Live Room: Culture Has a Chance to Remain

The local nature of Taiwanese VTubers is not only shown by characters being Taiwanese or using Tâi-gí jokes. A more interesting case is when Tâi-gí itself becomes the content. Zhan Fangyu, while studying Taiwanese literature, encountered VTubers and had a direct idea: "Let VTubers speak Tâi-gí." She and her partners established Shenxiao in 2023, allowing characters to stream, sing, and discuss current affairs in Tâi-gí, accompanied by Tâi-gí romanization and Chinese subtitles. ²⁴

Shenxiao's attempt avoided the path of "studying textbooks first before discussing culture." The streamer could express how emotional blackmail is conveyed in Tâi-gí, or discuss food culture through banquets and banquet seating. Audiences came to see VTubers but encountered a language they were unfamiliar with amidst the rhythm of entertainment. The team later secured 500,000 and 400,000 subsidies from U-start, and once planned a collaboration for Public Broadcasting's Tâi-gí channel and Rongrongshu; reports mentioned that online concurrent viewers reached about 2,000 people on that day. ²⁴

But the most valuable part of this story is not writing it as a one-way success. Shenxiao also admitted that the audience for long-term Tâi-gí VTubers was limited, and funding still mainly relied on subsidies. After a year and a half of attempts, the team suspended the original Tâi-gí VTuber plan and used comic strips to promote Tâi-gí romanization. ²⁴ This shift indicates that new media can create an entry point, but it cannot independently handle the pressure of audience scale, business models, and content production. For cultural revitalization to go far, what is needed is not just one successful stream, but a support structure that allows creators to stay.

From Campus to Textbooks: VTubers as Educational Interfaces

The educational field noticed early on that VTubers are more than just entertainment characters. In 2018, the Taiwan VTuber Alliance and the College of Innovative Design at Southern Technological University established the "Taiwan Virtual Influencer Nurturing Base." The character "Nan'er" mentioned in the report was derived from campus emblem imagery and was planned to be issued a student ID. More importantly, the nurturing method proposed at the time was not just teaching students how to operate motion capture, but requiring them to complete character settings, animation, marketing, and management together. ⁵ The value of this project is not whether every school will eventually have its own spokesperson, but that it pointed out early on: a virtual character is a collaborative practice spanning design, performance, and content creation.

In 2024, Northmen 76 Agency under South Yi Book Agency made this path more concrete. South Yi positioned Yamina and Haise Crystal as "companion knowledge-based VTubers": the former planned to use Minecraft's space, colors, and puzzle content to accompany audiences in practicing logical thinking and creativity, while the latter entered with multilingual capabilities and English interaction plans. Both performed Minecraft puzzles and English quizzes at an education technology exhibition. ⁷ This is not replacing textbook content with cute voices, but treating games, languages, and real-time responses as a programmable learning scenario. Whether this can actually improve learning effectiveness still needs to be measured by users and research evidence beyond brand announcements.

"VTuber Confucius" must first distinguish its form. It is not that Confucius genuinely opened a live stream channel; it is the original Taiwanese comic Vtuber Confucius, serialized in CCC Comics by Lai You in 2023: the story has Confucius and Yan Hui traveling to contemporary Taiwan, with Confucius debuting as an educational VTuber "Renzi" to spread Confucian thought. The bibliography page of the Institute for Cultural Content Promotion lists it as a work by Lai You and records its nomination for the 2024 Golden Comic Award newcomer prize. ²⁵ What is special about this case is not the straightforward slogan "Teaching Confucius with VTubers," but that it places classical figures, role-playing, and contemporary platform language in one narrative device, allowing classical thought to be re-questioned.

Public media also began viewing this interface as a channel for nurturing new content. Little Public Broadcasting stated in 2025 that the Gongshi Beach and the Golden V Award were on the same strategy: the former providing a field for character and content experiments, and the latter establishing a stage for creators and virtual artists. Public Broadcasting explained its difference from traditional one-way programs by stating that VTubers can provide 3 to 4 hours of real-time "companionship." ⁶ This does not mean public media has found a fixed answer, but it points in a direction—when education, public service, and popular culture meet, the focus is not on letting characters replace teachers or hosts, but on learning how to design credible, interactive, and debatable content relationships.

📝 Curator's Note: Nan'er from campus, Yamina and Haise Crystal from South Yi, Renzi in comics, and Gongshi Beach from Public Broadcasting all belong to different systems and media. What they collectively show is not that "VTubers are naturally suited for education," but that education and public content are beginning to attempt to put interaction, characters, and companionship into new communication forms.

Animals Are Not Mascots: Conservation Characters and Another Kind of Affability

The starting point for the Endangered Species Group RESCUTE was not pasting animal ears onto idol personas. In 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture's Center for Endemic Species Research collaborated with Spring Fish Studio to anthropomorphize snow leopards, Taiwanese black bears, and Eurasian otters into girls. The setting involved them dying from harm caused by humans and being reborn as people, speaking up for their original species through performance. The group name combines rescue and cute, while the names of No. 15, Oubai'er, and Luqialuqia are linked to clues from the snow leopard, black bear, and otter species, respectively. ³ Spring Fish's current official page still lists RESCUTE as a VTuber group, continuing this worldview with "the highest-risk girl group" and "every concert being a farewell performance." ²⁶

Extended Viewing: A thumbnail of the Endangered Species Group performing at Zepp New Taipei, showing the group performance of Luqialuqia, Oubai'er, Erendier, Nemme, Emua, and Xige

Thumbnail of the Endangered Species Group performing at Zepp New Taipei; the corresponding video title lists Luqialuqia, Oubai'er, Erendier, Nemme, Emua, and Xige. Source: Video Page; embedded from an external hot URL, not downloaded or cached.²⁷

The character designs also vary: the Endangered Species Group primarily uses human girls as models, linking back to snow leopards, black bears, or otters with animal ears, tails, and species clues, allowing anthropomorphic idols to carry a conservation worldview. Caiji can be simply called a rare pure animal VTuber, using the complete Great Hornbill silhouette as the visual main subject. Up to this point, the more important thing is that both turn animals into characters that audiences can recognize and interact with over a long period.

The significance of these types of characters lies in rewriting abstract conservation crises into daily life that audiences can follow. The character does not replace conservation science; instead, it provides an easier entry point for issues like habitat fragmentation, roadkill, and illegal poaching through live streams, songs, and stories. When Luqialuqia speaks as a Eurasian otter, the animal is no longer just a cute totem, but a narrative position that brings people back to real ecological predicaments.

Caiji demonstrates another kind of animal VTuber affability. Public Broadcasting reported that she is one of the few VTubers who debuted with a Great Hornbill image; besides singing Tâi-gí songs, she also commissioned inflatable Great Hornbill dolls and hopes to interact with fans while wearing a doll costume in the future. ²⁸ She did not add animal elements onto a human moe template. Instead, she maintained recognizability both on and off-screen by using a complete bird appearance, Tâi-gí songs, and potential physical activities involving dolls.

Great Hornbill image of Caiji. File Page.

📝 Curator's Note: From the conservation narrative of RESCUTE to Caiji's Tâi-gí songs and doll aspirations, animal imagery in Taiwanese VTubers is not just a visual strategy to lower unfamiliarity; it can also put species, ecology, language, and physical meetups onto one character.

The 3D Stage Pushes Problems Beyond the Screen

The success of NEXUS showed another possible path: an IP ecosystem composed of original songs, physical performances, online tickets, merchandise, and technical services, moving beyond live stream income. To make the characters move synchronously on stage, the production team placed the entire 3D motion capture system behind the stage. Youth Reporter also recorded that a motion capture studio in the north run by KeMa New Media and Spring Fish equipped with 12 high-resolution cameras, each costing about NT$500,000, has helped over 40 individual and corporate VTubers produce 3D content. ¹

The fan economy can help individual creators overcome some hurdles, but it cannot make technical costs disappear. For example, the 3D fundraising by Xi Mizuki from Zodiac Project achieved its NT$3 million goal on the first day of launch, ultimately raising about NT$8.5 million. ¹ This proves that the core community truly has the ability to push a character onto a larger stage. It also reminds us that this model is based on a small number of highly dedicated supporters and cannot be replicated by every newcomer.

Extended Viewing: Technical staff processing motion capture and stage systems before a performance, allowing virtual characters to synchronize with the rhythm of the live band on a large LED screen

The technical team processes motion capture and stage systems for VTuber staging. Photo: Wang Wai-han / Youth Reporter. Source

These pieces of hardware are not just flashy displays needed by big companies. They allow individual creators to transition from home streaming to a more complete performance, and they provide space for the production team, venue, musicians, and character IP to collaborate. However, larger performances also mean greater upfront investment. If income still relies too much on a small core fanbase, a successful stage may amplify the pressure of needing to succeed again next time.

Extended Viewing: NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side: A preview of Spring Fish Creative's first offline 3D Live concert

A preview of the official channel 〈ϟ Spring Fish Creative First Offline 3D Live Concert | NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side〉; click the image to watch the original video on YouTube. Embedded from an external hot URL, not downloaded or cached.

Conclusion: The Face That Was Covered, and Taiwan That Was Seen

From Yahoo TV's Huni experiment, to the six simultaneous motion captures behind the NEXUS stage, and from Miss Lin's management of faceless visibility, Nan'er in campus settings, South Yi's companion knowledge-based characters, and Gongshi Beach in Public Broadcasting, the story of Taiwanese VTubers is not over when "the Japanese model comes to Taiwan." It has grown its own questions: how can corporate IPs coexist with performers, how can individual creators bear high costs, how can educational content avoid being just marketing packaging, how can Tâi-gí content find an audience that supports it long-term, and how can a large production not only leave excitement but also sustainable industry capability?

Virtual characters cover the faces, yet they bring together many people who would not have gathered otherwise: animators, Live2D modelers, voice actors, engineers, stage workers, Tâi-gí content creators, and fans willing to buy tickets. The most interesting aspect of Taiwanese VTubers is precisely that it gathers these seemingly dispersed labors under one character. What stands on the screen is a virtual idol. What is truly slowly taking shape is a creative community belonging to contemporary Taiwan.

Further Reading:

• Youth Reporter: From Star Making to Metaverse—The Tâi-flow Era of VTubers — An in-depth report focusing on NEXUS, the motion capture studio, and the industry chain.
• Public Broadcasting News: Are VTubers Earning More Than Office Workers Through Fan Tipping? — Understanding the working conditions of human operators through creation costs, income fluctuations, contracts, and psychological pressure.
• Shihsin News: VTubers Speak Tâi-gí, Shenxiao Promotes Local Language — Tracking how Tâi-gí VTubers turn new media into an entry point for language promotion.
• South Yi Book Agency: Expanding Innovation Business Map and Announcing Entry into the VTuber Industry — Official explanation of Northmen 76 Agency's educational positioning and the content design of Yamina and Haise Crystal.
• Institute for Cultural Content Promotion Taiwan Comic City: Vtuber Confucius — Recognizing how original Taiwanese comics by Lai You reinterprets classics with the setting of Confucius and Yan Hui traveling as VTubers.
• READr: Exclusive Interview with Taiwanese VTuber Pioneer—Miss Lin from Kaohsiung — Understanding the choices made by a political current affairs creator who uses a virtual image to manage not showing her face, technical collaboration, and long-term streaming.

Image Sources

The copyrighted images in this article are linked via text to their original sources; only Wikimedia freely licensed images are embedded.

• NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side Stage Scene — Photo: Tsai Hsin-han / Youth Reporter, 2025.
• Reflective Motion Capture Suits in a Motion Capture Studio — Photo: Tsai Hsin-han / Youth Reporter, 2025.
• VTuber Performance Technical Team — Photo: Wang Wai-han / Youth Reporter, 2025.
• NEXUS Reality/Virtual Side Video Preview — Corresponds to the Spring Fish Creative Official YouTube Video.
• Caiji Great Hornbill Image — Embedded from an external Wikimedia hot URL, not downloaded or cached.
• Oumai Maimai Official Character Visual — Source: Oumai Maimai Official Website.
• Promotional Image of Democracy's Unique Species Animals — Source: Wind Media 2023 Report.
• Endangered Species Group Zepp Performance Thumbnail — Corresponds to the Video Page.

References