Souya Ichika Welcomes Her Birthday With a Live Countdown and a Look at New Kimono Goods

774INC — Souya Ichika, a talent with the 774inc agency, counted down to her birthday with viewers on Oct. 31, then opened the new day by thanking the chat and the Super Chats that arrived the moment the countdown ended. Her stream, titled as a birthday countdown, ran just over an hour.

Before the countdown, Souya said she had finally been cleared to talk about a project with the artist Natori. She contributed illustration and animation to one of Natori’s music videos, and said she had been nervous that people outside the VTuber world might react badly. The response, she said, was warm. She also described sending messages to the creators late at night and getting answers back well after 1 a.m., and called the experience a lesson in how creators work. She added that she sang on a track for a featuring album released the day before.

“Look how big Souya has grown, raised by all of you.” — Souya Ichika, just after the countdown reached zero

A cake arrived from a friend she called Sharu-chan. It was decorated with the words “18, heart, SS, love,” and Souya explained that the message was her own idea, said aloud when she was asked to choose it. She said she would eat the cake the next day. She also showed an old illustration from the cafe where she once worked, drawn by her when she was newly hired, and recalled that she had also done the interior of a neighboring cafe.

At zero, she jumped, as she says she does at every turn of a year or birthday, and read out greetings from other talents who had commented. She then showed her birthday goods, a kimono-themed set with a shrine-maiden illustration by the artist Fuji Choko, including an acrylic diorama, a shrine stamp book and a wooden ema plaque with a doodle on the back. The stream carried 131 Super Chats.

Near the end she turned to the future. She said the agency was a little under two years from its 10th anniversary, that she had never kept anything going for ten years before, and that she hoped to meet viewers at Tokyo Dome someday. She also asked viewers to watch a debut stream scheduled for 8 p.m. that day, which she said she had spent about two months preparing. Her sign-off phrase “rishiyu” was followed by a long goodbye in which she repeatedly failed to end the stream, to the delight of chat.