Kiryu Coco

About

Kiryu Coco is a Japanese virtual YouTuber and member of idol agency Hololive. Coco's popularity stems from her eccentricity and tendency to push the boundaries of idol behavior, such as teaching English profanity to her fellow members. Her character design is a 3,500-year-old anthropomorphized dragon and was created by Twitter user @yamanta_15.

Online History

Kiryu Coco (seen below) joined Hololive as part of its fourth generation of virtual YouTubers, with her first stream taking place on December 28th, 2019 (stream privated at this time).^[1] The content of her livestreams varies, including chatting, gameplay, singing, etc. She also has a morning news talk show that she hosts, called "AsaCoco." Coco is originally from the "USDA" (United States of Dragon America), and she typically appears in many collaborations with other Hololive members as an English tutor.

Within the VTuber fan community, it has been widely speculated that the same woman could be the public identity between both Kiryu Coco and another VTuber, Kson. Among the arguments raised by the supporters of that hypothesis, there are the similarities in both voice and speech between the two Vtubers, who also share the same spoken languages and the same harsh manners; as well as various blunders in certain videos. They also suggest that this topic cannot openly be adressed due to a silence clause in Coco's Hololive contract. ^[18]

Hololive Taiwan Incident

On September 25th, 2020, in one of her livestreams, Kiryu Coco made the remark that some of her followers were from the country of Taiwan. This led to an outrage from Chinese nationalists online, as the independance of Taiwan from mainland China has been a contentious subject ever since the Chinese Communist Revolution. Hololive issued a 3-weeks ban upon Kiryu Coco, as well as upon fellow VTuber Akai Haato, who had acted the same one day before Coco. Later on, with the harrassment towards Coco getting stronger and stronger, Cover Corp took the initiative of closing the recently inaugurated Chinese branch of Hololive, Hololive CN, forcing 5 Chinese VTubers to "graduate" in the process.

Due to the popular theory that Kiryu Coco and Kson are the same person, the announce of the latter joining VShojo on July 2nd, 2022, led to a boycott campaign against that company from Chinese nationalists.

Graduation

On June 9th, 2021, Kiryu Coco^[16] held a livestream during which she announced that she would be "graduating" (meaning leaving) from Hololive on July 1st, 2021.

Hey guys, this Kiryu Coco. There is an important announcement from me. […] I, Kiryu Coco, I am leaving Hololive. I will continue my activities until July 1st.

In the video, Kiryu Coco insisted that she could not disclose reasons why she was leaving the collective. It was widely debated online whether or not this decision was linked to the Taiwan incident. On the same day, Cover Corp^[17] confirmed the news of Coco's gradiation in a press release.

Reception

Coco's popularity with fans grew in the months since her debut, especially around her 3D debut stream (shown below, left), which was uploaded to YouTube^[2] on June 27th, 2020, receiving over 75,000 views, 3,200 likes and 300 comments. Much like her normal content, the stream was full of skits and bizarre jokes, as well as indulging in her love of the Yakuza franchise of video games by portraying herself as the head of her own Yakuza clan. Fans were quick to make jokes and memes about the livestream, which Coco would react to in the following livestream. In particular, she played the reaction of Twitch livestreamer Koefficient, confirming his comments that she is American and wanted to emulate Shakira's hip-shaking in her debut stream. The clip (shown below, right) was uploaded to YouTube^[3] on July 3rd, receiving over 324,000 views, 12,000 likes and 900 comments.

Coco's content commonly references memes from the English-speaking internet. In a YouTube^[4] livestream with Akai Haato (seen below, left), Coco challenged Haato to correctly interpret multiple English-language memes, with the loser being forced to do several push-ups as punishment. On July 29th, Coco started hosting her own meme reviews on her YouTube^[5] channel (shown below, right), sharing the memes posted by overseas fans on the /r/Hololive subreddit. She would comment on many user submissions as to how accurate they were in describing her fellow Hololive members. She later began inviting other members of Hololive to join her on Meme Review and learn more about their overseas fanbase, with many members joining the r/Hololive subreddit as a result.

According to Playboard, Kiryu Coco was the all-time #1 earner of Superchat Donations as of August 19 2020, ever since they began tracking donations in January 10, earning over $800,000 USD. Her channel beats out many other larger channels that livestream, including Pewdiepie. ^[14]

On September 26 2020, Coco and fellow member Akai Haato were suspended for three weeks from Livestreaming by their parent company Cover Corp for reading out their viewer analytics on stream, which included Taiwan under the analytics. ^[15] This resulted in a large number of haters from the Chinese internet demanding that Coco be removed from the company. Despite this, after her suspension ended, Coco's return was warmly received by her fanbase and fellow members.

Related Memes

Asacoco

One of Kiryu Coco's most popular recurring segments is her morning news talk show, "Asacoco," where she will frequently report bizarre news stories involving herself and other Hololive members.^[6] Her show is the origin of her catchphrase, "Good Morning Motherfuckers!"^[13] These shows also contain commercial breaks featuring other Hololive members performing skits (seen below), in particular, they advertise Asacoco being used in the form of a highly addictive drug that can be taken in a wide variety of ways, such as by injections, aerosol, or even through a dragon tail-shaped buttplug. Coco now has the reputation of being Hololive's drug dealer, getting many other members hooked on her "lame jokes and bad puns."^[7]

English Tutoring

Coco is among the most proficient at speaking English in the Hololive main branch, so she appears in multiple collaborations where English speaking is involved. One of her more common activities is teaching swear words and other crass phrases to the other members (shown below, left).^[8] She also started a series on teaching "Real Japanese 101," where she would teach the "real" way to say common Japanese phrases (shown below, right).^[9]

Hololive House

Coco and fellow members Amane Kanata and Hoshimachi Suisei announced that they were planning on living together in a shared apartment. When discussing living arrangements (seen below, left), topics included everyone sharing the same bathtub at once.^[10] In an "Off-Collab Sleepover," the gang got involved in some unusual activities, such as using Kanata's butt as a pair of drums (seen below, right).^[11]

Coco Kaine / Hololive USA

Kiryu Coco claims that she has a half-sister named Coco Kaine, who is a member of the fictitious "Hololive USA" branch. Coco Kaine is the "street queen of Texas" and is even more foul-mouthed than Kiryu Coco (shown below).^[12] After the debut of HololiveEN, Coco Kaine was upset that she wasn't invited to join them.

Various Fan Art Examples

Search Interest

External References