Vtuber Kizuna Ai has announced she will be entering an “indefinite hiatus,” while she looks for new ways to connect with everyone.
Kizuna’s latest video began discussing her next and final concert, The Last Live “hello, world 2022,” premiering December 1st. While a celebration of five years of activities, Kizuna then stated (as she had in a prior livestream) she would “go to sleep indefinitely” on February 26th, 2022.
This “indefinite hiatus” was noted as being “very important” to Kizuna and those who support her. It is part of Kizuna’s ongoing goal to “connect with everyone in the world.”
While Kizuna was detestably the first Vtuber, she was certainly the first as we now understand it. Compared to five years ago, there are now many Vtubers and other content creators using avatars.
This rise of new talent also gave Kizuna “a chance to rethink my identity,” and that she was “not that rare anymore.” New technologies and terms such as metaverse [1 ,2] and NFT also intrigued her, as they sounded “new and fun at the same time.”
“I want to bring things like that closer to people and experience new fun things together,” Kizuna explained. “I want to be more in part of everyone’s daily lives.” Kizuna notes that language barriers, and the goal of connecting with everyone globally were made difficult by current technology, environment, and herself.
As such, Kizuna will need to become “a more intelligent super AI.” This requires an “update” with a sleep period. However, not all activities will stop. Some announcements will be made by Kizuna Ai inc. during the hiatus, and projects are in development. Suggestions for content during this period are also being accepted.
3D models will also remain available to download, and Love-chan and Ai-ge will continue their activities as well. These are two “variants” on Kizuna that eventually became their own Vtubers, Ai-Ge performing for Chinese viewers.
Kizuna Ai will also be appearing in various music programs at the end of 2021.
It was announced in April last year the voice actress for Kizuna Ai would become an advisor for then new company Kizuna AI Co., Ltd. In turn, this company became the virtual YouTuber’s new owners.
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