This year YouTube has seen a large number of Japanese gamers join the platform. This is because of the growth of esports, VR/AR games, live streaming, mobile gaming, SuperChat and VTubers. As we all know Japan is the home of Nintendo and Pokemon, there is a historical and strong market for gaming. The game industry has never attracted so much attention and this trend is set to continue.
YouTube has around 70million users in Japan and there are a large number YouTuber Influencers in Japan. Gamers are creating a huge amount of content and live streaming in Japan, with some VTubers who live steam receiving over $2,000,000 dollars in YouTube SuperChat, which is a type of donation a viewer can make.
Japanese gaming influencers play a large variety of games from well-known games such as Minecraft to more niche games found on smartphones and VR goggles. Now is a great opportunity to work with Japanese Gaming YouTubers, so in this article we’ll help you discover them.
Top 12 Japanese Gaming YouTubers 2023
- HikakinGames
- Parotter
- Gawr Gura
- Kiyo
- POCKY
- Anija Otoja
- Hajime shacho 2 (hajime)
- Maizen
- Retoruto
- Marine Houshou
- Usada Pekora
- Natsuki Hanae
HikakinGames
Subscribers: 5.75M
This is the game channel by the Japanese Top YouTuber Hikakin with more than 2,000 videos and 7.2 billion views. He plays a wide range of games from Battle Royale, Puzzle and Dragons, and Nintendo series. Out of all his playlists, Minecraft is the most popular and the series is known as ‘Hikakura’.
Parotter
Subscribers: 5.38M
Parotter is a Japanese animation and game creator making Minecraft parody anime. The videos are less than 30 seconds and there’s always something funny going on like memes. Gaining 5M subscribers since the start of the channel in 2021 shows its significant potential. Parroter also has 3.3M subscribers on TikTok.
Gawr Gura
Subscribers: 4.29M
Gawr Gura is a virtual YouTuber who is in the Japanese VTuber agency Hololive Production. Her gaming videos are mainly live streaming and usually last hours. The character and contents are targeted for English-speaking audiences. She once featured in a Taco Bell commercial, so she’s one of the most successful VTubers in Japan.
Kiyo
Subscribers: 4.21M
Since the beginning of his gaming career, Kiyo has been in the group (‘Saishu Heiki Oretachi’) with other Japanese gaming YouTubers. Audiences can enjoy his funny overreaction, screaming during the horror game for example. He has recently created his original anime ‘Kiyoneko’ which features his cat and daily gamer life.
POCKY
Subscribers: 3.36M
The dedicated gaming YouTuber POCKY posts a video almost every day, mainly horror games such as the Biohazard series. Referring to YouTubers abroad, he also plays foreign-made games, which not many Japanese YouTubers do, or short games you can finish quickly.
Anija Otoja
Subscribers: 3.11M
As ‘Ani’ refers to an older brother in Japanese and ‘Oto’ is a short for a little brother ‘Otouto,’ this channel is run by real brothers. With the brothers and their manager Otsuich, they do Let’s Play videos as the group ‘TEAM-2BRO’ , they have a variety of playlists from horror, action and shooting games.
Hajime shacho 2 (hajime)
Subscribers: 2.85M
This is also the second channel of the popular Japanese YouTuber Hajime. This channel’s playlists include the Attack on Titan, the game based on the Japanese manga series, and a hunting action game Monster Hunter. He sometimes creates a video about purchasing the premium service of Monster Hunter to the amount of which normal people cannot spend money on.
Maizen
Subscribers: 2.72M
Maizen is a channel run by the two original characters named Zen-ich and Maikky and they only play Minecraft. Their motto is to make a gaming YouTube masterpiece to ‘enjoy a game from the bottom of our hearts.’ What makes their videos interesting is that they create original stories, almost like a sitcom, in the Minecraft world.
Retoruto
Subscribers: 2.35M
Known as Reto-san, Retoruto is known as one of the top 4 gaming YouTubers in Japan and has created 3.2K videos. He’s been posting game videos since 2008 on Niconico, the established Japanese video sharing service. He plays many genres of games from famous ones like Animal crossing, horror, action, to old and minor ones.
Marine Houshou
Subscribers: 2.33M
Marine is a virtual YouTuber in Japan affiliated with Hololive Production. Her game streaming includes Pokemon and Biohazard series, in addition to her favourite game the Touhou Project which is a shooting action video game.
Usada Pekora
Subscribers: 2.15M
Usada, the Japanese VTuber is ranked third in the most viewed female live streamers and the fourth for YouTube super chat ranking in 2021. She is known for her distinctive laugh and way of talking, as well as sarcastic comments.
Natsuki Hanae
Subscribers: 2.1M
Natsuki is a Japanese voice actor who played Tanjiro Kamado, the main character in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba which is a blockbuster Japanese anime series. He mostly plays horror games and often invites other voice actors.
Working with popular gaming YouTubers in Japan
Many of the Japanese gamers play games with other influencers, which is a great chance to let a wider audience know about the game. As you may have noticed there are many VTubers ranked in this list, VTubers emerging from Japan are very much compatible with the global gaming market. Collaboration with both gaming VTubers and influencers has a huge potential for your marketing strategy in Japan.
If you’re looking to work with Japanese Gaming influencers you can read our guide which is a great place to get started, or you can get in touch.
