A.I.Channel / Ai Kizuna
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About
A.I. Channel is a YouTube channel hosted by the animated character Ai Kizuna, a Japanese "virtual YouTuber"[14] who is best known for uploading various Let's Play and vlogging videos. Her character model was created by Project A.I., Morikura Yen (森倉円), Tomitake (トミタケ) and Tda[4].
Online History
On November 29, 2016, the first video was posted on the A.I.Channel YouTube page, in which the host Ai Kizuna announces the creation of a Twitter account (shown below).[3]
Around the same time, the website KizunaAI.com[2] was launched, featuring news, videos and a downloadable character model.[8] As of early April 2017, the AI Channel YouTube page has over 300,000 subscribers and the @AiChan Twitter account has more than 42,000 followers.
Reception
On February 21st, 2017, the IGON Facebook[10] page shared a video of Ai Kizuna playing the adventure platformer game Inside, which gathered upwards of 74,000 views and 2,800 reactions over the next several months (shown below).
On February 23rd, Redditor AuahDark submitted a post asking about Ai Kizuna to /r/OutOfTheLoop,[9] where Redditor Kinsonlee speculated that the character was being animated using the freeware program Miku Miku Dance (MMD) and a Kinect-style motion capture camera. On March 1st, a thread about the character was created on the /jp/ (otaku culture) board on 4chan, which received upwards of 340 replies prior to being archived.[13]
On March 20th, Kotaku[12] published an article about the YouTube channel, which also noted that Ai Kizuna was likely made using MMD. In the coming weeks, other news sites published articles about the channel, including Tubefilter,[5] The Verge[6] and GoBoiano.[7]
Search Interest
External References
[1] YouTube – A.I.Channel
[5] Tubefilter – A.I. Kizuna Is A Virtual YouTube Star And She Has Nearly 200,000 Subscribers – March 21, 2017
[6] The Verge – Animated vloggers could be the future of YouTube – March 21, 2017
[7] GoBoiano (via Wayback Machine) – Rising YouTube Star is a Virtual Anime School Girl – March 24, 2017
[8] Official Website – Download Page
[9] Reddit – Who is Kizuna Ai that people talked about recently
[11] Facebook – aichanvirtual
[12] Kotaku – Popular New YouTuber Also Happens To Be Virtual Anime Girl
[13] Yuki.la – /jp/ thread
[14] Youtube – A.I.Channel
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