She has long flowing hair, coupled with a futuristic gradient hair dye of pink. Kizuna's overall appearance uses a pink and white color palette. Kizuna's appearance age is roughly 16 years old, though she revealed that she is only five, with her birthday on 30 June. Kizuna is designed as a young and beautiful 2.5D animated girl with moe elements, which attracts many YouTube users. Apart from the general meaning of "artificial intelligence", "AI" is also a pun on the kanji "愛", meaning "love" while "Kizuna" ( 絆) means to bond, bind and/or connect. In her first video, Kizuna introduces herself.
An October 2018 article from BBC Capital noted a Mattel advertisement campaign for Barbie in 2015 with the same concept. The main concept of a character in a virtual setting was created through Kizuna, so she is publicly recognized as the world's first "virtual YouTube user". Kizuna is aware that she is a virtual character, and claims that she is an independent artificial intelligence (hence the "AI" in her name). The identity of Kizuna AI's voice model had long been unknown however, on 24 April 2020 it was announced on Twitter that voice actress Nozomi Kasuga provides her voice. Tomitake has designed many 3D models, and works alongside Tda, an expert in the MikuMikuDance 3D modelling field. Morikura is an artist well known for illustration. These include En Morikura in character design, Tomitake in 3D modelling, and Tda in modelling supervision. Īll crew members known so far to be involved in Kizuna's design are already well known. Kizuna's videos are produced by Tokyo-based digital production company Activ8. Though this has caused speculation regarding the operation crew and technology.
Kizuna's YouTube channels are thought to be managed by an entire production crew, and the choice to remain anonymous comes from the wish to keep the concept of a virtual idol intact. As the identities of producers in the background are not revealed, video animators, producers, video editors, and players of games are unknown. Kizuna is an online virtual character completely constructed using software. formally started activities on, with Eriko Matsumoto (松本恵利子) as the CEO. With the announcement, Japanese voice actress Nozomi Kasuga (春日望) also disclosed her role as the voice model of Kizuna AI and advisor of the new company. Following an announcement on 24 April 2020, Activ8 announced that Kizuna AI was moved from upd8 to a new subsidiary company dedicated exclusively to her, called Kizuna AI Inc. In 2018, the project was moved to in-house agency upd8. Starting in 2016, Kizuna AI was originally managed directly by Activ8, the company that created her, under the name Project A.I. She has become a popular virtual celebrity worldwide. She has also appeared on television shows and has starred in commercials not limiting herself to YouTube, to the point of appearing in mid- Shibuya. Kizuna has performed at various anime conventions, at real concerts, and has also worked with many game companies. Because Kizuna primarily communicates in Japanese, fans contributed translations for her videos, and there were entire unofficial communities built around these translators, filling the void of an official English community until 2020 when official subtitles began to be done. Kizuna's video content is similar to many other YouTubers, consisting primarily of discussions, Q&A videos, and more traditional "Let's Play" videos, although in years later, she also began to livestream at least one time per week. Īlthough the first channel to use a CG avatar for vlogging purposes on YouTube was the channel of English-Japanese Ami Yamato, who debuted her first video in 2011, Kizuna is the world's first virtual YouTuber with the characteristics as we know today, much like the one who coined the term Virtual YouTuber. A second channel, "A.I.Games", was opened in March 2017 for gaming content, and a third, "A.I.Channel China", opened in June 2019 for a Chinese audience. Kizuna AI posted her first YouTube video on her "A.I.Channel" on 29 November 2016. From her debut in 2016 until 2021, she was the most subscribed VTuber on Youtube, with more than 4 million subscribers across three YouTube channels, 1 million subscribers on Chinese video platform Bilibili. Kizuna AI ( Japanese: キズナアイ, Hepburn: Kizuna Ai) is a Japanese virtual YouTuber (VTuber) currently part of Kizuna AI Inc., a subsidiary of digital entertainment company Activ8.