I have no idea who the top Japanese YouTuber is right now but Heraiza is the ‘it girl’, the zeitgeist of our Japanese COVID state of emergency moment. Not only is this 17 year old high schooler way smarter and wicked funnier than the tired recycled Japanese ‘tarento’ on YouTube, she’s also hyper aware of the fleetingly silly perilous nature of the floating world she inhabits. Like she says, ”it’s just YouTube…YOUTUBE!”
Her machine gun rapid delivery takedowns of Japanese entertainers by drily analyzing their YouTube rankings and hit counts are hilarious. She’s also generous and hilarious ranking the ‘Best Boob Phishing‘ Japanese YouTubers for her mostly male ( I assume) audience: “it’s a gross topic but here are the good natured quality sites.” Other standouts include a withering satirical Kuroyanagi Tetsuko impersonation that references 70’s cultural moments (she does her homework), and a hot take of former Johnny’s Jr. group member Nakamura Riku’s scandalous breakup with idol R-Chan (“Do you really think an ex-Johnny’s guy is gonna make it as a YouTuber? Forget it!”).
There are things you can only do at 17, like saying what you want with attitude and still get a free pass, things you can’t do at 20, let alone 18. Enjoy the fun while it lasts. As Heraiza san says with her trademark sign off: Te-koto!
UPDATE
Heraiza is under stealth attack from somebody claiming to be Dentsu (they contacted her via a gmail account). Dubious and purposely vague copyright claims are a well known YouTuber attack vector. You would think grownups have better things to do than pick on a 17 year old high school student YouTuber. She now has 2 strikes under the YouTube 3 strikes policy and has temporarily removed most of her previous content until the issues are resolved.
You must be logged in to post a comment.