I enjoy listening to a few of the characters speak. However i’m aware of nuances in their speech patterns and phrasing that falls on the more “feminine” or informal side. Regardless of that, is it a good immersion tool just to throw on in the background and listen to?
I also find it genuinely enjoyable, whereas many of the podcasts I see recommended are just plain dry and borning.
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The issue isn’t that the speech is casual or feminine: It’s that it’s almost a caricature. Most speak in very forced voices, and play up “Cutesy anime” even more than actual cutesy anime does. Also, just having audio on in the background has not been shown to do, well, anything.
But if you’re at a high enough level to distinguish what is normal and what is a character type, and you’re actively sitting down to listen, it can work as a source of Slang and unknown words related to your interests-presumably gaming.
It works for me as a tool of immersion (even though I only understand two of these vtubers) but at least I understand something, and it feels kinda rewarding like “oh I know that word” or “I understood a full sentence.” I think learning nuances is very important. If you find listening to them enjoyable why not use it to learn?
Some I enjoy that are speaking like actual people are Lui and Fubuki
It’s amazing for immersion, I went from 70% comprehension to 99% comprehension in 300 hours. I already had the knowledge is just that i couldn’t hear it properly, forcing myself to listen to vtubers has taken me to the next level. Most of the speeches used by vtubers are fairly natural speech, with some dialects mixed in. Some vtubers purposely use anime like endings, such as Himemori Luna (she likes to say nanora). Pekora uses a lot of peko in her sentences, if you remove the pekos it’s pretty standard Japanese . You’ll find that more vtubers speaks normal Japanese than the ones that don’t.
One I really recommend for listening is アンジュカトリーナ, she has done over a 100 free talk streams which is just her constantly speaking. She uses a tiny tiny bit of kansai ben, apart from that it’s pretty standard Japanese. My Japanese friend said she is really good to listen to to learn natural speaking Japanese, as her speech style is fairly gender neutral and has a really good flow. 宝鐘マリン’s Japanese is also very standard and easy to listen to, probably easier to listen to than Anju.
well you could watch holo stars if you want less feminine speech lol. I watch a lot of nenechi’s streams and my comprehension has gotten a lot better. I think you have to at least pay attention to your background immersion everyone once in a while to actually learn a lot from it though.
Can’t say this enough: if you enjoy it just do it!
It is precious that learning Japanese aligns with something that brings you genuine enjoyment (in your words). You should make full use of that.
Do not worry about the quirks of how they speak. You are listening to absorb native pronunciation. In the worst case, let’s say you somehow manage to speak like a vtuber. So what? You’ll be impressively fluent, make some people laugh, offend no one, and it’s relatively trivial to make yourself speak regular Japanese once you reach that point.
In my experience, among all my friends who acquired fluency and good pronunciation with the help of anime, streamers, games, there is not a single person who speaks like an anime character or vtuber. It just doesn’t happen. At the very early stages you might drop a few anime phrases in conversation, but it’s not like you’re even coherent all the time anyway.
(By the way, I might recommend Fubuki and Okayu, who speak without accent and in full-length sentences. Korone deliberately speaks with an accent, and Haato just shouts. I don’t think it matters too much, but in case you wanted an opinion… I also don’t know many vtubers so pardon me if my examples are too normie.)
Where. Can you find this app at
All native content is good for immersion. It might not be a good model for you to imitate the specific nuances of how they speak, but that goes for most people who are speaking in order to be entertaining. I’m sure you’re self-aware enough to not end up sounding like an anime girl. If you want a mix in some male voices, there’s always Holostars.
imo visual novels are easier as you can read the dialogue, but if you’re not enjoying the content you won’t progress much if you’re not motivated