Jihye: So, hello, Kishko. Complete stranger who I’ve definitely never interviewed before. If you could, uh, tell us a bit about yourself, because I definitely know nothing about you, of course.
Kishiko: I am an aspiring VA, Gamer and graphic designer. I stream Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays every week. That hasn’t changed for about a year? So I like my consistency.
Whenever people ask, How do you become a good streamer? I’m really not the person you should be looking at just yet because I’m still very very small but I always like to tell them: It’s consistency, consistency is key.
Jihye: Yeah, I feel like that’s really, really fair. Whether you stream a lot, a little, long, or short, what’s more important is that people know when and where they’re gonna find you.
Or, if not when and where exactly, like, what to expect? Like, if you are unable to have a fixed schedule, what sort of times are you usually around? Or, how will they find out when you’re gonna be around? Those types of things. So, you’re a 3D streamer, right?
Kishiko: Yes, I love 3D.
Jihye: Yes, we both love 3D. Which is how I came to meet you! I am really proud there are people like you out there, they’re championing. 3D and so many people doing it in different ways as well.
Kishiko: Having a model that really represents you is important. And I feel like I don’t necessarily know, percentage-wise, how much of the VTuber population is doing it just because “I just wanna be funny and maybe earn a couple of dollars being an anime person on stream” and how many people are like, “I devote my, my tears, sweat, and blood to this quote-unquote hobby.” I want to actually make it in the industry and be able to live off this if possible.
Because I think everyone should understand that luck is a tremendously, annoyingly large aspect of the success criteria. So is the work ethic difference between somebody who’s like, okay, this is for fun and somebody who would like this to actually maybe become something they can do for a living.
Jihye: Yes, yes, I think they’re wise words to be honest. So, obviously, your model is beautiful. When you’re reading this article, please go and check out her socials and see she does have an absolutely beautiful model!
I’ve read your lore, so I know that you are an insanely huge Genshin fan. I assume that your VTubing existence, the fact you’re a voice, voice actor and all that kind of ties into Genshin, right? Or your love of Genshin? I feel like I don’t even need to ask you this, but would you like to talk about your connection to Genshin?
Kishiko: I absolutely can. The plan is something like this:
Design a Genshin character > Make crazy in-depth lore > Get a model > Make it big on a prestigious streaming platform > Write a letter to Hoyoverse > Get Kishiko added to Genshin > Voice act her in Genshin > Write in my contract that as part of payment, they have to give me enough Primogems to get guaranteed C6 > Take a deep breath bc holy Barbatos > To audition for as many cool things as I can find with this feat under my belt > Live the dream
I have seen Sayu, her English voice actor is Lily Pichu. She’s a streamer. She’s also a singer and voice actor for various other things. And then the voice actor for Saino is also a VTuber. So it’s like, alright, if I can make it on a prestigious platform like Twitch, where they’re both active and reach the same level of influence that they are at, maybe, if I were to, step five, write a letter to Hoyoverse asking to get added to Genshin and being able to voice act that character in Genshin, That would be insane. I don’t really care about money as long as I can live comfortably. So I don’t need a bajillion dollars or whatever. I want to play my games, hang out with my friends, and not have to worry about what I’m eating next. I would also love to be able to dote on my friends because whenever they’re like, my computer broke down, I have the urge to just say, I got you. And just be able to casually buy them a computer. But that’ll come hopefully later if I can get this all to work. But I just can’t stand people who sit around on a bunch of money and don’t do anything with it.
Jihye: Preaching to the choir.
Kishiko: A funny bit of my scheme is that I would write in part of my contract that as payment they have to give me enough wishes or Primogems to to get me a guaranteed full constellation of the character. I have watched a couple of snippets of, Genshin’s voice actors, and they’re rolling for their own characters, and they just don’t get them or they have to whale on them. I can’t do that!
Jihye: I love how you didn’t put right into your contract as part of the payment that they give you guaranteed C6. No, no. They just have to give you enough of the currency to get it through the game system.
Kishiko: Yes, yes, because it’d be on the down low. It’d be crazy if people just thought I’d been saving for an ungodly amount of time and I knew this moment was coming the entire time.
Jihye: I actually love this
Kishiko: Another funny part of my scheme, just take a deep breath because holy Barbados. Murase Ayumu is one of my very favourite voice actors and when I first saw Genshin Impact being advertised at an anime convention, I looked at it and I was like, that is a Breath of the Wild copy, that is trash.
Skip forward to launch, and I’m like, “Okay wait, actually it kinda looks cool, let me try it.” And it’s a lot, it’s a lot cooler. I am a lore-crazy kind of person and so Genshin Impact satisfies all those needs tremendously well so I was a little bit hooked. I am a little bit hooked.
Jihye: We’ll come back to that, only a little bit hooked. I see the last step in your plan is to “live the dream.”
Kishiko: Yep, so Genshin Impact is huge, obviously. Just the fact that they’re able to pull so many very prestigious voice actors, particularly the Japanese voice actors. That’s where their money’s at voice acting-wise. So, I would have a lot more sway in an audition if I had that credibility.
It’s not only that, this is my favourite game and I want to voice act for my favourite game, but said favourite game is extremely popular, and it would probably do me a lot of good in the voice acting industry.
Jihye: I am super happy for you. You did mention that you’re just kind of casually into Genshin, just a little bit. How many pages is your lore?
Kishiko: Okay, so some sections of it are pictures of my 3D model, and some sections of it are copies and analyses of Mondstadt and literature from the game.
But all together, um, it is 50 pages. Maybe 52 if I remember correctly.
Jihye: Guys, a casual 50-page lore. Mmmm
Kishiko: hmm.
Jihye: Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Very casual.
Kishiko: But, yeah. Yeah. Casual. Casually, I take it very seriously.
Jihye: I loved your lore though. I do love your lore. I also think your lore is super useful in terms of as you get bigger as a streamer. When you’re commissioning things. Asking for things, making content, doing those things, and having that there makes it very easy for people who are working with you to tie into what you’re doing.
So there is, there is no judgment on my end, well there’s a little bit of judgment on my part, but only a tiny bit, I promise. It’s, it’s very impressive. It’s a schematic for your existence and I love that.
Kishiko: Oh, you’re the first person to realize that. Or put it like that. But yes, absolutely. I always preface it with, like, you don’t need to read all of this, but if you were curious!
Jihye: One of the things I know most, you know, one of the other reasons that I encountered you beyond 3D was that you are a safe work streamer, correct?
Is it just you as a person? Is it something you felt you wanted in terms of branding? What made you kind of consider safe work streaming?
Kishiko: Absolutely. I don’t curse, period. Off stream, on stream, I do not curse. I don’t make vulgar comments, and whenever I see it, I just feel extremely uncomfortable because part of it’s feeding a sex-centered or vulgarity-centered media base.
There’s a reason that vulgar stuff isn’t allowed on TV. Really heavily sexualized stuff isn’t allowed on TV. Part of it is that, yeah, you shouldn’t be showing that stuff to kids because then they’re gonna get ideas and there’s where the family-friendly bit is like the tag for it.
But really, I feel like you shouldn’t have to make a sexual reference or swear in order to be funny. There are people with different experiences and some of those are much more sensitive. It’s not necessary for me to share whether or not I’ve had an experience, but I haven’t had any negative experiences like sexual assault or anything like that, so it’s not like that kind of basis. I just feel like, in general, for a positive, safe feeling space, you should avoid talking about very sensitive things in general. I’m not saying it’s not important to talk about sensitive things. But in a streaming atmosphere, or in a public server, you can’t talk about those things without it getting really weird really fast.
Those are the things you talk about with your therapist. Or those are the things you talk about and have a discussion with close friends. But you don’t talk about that to your streamer. You don’t talk about that on like, Twitter, just to throw it out there and I don’t think a lot of people understand that.
So when parasocial stuff starts kicking up, and just, all, all of this weird interaction stuff starts, you know, coming to the head and showing its ugly face. It’s like yeah, if you want to do that kind of content, you have to be aware of, like, the consequences of what happens afterwards, and A), I don’t want to deal with those consequences and B), I just feel like it’s much more of a good vibe to create an atmosphere where those things just don’t exist, so that way you don’t have to worry about creating a strange atmosphere.
Jihye: What other kind of content do you enjoy outside of Genshin? Do you, do you watch anime? Do you play any other game franchises? What, what sort of things?
Kishiko: As big as Genshin is, and as cool as it is, it’s not going to last forever. It is a gacha game. It is surprising it’s lasted as long as it has, apparently, compared to some other games.
So I will enjoy playing the heck out of it while I can. But I do have other games that I played before Genshin existed, and plan to play after Genshin is done existing. Hopefully not anytime soon. I like playing Minecraft. I’ve been playing Minecraft for maybe over 15 years. So yeah, a long time! I don’t usually get to play it on stream because I hate playing alone and trying to coordinate collaborations is really hard, so I usually end up relying on other people to be available for me to be able to do a Minecraft stream.
I recently started Undertale, another collaboration-locked kind of thing, because I’m having all my friends do the voices and it is extremely fun when it happens.
I tried Ori. Ori was cute. I loved Ori. I’m very excited to play the second one.
Cult of the amb. Because I totally don’t run a positively chaotic cult off stream, on stream. It’s cute, but it’s so morbid at the same time. I think it’s very interesting.
Jihye: I love that too, that kind of mix of the cute but faintly sinister.
Kishiko: I just recently finished a game called One Hand Clapping. I don’t know, are you familiar with it? Okay, so essentially, One Hand Clapping is an audio-based game. It detects not only audio input but also pitch. And it’s also got some rhythm-oriented stuff with it. Um, so you got pitch, tempo, rhythm. It essentially is a non-punishing game. Even if you mess up, you can try it as many times as you like over and over again to get it right.
I wish it was longer, it’s a little short. There’s so much they could explore with it, and I really hope they make a second game.
And, of course, Stardew! I only ever play Stardew when my significant other, Velvet Cake, is available. I’m still on my very first playthrough of it. I think we’re on year two or three. I forgot because we can’t even tell what season it is.
The only other thing I do sometimes is art. And, I’m more of a designer than an artist. But I’m doing my best to improve on the art bit.
Jihye: I’m honestly very impressed with everything you do, Kishiko. You put 110 per cent into this and it really, really does show with your output. It’s, it’s, it’s very, very, very impressive. What would you say to people who might want to come and check out your content now? What would they, what can they expect from your streams?
How would you sell it to them?
Kishiko: Hmm, I would say there are not as many wholesome VTubers as there are mature content VTubers. I would say, if you’re looking for somebody who is constantly doing their best to improve and evolve, I think, um, that I’m one of those people. I’m also small right now, so, in terms of interaction, I love talking with my viewers.
So if you’re looking for, you know, a chill place, I don’t judge lurkers. I say hi, and I respect if you don’t want to talk more than that. But it will ask you about your day if you so desire to talk about it.
Jihye: Aw, that’s so awesome. I’m hoping that interviews with people like you, and seeing content from people like you, will encourage more people to be less negative about the 3D experience, at least. Especially those people who are starting out in VTubing and using 3D as a way to get into it.
I wish they would see their model more positively while they’re making those steps, even if they’re not going to stay 3D. And I was just wondering, you are obviously fairly experienced as a 3D streamer now. what would you say are your top kind of tips for 3D? Any software you recommend? Any tips for streaming as a 3D?
Anything you think you would say to people? Trying to make their 3D experience a little bit better.
Kishiko: It’s kind of strange hearing that. Being referred to as an experienced streamer. It’s just going to take me a minute to absorb that. I never thought about that before.
Something I would say is for 3D modellers, not modellers but you will be if you’re a 3D YouTuber, starting out definitely see how you like working with Vroid.
If you do not have enough money or if you’re just trying to dip your feet and not go too far into the depths, Vroid is a great place to start. I will say, that very many people will recognize when a model is made in Vroid.
One of the things you can do to up your game is learn a little bit of Blender. Or even if you don’t want to get as far as using Blender, Unity is tied into that, Blender and Unity. If you just want to work purely in Vroid, There are so many creators I have seen do amazing things just with Vroid.
It’s a little bit of a janky program, you’re gonna have to bear with it and learn how to get around the kinks. But changing the textures is huge. Vroid has a lot of base textures and simply by learning how to shade, colour, and just make it different from what they give you as the original base, it will get you a lot further, or make you stand out a lot more.
Learning how 3D works is also really important. There are certain things about 3D models that work, or just really, really do not work. When I was making my own model, looking at the way Genshin designs its characters is a really good way to think about it. Because it’s optimized for 3D.
Certain things like long capes or huge bundles of cloth are not really good to have. Because then clipping becomes a huge, huge issue. Even with very optimized models made for 3D by people who know what they’re doing in 3D. Clipping still happens. Just think about how to make your model in a way that clipping is not going to be as much of an issue on a design basis. So you might not be a professional rigger, but just creating something that is not going to give you an issue in the first place would probably help you
Jihye: Thank you so much for letting me interview you Kishiko! I wish you the best of luck on your master plan!
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