Jihye: Hi everyone! It is great to be with you today. Would you mind introducing yourselves to me and our readers?
Nyzzi: Nyzzi Day. I am a VTuber. I am a Spider VTuber. I have launched in, on October 26th. So I’ve only been doing this for a little bit. And on my streams, I usually play a variety of games and do some art on this side. It’s kind of 50/50 between the two. Then we do lots of collabs together between us as the group and we have just started doing collabs with other groups as well.
Jihye: Very nice. Nice to meet you, Nyzzi. Who’s next?
Umi: I’ll go next. I am Umi Tides. I am a 9-tailed fox VTuber. I also started in October along with Nyzzy and well, everyone. I play a lot of, I play a lot of games, a lot of variety games, a lot of RPGs, simulators, and dating games. I have especially also been in a lot of collabs, which has been really fun.
Jihye: Oh, it’s also nice to meet you. So we’ve got Nyzzi and we’ve got Umi. Who else? We have two more people, right?
Hermes: Yep, I can go next. I’m Hunter Hermes. I’m a bit of a variety VTuber. I am an artist. I play a lot of role-playing games.
I’ve been doing a bunch of collabs with everyone and a bunch of other small VTubers. And I’m also a game developer and designer. And I’m currently making my, well, I just started making my own game.
Jihye: Ah, okay. Okay. That’s, that’s a new one. I haven’t had any game developers in any of my interviews yet, so that’s exciting. So we have one more person, is it Mizu?
Mizu: Hi everyone. I’m Mizu Mystic. I am a siren/betta fish VTuber I like to play a variety of different games like Minecraft, Zelda, and Persona. I also like chill games.
I just like, you know, a chill vibe in my streams and I haven’t had a debut yet but I have a plan for one in the next few months or so, just haven’t really worked on it quite yet. I’m really passionate about meeting other VTubers and the community. I’m enjoying it so far.
Jihye: Oh, okay. So that’s quite a mixture of characters in the VTuber group, right? Like some very different lores and some different games and kind of feels. How did you guys get together? How did the group come to exist?
Hermes: We’re actually friends from like high school. We’re all over 18 at this point. But we, we’ve been friends for ages.
Nyzzi: I believe we have always done art. We always love doing group activities, even during school all together. So it’s always just been kind of a thing we’ve done. And so now, we’re just like, well, what do you want to do now? Honestly, we’ve been doing a lot of projects together, but it seems like this project actually has come together the most and we’ve stuck through it. And now we decided, what I feel like with the skills that we all have with wanting to play games. This is a good project for us.
So we got the game developer over here. Umi also plays games with me. And then, obviously, Mizu likes to do the chill stuff. It just kind of works out that we’re all VTubers because that’s just kind of the platform for it. So, that’s how it came to be.
Jihye: Wow, okay, so the VTubing bit is kind of secondary to the group of you doing something together part then.
Nyzzi: Yeah, we’ve done a lot of projects.
Well, just not stuff that’s gone through completely, but we’ve always just wanted to do stuff together. And this one that we’ve really worked hard on to stick out.
Hermes: Yeah, we’ve had some previous businesses, like, actual businesses. This one is more like a hobby so far. We don’t have an official business yet, but we’ve had actual businesses in the past.
Jihye: That’s so cool though that you guys kind of have these activities and shared existence first, not the VTubing first. I think that’s quite novel in VTubing. I like that. So, Umi you’re a nine-tailed fox? And I am also a nine-tailed fox! I was actually just curious about what made you decide to go for that lore.
Umi: I’ve really had a liking for nine-tailed foxes since middle school, I believe when I was introduced to them with the anime and learning more about yokai. and things like that. And I really like learning that there are differences between different like nine tails from China versus Korea and Japan.
I thought that was really neat. I’ve always had a fascination with them. And then when it came time to create Umi, that’s what stuck out the most to me that felt more like me for her. I stuck with that and I just think she’s really cute. And it just really correlated with me.
Jihye: That’s awesome. And so you’re a nine-tailed fox and you play kind of a lot of RPG and simulator games, right?
Umi: Yes. On the stream, I played Truck Simulator. We played recently Dave the Diver, which was a lot of fun. Running my own sushi bar. I just like different types of games.
Well, I mean, along with everyone else, of course, but what really drew me into games was actually dating simulators and that’s what got me into playing video games. And then I wanted to share, the experience with everyone of kind of chaos because I am really good about breaking games. I’ll find every bug in a game somehow.
Jihye: It must be really helpful for your game dev friend.
Umi: Yeah, it really is.
Hermes: Unfortunately so.
Umi: So I also want to share that chaotic experience with everyone.
Jihye: That is absolutely awesome. So when new people come to your streams, obviously I’m guessing the word chaotic would come up here, but how would you describe your streams?
Umi: Oh, that’s a great question. I, as chaotic as I am, am very chill with the side of the gremlin. So I like to keep things, pretty chill for the most part, and then if something chaotic comes up, then I like to roll with the punches or just have a fun time with everyone and like make lots of jokes.
Jihye: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. So Mizu, you’re Siren/Betta Fish, yes? Yeah. Yes. So I’m guessing it’s a little bit awkward for you that Umi’s really enjoying running a sushi bar right now.
Mizu: Oh, for sure. I feel like it’s kind of funny.
I feel like a lot of times my friends play games where my character would definitely be a prominent person in that world. And so we always crack jokes about, oh, it’s Mizu’s family. We’re gonna kill Mizu’s family. And I’m like, oh, no, don’t kill my family, please.
Jihye: Ah, friendship, murder of your family.
Lovely, lovely. And so from what you described Mizu, I’m getting the impression that your streams are pretty kind of chill environments. Is that fair or is that not quite?
Mizu: I would say, you know, I’m just, down to earth, chill very personable. I just really like to connect with people. I consider myself an extrovert in some smaller groups, but online, it’s easier for me to connect with people than it is in a big giant group, like a party or something.
I feel like I’ve already made a few VTuber friends along the way since I started only a few months ago and it’s just, it’s been fun being able to connect with people who like the same things as you, like anime and video games.
Jihye: That’s really nice. So here’s one just for you. Not you, not your kind of vibe on stream, but if someone asked what your chat’s vibe is like. How would you describe that? Your community? What are they like?
Mizu: Very, very friendly. That’s how I would describe everyone’s very friendly. We joke around a lot.
Jihye: So you’re a Siren VTuber, and I have seen a few Siren VTubers, but I have to admit you’re the first person I’ve seen combining it with the betta fish, what, what made you want to go that way?
Mizu: I have a betta fish hobby. So I’ve taken care of lots of different betta fish. It’s kind of like my passion. And so I thought, well, why not create a VTuber that has a betta fish design in it, so it’s something that I really like.
MizuMystic is designed after my betta fish, Mystic, who is no longer with us, but he was the first Betta fish that I ever owned. His colours were the same colours as my VTuber, and that was really the inspiration for my character.
Jihye: That’s amazing. Thank you very much for sharing that with me.
Nizzy, Nizzy’s my spider, right?
Nyzzi: Yes, it is
Jihye: So, let’s start with that kind of origin, that lore. What made you go spider?
Nyzzi: So I always loved drawing creepy, crawly anything because I’ve always wanted to be a horror concept artist or a character artist of some sort because I got a degree in media arts and animation to try to go towards horror.
I have sketchbooks full and full of arachnids. So, the 1 thing I really like to enjoy drawing, is arachnids, so I went with the spider route.
Jihye: That’s, that’s, that’s very logical. But it’s something I’ve always wanted to ask a Spider VTuber though, and so I’m going to take my chance. Do you ever have to deal with people who come into chat or join your community, who have arachnophobia, who are scared of spiders? It’s such a common fear.
Nyzzi: Well, that’s the thing. I haven’t encountered it yet. I usually get encountered more like, do I know Spider-Man or something? That always comes up. The actual arachnophobia, I believe if there’s anything spider-related, I usually try to give a fair warning. And the fact that I try to make them very cute, so I try not to do anything very sinister because that’s just mean.
I won’t do that to any of my chats, because you never know who pops into your chat. I was originally going to go for an actual spider type of mascot, but instead, I went with a spider cat. So the cat has 6 legs because you’re not gonna be afraid of a cat, but it’s got 6 legs.
Hermes: yet.
Jihye: How would you describe your community if people were looking for a new VTuber?
Nyzzi: I would describe my channel let’s say if we’re doing drawing or art it’s usually pretty chill but I will say during gaming we’ll kind of shout a little bit. Kind of pick on a little bit of the chats. Chat likes to do shenanigans all the time in my chat. They’re always throwing things, and making weird noises in my chat.
So you kind of have to correlate with how chat is. Like, sometimes they’re all chill. So you be chill with them, but if they want shenanigans, you give them shenanigans. That’s kind of how it goes.
Jihye: Nice, nice. So, I think we are down to the last member of the group right now, last but not least of course.
Which is Hunter, right? Hunter Hermes. I think we sort of skipped over any kind of idea of your character. So what is your character like?
Hermes: So my character is essentially a monster hunter. And I guess it ties into how Noir Star works in general, is that my three star-mates over there are the monsters, and then I am the monster hunter.
It works out when we play games in that I get so distracted but also I’m very mischievous, I guess in that I usually kind of set myself to fight everyone. As a group, for instance, recently, we played the rising and we were all trying to build a castle together. Even though I started off, like, yeah, let’s do a castle together. Immediately I kind of just made my own castle and I was like, hey, this is my castle. Stay out. I’ll fight you all. And yeah, so I’m the monster hunter because I guess I just fight everyone.
Jihye: Well, I like that you’re kind of incorporating your own personalities’ into how your dynamic is. You are a game developer, right? Game designer?
Hermes: Game design. Game developer and designer. I mean, they kind of go hand in hand.
Jihye: You said you started making your own game. I was just curious if you were able to tell us a bit more about it.
Hermes: Yeah so I’m actually working on it on stream like every Thursday. So far, I have a lovely cube that jumps and runs across the screen. There’s not much yet. Since we’ve just debuted, there’s not a whole lot going on. It takes a long time to make a game. But essentially the game I’m working on is a little message delivery dating sim with some, like, platform and puzzle elements to it.
As my name suggests, Hermes is like the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. And so my on-stream game is going to be the disciple of Hermes, and they go off and deliver all these little love letters.
Jihye: That’s firstly adorable, and secondly sounds like the perfect game for streamers, so I feel like you’re, you’re in the right research area right now.
Hermes: Thanks. I actually have, like, a bachelor’s in game design and development, and in my day job, I don’t do games, but I do programming and development work, and so making my own game is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and being a VTuber is helping me to spend time on my artwork and my passions of, developing a game or even just playing games.
Jihye: Yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely awesome. I’m really loving that you guys definitely have a very cohesive vibe. I think that’s great for a VTuber group. It’s nice to see.
Is your community a very shared community? Is there a lot of overlap between your communities? Or do you have some very distinct and individual communities?
Hermes: We each have kind of our own followers, yes, but we do have one, shared Discord channel. And so our communities do overlap in some regard.
We have a couple of members that will go to each of our streams, though I think they almost have different personalities in each of our streams.
Jihye: That’s so wholesome. I love it when people are that supportive you clearly have cultivated the feeling that you want in your community so well that people kind of just automatically adapt to where they are.
Mizu: We like to talk about, like, anime too.
Jihye: Are you all anime fans?
Umi: For sure.
Jihye: Yeah. The worst question to ask a YouTuber, isn’t it? I feel like I’m the exception. So what types of anime do you, do you guys, do you guys watch?
Is it all the same type or do you have different tastes?
All: Oh, different tastes. For sure.
Jihye: We’ve talked about your group a lot, but I haven’t really given you a chance to introduce the group.
So is there anyone who wants to just introduce the name of the group and a little bit about the concept?
Hermes: We are Noir Star. Noir Star is a world, you can think of it similar to Neverland.
It’s like the second star to the right type of thing, you know? Mizu is a resident of Noir Star. And then I am a god of messaging and delivering things. I deliver naughty mischievous monsters that are causing too much mayhem in their own worlds to Noir Star to start over in a place where they aren’t going to cause mass mayhem.
Mizu acts kind of as the warden. So Nizzy and Umi each have their own worlds with their own backstories and then I isekai’d their butts over to Noir Star and then we all got trapped there. The gods have sealed off Noir Star because something deep and dangerous is lurking in the centre of the world and we’ve been tasked with taking it out. Mizu has more information on it, but it has not been revealed to our community yet.
Jihye: Okay, top secret. People have to come and follow you if they want to find out more. Right?
Nyzzi: I like that. Future lore video.
Jihye: That’s exciting. I love it when groups have a little bit of lore, even if it’s not something that really affects their day-to-day streaming.
It sounds like most of you are fairly new to VTubing, at least in this kind of incarnation, right? Is that correct?
Hermes: All of us started at the end of October, except for Umi, who did a re-debut.
But she only streamed for maybe a couple of months, like two years ago.
Jihye: I’m obviously really, really impressed because we’re only in January now, and it sounds like you guys have a really strong sense of identity. But I know that when people first get into VTubing, there are different challenges for everyone.
I’m wondering what the biggest challenges that you feel you’ve faced entering into VTubing are.
Nyzzi: Honestly, it’s. Mainly just opening myself up to actually talking to people, because in in person It’s very hard for me to just go up to and talk to people. And the fact that VTubing requires you to have lots and lots of people in your room is definitely something to work on because usually if you put me up in front of a stage, I get the deer in headlights.
Jihye: Does anyone have any kind of different challenges, or would you say that’s similar for everyone?
Mizu: I think the biggest challenge for me is personally the scheduling. I work a full-time job and it’s a lot of work and when I come home, I don’t have as much energy as I wish I could to stream, you know, more often than I can. I usually stream on the weekends because that’s the only time I have energy.
Jihye: You had one as well Hermes?
Hermes: Yeah, in my case, because I’m doing coding on stream. It’s really nerve-wracking.
I know I can make a game and I’m confident in my skills to be eventually able to make one there will be issues and bugs and you’re pretty much always going to mess it up the first time and then iterate to something better. It is really nerve-wracking to start one of my coding sessions going in like, I don’t know how I’m going to make this thing do what I want it to do.
Jihye: When a process requires failure as part of its steps, having people watch you is, is a lot.
Hermes: Yeah, and so far, every time I’ve done the stream, I’m excited to do it, but it’s hours beforehand. Like, I know I’m streaming that night, and I’m just like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.”
I know. I’m nervous every time.
Jihye: Do you ever get people who are attempting to backseat in the least helpful way while you’re doing that kind of content?
Hermes: Not yet. So far everyone who’s joined me on my coding days doesn’t seem to have much of a coding background themselves. So they’re just like, wow, shiny as I’m like, making a box jump up and down, which is nice for me.
Jihye: In terms of the content this year, obviously gaming is something that’s common to all of you, and I think most VTubers are still fairly gaming-oriented, even if it’s a variety of games.
What’s been your favourite game to stream so far? What has been your favourite on-stream gaming experience?
Hermes: Funny enough, it wasn’t even my game, it was Umi playing Truck Simulator. That was my favourite so far. I mean, I even was inspired to draw a little fan art of her putting all of her chat in the backseat while she’s running into the walls of the tunnels or something. It was a lot of fun.
Nyzzi: I do, I’ve been going back to a lot of BeRising or Vampire Survivor type of games, or Hack and Slash. I can’t wait until Hades 2 comes out. Oh my gosh, I am streaming that so much when it comes out. I know Hermes is also super excited about it. So we’re going to have that on stream for a lot.
Jihye: What about you, Umi?
Umi: For me, Truck Simulator is definitely up on my list. It was very chaotic. I am absolutely terrible at driving in the game for some reason, so it was fun to crash into everything.
Jihye: What about you, Mizu?
Mizu: Honestly, I just like playing I think probably party animals, but also a mixture of Minecraft and Legend of Zelda.
Jihye: You guys have been really, really fun to talk to. I do have one more question. I would really love to know from all of you actually, kind of what you hope for the future in your VTubing.
Hermes: We each have kind of our own goals at least as far as like long term goes. Nizzy and Umi, for instance, are kind of in it to be professional VTubers, pretty much, so they’re working really hard to build their audiences and such. Whereas, I think Mizu and I are kind of more here to spend time playing games. At least in my case, I have a really bad habit of feeling guilty about spending time doing hobbies instead of just working or something. So, being a VTuber kind of forces me to spend time doing things I want to do, but I can still call it being productive.
Nyzzi: Well besides just playing on the stream with like games and whatnot, I believe also just advancing my art career as well. After school and getting my degree, I had the longest art block I’ve probably ever had.
So, I stopped doing a lot of art in general and just lost this spark. And now that I’ve been doing VTubing my Spark has actually come back and so now that the Spark is back, I’m just hoping that it’ll advance me for hopefully a while.
Jihye: Thank you so much for talking to me today! I hope to see much more from you all at Noir Star and I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today!
If you want to check out more from the Noir Star members I will be including links to their content below!