Beyond the Avatar: Database narrative, moe, and anime codes in the construction of the VTuber phenomenon

This article investigates VTubers (live streamers who use virtual avatars through motion capture technologies to create content anonymously) as a new cultural product emerging from the convergence between technology and repertoires of the Japanese cultural industry. This article demonstrates that the phenomenon is structured by three interconnected analytical vectors: (i) database-driven narrative, a productive logic that fragments characters into modular and recombinable attributes; (ii) moe sentiment, an affective response of tenderness and protection directed towards characters, which here operates as a relational and economic technology; and (iii) the aesthetic-performative codes of anime, which provide the visual and attitudinal grammar for the legibility of the avatars. Methodologically, it relies on an in-depth case study, which activates the analysis of performance and the capital managed by VTubers, understanding them as commodities with agency within the digital cultural production ecosystem. The analysis concludes that VTubers embody a contemporary reconfiguration of cultural production, where the character, as a modular platform, displaces the primacy of the grand linear narrative. The technologically mediated live performance intensifies parasocial bonds and integrates into an affective economy, in which fan communities co-produce narratives and goods, expanding the consumable universe. Thus, the VTuber consolidates itself as a distinctive cultural product in platform capitalism, synthesizing logics of the rising Japanese pop culture, real-time interactivity, and fan co-construction.