Pikamee

About

Pikamee (Japanese: 天野ピカミィ) is a YouTube channel hosted by the animated character Amano Pikamee, a Japanese virtual YouTuber who uploads livestreams of various let's play and vlogging videos. Her character's design was created by Twitter artist GYARI.^[5] On March 1st, 2023, it was announced that Pikamee would retire. Some speculated that this was due to backlash she received from streaming Hogwarts Legacy, while others claimed that she was always set to retire in March.

Online History

On February 7th, 2020, Pikamee's YouTube^[2] and Twitter^[3] account were created, but she did not start posting content on her YouTube^[6] channel until her first stream on March 19th (shown below). The stream has since accumulated over 174,000 views, 6,500 likes and 420 comments in roughly five months.

She is affiliated with the Vox Monsters Project, VOMS Project,^[9] where she shares the site with other virtual YouTubers Hikasa Tomoshika^[7] and Jitomi Monoe.^[8] As of early October 2020, Pikamee's YouTube page has over 234,000 subscribers and the @amanopikamee Twitter account has more than 56,400 followers.

On April 4th, Pikamee streamed a let's play of Five Nights at Freddy's on her YouTube^[12] channel (seen below, left), receiving over 413,000 views, 20,000 likes and 1,200 comments in roughly six months. On August 22nd, Pikamee streamed another let's play of the The Henry Stickmin collection on her YouTube^[13] channel (seen below, right), receiving over 481,000 views, 21,000 likes and 1,100 comments in roughly one and a half months.

First Year Anniversary

On March 19th, 2021, Pikamee celebrated her 1st year anniversary with a YouTube video with her affiliates, VOMS Project, by showcasing her new model (shown below).^[14] Her older model used to stand at 135 cm (approximately 4'5"),^[15] while her new model stands at 90 cm (2'11") now. The model's new notable features include, hands with teal nail polish, a green monster hoodie with eyes on top of jacket, teeth on the rim of her hoodie, and orange slippers with slimly faces on them. In the middle of the hoodie there is an orange rectangle that reads "Monster" on it. As of April 21st, 2021, this upload has collected over 117,400 views, 12,000 likes, and 320 comments.

2023 Retirement / Hogwarts Legacy Controversy

On March 1st, 2023, Pikamee's management company VOMS Project announced on Twitter^[16] that Pikamee would be "graduating" from the Vtuber group. Pikamee posted a video to YouTube^[17] announcing her retirement that day, garnering over 700,000 views in a day (shown below). In the video, she claims she will stop streaming on March 31st, 2023.

While the reason for her retirement is not confirmed, many online have speculated that it is due to backlash Pikamee received in early February 2023 for streaming Hogwarts Legacy, which garnered controversy from the trans community, many of who boycotted the game as they did not want to support Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for her transphobic statements. When Pikamee began playing the game in early February, she received so much backlash that she quit streaming the game and reportedly stopped making content between February 8th and March 1st.^[18]

Despite speculation that she retired because of Hogwarts Legacy, some users have suggested that Pikamee was always set to retire in March, including Twitter^[19] user @ToastCrust on March 1st, garnering over 3,900 likes in a day (shown below).

Related Memes

Let's Kill Da Ho!

On June 17th, 2020, Pikamee streamed Minecraft with her friends Hikasa and Jitomi (shown below).^[10]

At around the 1:11:30 mark of the video, Pikamee and Hikasa discuss killing something in the game when all of a sudden, Hikasa says "Let's kill da ho!" which then leads to Pikamee explaining what she just said, and in the process of doing so, both of them laughing uncontrollably. Hikasa says she didn't know what it meant and said the line came from the anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (seen below).

On August 27th, Twitter artist @chained_tan posted a video using pixel art animation for the segment. As of October 2nd, the video has received over 161,800 views, 8,200 retweets and 22,300 likes (shown below).^[11]

Search Interest

External References