Invicta’s fateful journey to becoming male VTubing’s “gold standard”
Supplied: InvictaMale VTubers have turned out in force in 2023. One group leading the way is Invicta, an all-male quintet. While in retrospect it looks like their success was an inevitability, the path here was far from that.
Visually, Invicta can be an intimidating presence. The all-male VTuber group features five very strong-looking men, muscles bulging in every direction. Getting them all into a room together can dial that feeling up tenfold.
That’s until they open their mouths and the banter starts. Behind the models are five humble guys who happened to stumble into each other’s lives with a fate you wouldn’t believe in the most ludicrous anime.
To break the ice, the rest of the group eggs Taiga Chama — Invicta’s “mom-ager”, as he likes to coin himself — to start his story. It can be distilled into four words: “I was an accident,” he laughs.
Taiga has long had an original character to commission art of. He’s spent thousands across the years. But he had his eyes set on one artist in particular, Jouvru. When the opportunity came to get a commission from her, he took his chances. After years of waiting it paid off. Except he didn’t quite read the fineprint.
“She DM’d me and asked if I wanted a full-body Live2D. I didn’t know what Live2D was, but I saw the words ‘full body’ and I was like ‘Yeah I want a full body commission!’
“I got the file and I was just expecting a PNG like you normally would get, but then she gave me the PSD file. I opened up the file and I was like ‘What the f**k? Why is everything separated? What is this?’”
Within hours the Twitter account he had set up years ago to just reshare art had thousands of followers, all anticipating a VTuber debut. Taiga had no idea what a VTuber even was. He asked his friends and they said “you got a Kizuna Ai thing.”
He barely even understood the streaming landscape. But Taiga was determined to learn because when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
“I’ve always been a person where if I dip my toe in, I’m going to throw my whole body in. The few months after I binged so much about VTubers and streamers.
“I ended up researching this new form of entertainment, and then in November I was like ‘I am ready to figure out this sh*t.’
And those friends? “At first it was out of a whim and a joke like ‘I can’t believe you became a VTuber, dude!’ and they were making fun of me. Now they’re all messaging me like ‘I can’t believe you’re a VTuber, dude’ with a different tone of voice!”
An unexpected bond
Invicta’s five members all come from different creative backgrounds. The free-flowing Kite Hasegawa has an entertainment background, but with a much different look. Kaine Knight operates in a very strict lore setting due to his character being built out of an otome game.
Harmony Kyrus is a reserved artist, while Taiga is the outgoing voice. While both were pushed by their friends to chase the streaming spotlight, they had different challenges to overcome.
Each had different goals for VTubing. They’re even ostensibly very different people. You’d think all this would clash, but instead they perfectly complement each other.
And it all happened because they’re all tied to one person: Jouvru. They just happened to be the five VTuber children of the popular artist. That led to them chatting to each other as they waited for each other’s designs. And then that kindled the friendship.
Supplied: InvictaInstead of venturing into the murky mass of VTubing alone, they bonded together. Nikolas Nelo started a Discord server for his own activities, and the rest kind of squatted. Given they all hung out there, and their communities started doing so too, it made sense to make it official.
With that, one could say Invicta started off as a relationship of convenience. But it’s very much evolved into something deeper, and in doing so, they kickstarted a revolution in VTubing.
“If I think about it, if it wasn’t for the fact we all have the same model [parent], I don’t think our paths would have crossed. I think about that all the time,” Taiga muses.
This is often a point of contention between Invicta. While Kaine quickly digresses “I’m sure our paths would have eventually crossed in some capacity,” you have to admit it’s a weird coincidence that it all panned out this well.
Being together from the outset made things a lot easier though. They could do a proper debut schedule and drum up hype for each other. After all, five voices amplifying an event is better than one.
While that worked for most, for Harmony who was the last one to debut, it gave him a bit of stage fright: “I was a bit nervous and sweaty, my hands are clammy — but then I see someone type ‘oh my god we broke 200 people’ and I was like ‘ah,’” he laughed.
“I told people that if I see more than 50, I may pass away because of my nerves.”
From there the momentum kept riding off. The name Invicta was on people’s lips as male-presenting VTubers took off. That name value was really important for all the members to thrive off of each other. Instead of having to rely on being independently found, people could find one and then the other four weren’t far away.
It also gives them a selling point at conventions. People might not know who each of the members are, but they do know Invicta. That is a double-edged sword at times — individual recognition is always politely taken — but their name spread like wildfire as a result.
“A lot of the collabs we’ve done, and even Offkai Expo, was basically ‘here’s the Invicta boys, take a look at the men who have been taking the VTubing world by storm,’” Kaine explained.
“If you were to mention one of our names, maybe five out of 10 people would know who we are. But the other half would be like ‘Invicta? I know them, but I don’t know who is in it.’ I’ve seen that a lot. Mainly our name carries a lot of weight so it’s really helped in building us up.”
However, being in a group wasn’t all about metrics. It was mostly about being able to uplift each other, build their own skills, and hold each other accountable.
“It really would have been on the backburner, and I would have turned to it when I wanted to,” Harmony admitted. “If not for the group, it would have been a hobby thing. I would have looked at the account whenever.”
That was incredibly important when Invicta went through its lows. At its core, the group is just five guys doing something together. They’re fending for themselves in the content creation world. There’s no big corporation backing them.
They’ve also traveled treacherous paths to get here. Health issues, juggling careers, and general skepticism around men in VTubing were just some of those external tensions. Internally, no group gets along all the time. But the fact they’ve made it this far is a testament to how strong their bond is.
“I think there were points in time where me looking from the outside, I did not know if Invicta would be able to continue,” Taiga said.
“The fact we’ve lasted this long shows we trust each other to a point where we respect each other enough to talk to each other when something is wrong.”
Harmony continued: “I’ll do as much as I can for these guys. If they need any artwork done, graphics, I’ll put my Bachelor to work and I whip it up for them. For other people? I just go ‘That’s too bad.’
“I consider them my second family, if not my first because I don’t associate much with people, but I’m very close with these guys.”
And one other thing about the group? If you don’t like one of them, you can find something more to your taste with another member. Better yet, you might vibe with them all, and that’s all Invicta can ask for.
“I want more people to meet these people I find near and dear to my heart,” Kaine said. “If there is something on my stream that maybe you don’t vibe with, I have four other brothers who may fill that void for you.”
Breaking the male VTuber stereotype
Male VTubers, especially in the early days, fit a stereotype. There was a lot of techwear, for starters. People were dressed up in big hoodies cluttered with straps. The faces, for a lot of them, were very similar — ‘ikemen’ style at their most masculine, but often more feminine.
Invicta bucked that trend. Here were five guys looking like musclemen. They were buff, they were tall, and it gave them a more aged and hard-cut look. That couldn’t be further from their personalities, but it gave some eye candy other male models didn’t have.
“At the time we got our models, our model types, being more buff and masculine and bara, was not the norm,” Taiga explained. “The norm was that super anime bishounen look. The princely type.”
This is just one example of how Invicta, in some terms, rewrote the VTubing meta for men.
Invicta’s debut was fortunately timed in line with Luxiem’s explosion. NIJISANJI EN’s most successful wave to date debuted mere weeks after Invicta did. That brought a new audience to VTubing, which was one the group could tap into.
But they still found a way to make their own in the community thanks to their unique designs, and eventually, their standalone content. The camaraderie of the group was unlike any other. They could all individually stand on their own, but the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
And from there, they set the benchmark.
“I think what’s crazier for me now is we’ve opened up more opportunities for male-presenting indies,” Taiga continued. “When we all started, I don’t think we were expecting to have the same type of community and recognition and reception as a corporate-backed group.”
“As indies, we were happy when people showed up. And once we started building our community, the communities started to form around our different personalities.”
Twitter: Vox AkumaVTubing does have its fair share of discourse though, and male VTubers are often in the firing line. In the same way lewd content creators fight for acceptance, masculine-looking VTubers often face contempt for their existence.
There’s a few working theories for that. Male VTubers cater to a women-dominant audience, which can spur some vitriol, something Kaine mentioned.
“It’s the double standard,” he continued. “Generally we would appeal to a female audience, but because of who we are, we also appeal to a male audience and everyone in between.”
However, every time these topics arise, Invicta is somehow never included: “Because of the content we have, we have been safe as far as keeping the target off our back.”
The rest of the group agreed. “I’ve commented on a few VTuber discourse things just to see how people would react because we’re such masculine characters, but they’re like ‘not you Taiga, not Invicta, you guys are different,’” Taiga explained.
Kite continued: “We got very lucky with the people we chose to be in Invicta together with. We still have to watch our steps because the VTuber space is very volatile, but should we continue along that path, we will be fine.”
Being loud and proud
Another working theory for that is just how open Invicta are. The group are incredibly relatable, and their varied backgrounds play a part in that.
They are also incredibly open about some of their personal challenges. Taiga, as an example, has always put his foot down about chronic health issues and his voice.
“I’ve always had extreme vocal dysphoria,” Taiga explained. “I didn’t think I sounded bad per se. But no matter any of the online spaces I joined growing up, people could never figure out what I was. It caused me a lot of gender dysphoria as well.
“One of the first things I had to do, as a male VTuber, was say ‘If you comment on my voice, my gender, you will be banned.’
“But the fact I’m so used to my voice, I’ve had so many people come up to me and say I’ve helped them want to become a VTuber and overcome their own fears because they’re not what people perceive male VTubers to sound like.”
The sentiment was echoed by Kite, who explained how VTubing let him be more open with his sexual identity.
“What really hit hard was just looking at how comfortable people in the LGBTQIA+ community were,” he said. “Throughout my whole life, I haven’t been able to explore that myself. It was through VTubing I was able to become much more comfortable with embracing that side of me.
“It’s ironic because you’re showing yourself as your character, but I’m able to be much more of who I am as a person than I was in my own flesh.”
And even for those playing up the character like Kaine, you still get the essence of the human beneath.
“I can’t break the facade of who Kaine is in comparison to everyone else. Breaking through that was the most difficult challenge at the beginning. I still have difficulty with that now. But at the same time that’s what I love about VTubing. Being able to be myself through this character is a beautiful thing. It’s challenging but I love the challenge and love being able to change people’s lives with this persona.”
Two years on from when Invicta set male VTubing onto a new direction, they are now journeying down different paths. Kite Hasegawa has a 2.0 rebrand planned for 2024, with many others (excluding Kaine) going through similar refreshes.
If Invicta is Latin for undefeated, that’s a pretty good emblem for their journey so far. How they came together might have been an accident, but they seized the opportunity. And with that, the next step they’re all taking together is filled with purpose and determination to keep going.
“It’s so weird because if you asked me that as a general question previously, I’d think of financial stability, having a great career,” Kite said. “But over the years comes wisdom and maturity, and the pandemic wearing you down.”
“If we can keep what we have right now, with bits and improvement and growth over the next three to five years, then I think just that would be great.”
“When I went into this head on I wasn’t expecting anything out of it,” Taiga mused. “But there was an offhanded conversation I had with my younger brother while going to the grocery store. I was driving back home and he looked at me and was like ‘I think this is the first time I’ve seen you happy.’
“With the things I experienced in my life, I never thought I’d make it to the future. Being able to talk and think about something beyond my current present is something I’m not used to.”
“But I hope we can keep doing this. I want this to be my every day. If we achieve our goals, that’s even better.”