VTuber Canan (ばかなんす): From Hikikomori to Influencer

Canan is well-known in the VTuber community. This very pon and seiso influencer is no stranger to showing her sensitive side while testing the strength of the fabric in the clothes she is wearing.

We present to you a deep dive into the timeline of a self-proclaimed hikikomori in the VTuber industry, Canan. We’ll discuss her humble beginnings, trivia, and growth as a content creator.

ポン Pon - short for ポンコツ ponkotsu synonymous to klutz.
清楚 Seiso – An adjective that emphasis a wholesome character.
Hikikomori – A person who has withdrawn from society.

Who Is Canan?

Born on May 15, 1995, in Japan’s Nagasaki Prefecture and raised in Oita, she started early in the streaming scene. As an elementary school student, she had already been doing internet radio back in 2007. Enjoying the interactions with the listeners, in April of 2009, she moved on to creating a Niconi general community co19577 on Nico Nico Douga.

Her content included live streams wherein she showcased her outfit, cooked and ate food, played games, and did suggestive ASMR. During that earlier period with her Niconi community, she described her setup as using just a plain webcam, personal computer, ECM-PC60 microphone, UA4-FX audio interface, and supporting an astonishing K-cup size bust. She engaged with her community via blog posts and created her Twitter @canan8181 in September 2010.

ニコニコ動画 Nico Nico Douga - Rebranded to ニコニコ Niconico in 2012 – It is a Japanese platform website and app which allows a creator to either create a channel or community.

Canan’s Face Reveal

Canan has revealed that she isn’t an only child. She stated that she has a sibling three years older than herself in a clickbait post about her Onii-chan’s wiener. Canan said she never had a boyfriend when asked about her romantic interests. That’s because she was very reserved and withdrawn from society, as expected from a hikikomori.

She explains that the secrecy she maintains while releasing content is due to her considering her activities a hobby. She didn’t want her learning or working environments to become uncomfortable due to her hobbies.

Having cultivated a following in her Niconi community, she decided to create a YouTube channel named ばかなんす! 《 日南 – canan –  (Idiot! Canan) back in 2018. The channel aimed to promote her Niconi community space via live streams that gave a preview of her ASMR, gaming, and cosplay activities. She also posted archives of live streams done for the Niconi community. Her YouTube channel exceeded 50,000 subscribers by the end of 2018.

In December, she created a sub-gaming YouTube channel called いちかばちかなんす!《 日南 》(Take it or leave it! Canan). Fit Boxing, Paper Mario, and Dragon Quest Builders are among the channel’s notable Let’s Play games. 

She also gave a quick update on her setup. She also gave a quick update on her setup. After several upgrades, her PC now had an Intel Core i7 8700 CPU, two 8GB of RAM, and a 480GB SSD. Her old UA4-FX audio interface was upgraded to an AG06, while her ECM-PC60 turned into an NT1-A.

Canan’s Growth In Niconico

The start of the year 2019 was a strong pivot for Canan professionally, as she decided to create her channel Nyuukansu☆+ on Niconico. She shared her feelings on the first post on that channel. Canan elaborated that she had the opportunity to do this in 2017. However, she felt her content was not worth monetizing due to her poor self-image.

She had to clarify that she didn’t have any malice towards the people who monetized their content. Canan did that in a post, responding to the concerns of her audience.

She explained that she had been struggling with fears of inadequacy and uncertainty about her activities’ direction. Ultimately, she decided that she was willing to turn her hobby into work.

Canan commented that one should have passion for the work one does. She just couldn’t think of anything else in her life that matched her passion for making content and streaming.

She assured her community that they would be able to continue to enjoy her content. The membership was only for access to limited additional content and interactions.

A defining feature of what Canan offers are blogs that serve the purpose of giving the schedule of streams, giving teasers of the limited content, and heavily interacting with her following.

She refers to the members as shareholders, and part of the exclusive interactions are bulletin boards, where they can suggest activities to do on the streams, receive gifts from Canan, and have more intimate conversations with her.

She officially got monetization on her main YouTube account in April 2019, having a subscriber count that exceeded 100,000. Juggling her streaming and full-time work, she had moments when she would become ill and would apologize to her followers for not being able to stream as often.

She also shared that she was investing her money in improving the quality of her content. For instance, she bought a model A6400 camera and got a binaural microphone head named Takeshi.

Steeling her resolve to make her passion her work, she announced in early August 2019 that she had left her full-time job for one that would give her more free time to focus on creating quality content.

Her new career dabbled in outsourcing work. She kept on that grind, polishing her content and investing in her equipment, officially announcing the inclusion of KU100 to the team.

While Canan’s content has never crossed over to just explicit nudity, she was pushing the boundaries with how suggestive the content was in some of the videos and due to her voluptuous physique, which posed a problem when Niconico had a change in policy in September of 2020.

Finding Spicy Canan Content

With the policy change, some of her content had no place to call home, which included one of the more popular stream contents she had been doing.

She took all of this in stride, letting her shareholders know that she appreciated the opportunities Niconico had opened for her and that she would adjust the content to adhere to these new policies. Stated that she has been having fun fulfilling shareholders’ target profit margins, but she may have been too enthusiastic.

She apologizes to the Niconico management for the trouble, reassuring the shareholders that this isn’t the end of radical ear-licking ASMR content. A month later, she posted that she had created the Fantia account Nyukanasu (Back)★+. (Canan), where she will be placing content that is too spicy for Niconico.

There is a free plan in the Fantia account so members can get a taste of what to expect. The unique element of Fantia is that there is only a window of availability for recent content before it becomes archived content that is for sale. Towards the end of 2020, Canan announced that the number of shareholders had reached five digits.

Canan As A YouTuber & Influencer

Early 2021 saw the rise of her channel, which exceeded 500,000 subscribers, and a continued steady growth up to June when she exceeded 700,000 subscribers.

Her determination to share her passion with her supporters is tangible. It’s evident by her constant investment in equipment and by creating avenues where her supporters can enjoy more of her without restrictions. On that note, she officially announced her official site: Canan Official Fanclub.

Wrapping It Up

Conan is a hardworking person who deeply cares about her audience’s experience. She offers a unique blend of a pure maiden’s innocent and naïve personality but with the voice and body of a seductive succubus. Her assets are an L-cup, which can only be correctly described by the phrase “massive badonka honkas.”

We invite you to check out her content, which may begin with just curiosity and titillation but then develop into generally cheering for this unique oddball! She will chat, drink, crack jokes, and laugh while making your dreams come true.