Haruka Karibu

Haruka Karibu is a Canadian VTuber who debuted on 8 May 2020. She loves anime, video games and voice acting. She primarily streams on Twitch, where she likes hanging out with her chat, relax and have a good time! Though originally an independent streamer, she would later join VShojo.

Personality
Haruka is a pretty lax and chill individual who is very sweet and a bit of a goober. That, until you call her "cult leader", "cabbage," "moose," or any other species of the Deer Family. She is very warm and welcoming to everybody that comes her way! She also loves making new friends, interacting with her community & looking at fan art! While she sometimes gets a bit picked on in chat, she takes it with great stride and humor.

Appearance
Haruka has long, vibrant green hair with small, yellow flowers tangled within it. Her bangs are neat and straight. She has antlers, decorated with vines and yellow roses. Her unique features are her big ears and antlers, resembling that of a Caribou.

She wears a fluffy scarf around her neck. She wears a short green button up dress, and semi-transparent sleeves and long white gloves. There are vines around her legs and down to her feet, and she wears simple brown shoes with plain straps without socks.

Background
Haruka Karibu's Twitch channel was created on 4 January 2020, although there are no known records of streams before her debut.

Haruka was inspired to debut as a reindeer or caribou because she noticed that while many VTubers had hats or animal ears, none had antlers. The caribou was also native to her home country of Canada, and was one of the species of deer where the females have large antlers. Haruka's original concept was gap moe, intending to look elegant but contrast that with her personality.

On 8 May 2020, Haruka made her debut stream on Twitch. It reached a peak of 28 viewers.

2020
On 19 Jun 2020, Haruka uploaded her YouTube introduction video, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVC-5ZcTvOA 【Self-Introduction】Its so nice to meet you! I'm Haruka Karibu! 🍀].

By 2 Oct 2020 she had 26.8K YouTube subscribers, and 19,628 followers on Twitch.

On 21 Nov, she announced that she would be taking some time off from streaming due to "personal caribou problems". She returned with a much celebrated return stream on 14 Dec. During the stream, she announced a new branding image, her Twitch partnership (which she had previously announced on Twitter during the hiatus), new video editors, new equipment, including a new mic, mixer and mic arm, a new racing wheel for racing games, two new Youtube videos, new emotes, huge future updates, and a new VOD channel on Youtube that's archived every stream of hers since the start of October as well as future streams. She had collabed on Shinominya and Nini Yuuna's streams during the hiatus, which were then deemed non-canon.

2021
On 16 November, Haruka made a re-debut stream in which she revealed a new Live2D model. Haruka also revealed that she struggled with autism as a child, and did not learn to speak until later in life than normal. The stream reached a peak viewership of 8,586.

2022
On 3 December, during a chibi stream, Haruka Karibu was announced to be the next member of VShojo. She had her re-debut the same day. According to TwitchTracker, the stream received a peak viewership of 23,970. She also unveiled a new model in that stream. Later, on Twitter, she described the event as one of the happiest days of her life.

On 17 December, Haruka began an uncapped subathon, during which each sub added 30 seconds to its duration. The subathon ran until 22 December, when it was cut short due to health issues. Haruka then began a break from streaming.

2023
On 19 January, Haruka returned to streaming.

On 2 April, she debuted her chibi "gremolin" model, similar in design to holoMyth's "smol" models.

On 30 May, Haruka reached 200,000 Twitch followers.

On 31 October, Haruka reached 100,000 YouTube subscribers.

Fans

 * Haruka officially refers to her fans as "the Herd". However, this has not caught on. The community more commonly refer to themselves as "the Cult".
 * Haruka regularly denies being the cult leader and the cult's existence, often saying "There is no cult!". She has embraced the term on occasion, such as in HANDY DANDY! | Twitch Highlights #3 and her PlanetSide 2 streams on 19 and 20 Sept, 2020.

Relationships

 * She has been Lunaria Ayaren's childhood best friend for over a decade. Lunaria tends to complain about Haruka eating the flowers in her house.
 * She gives nicknames to her VTuber friends. She calls Nyatasha Nyanners "Nyannchi," Leaflit is called "Micchan," and Henya the Genius is "Henny."
 * She has several "wives", including Leaflit, Smolthie, Nemu, Nini Yuuna, Nyanners, Ewica, Asagiri Yua, and Zentreya.
 * She collaborated regularly with VShojo members even before joining the group, to the point that many considered her an unofficial member.

Lore

 * Haruka is Canadian. She is a caribou, a species of deer found in Canada in which the females have long antlers similar to males.
 * Haruka's true form is an ancient nature goddess. She was sent by Creation billions of years ago to act as Seed of Life, creating life as we know it on the barren planet Earth.
 * She spent most of her time trapped within a hidden grove in Antarctica, but was able to observe humanity by means of an avatar in the form of a deer.
 * Two thousand years ago, Haruka sealed Nyatasha Nyanners away in the Siberian arctic ice to prevent a plot to conquer the world. After Nyanners was freed, the two became friends.
 * Haruka was first discovered by humanity in 1971, when a research expedition was able to reach her grove by helicopter.

Likes and dislikes

 * She likes to eat flowers, vegetables, and Tim Hortons. She does not like to eat meat, but has done so in the past.
 * She dislikes being called "moose" (with the exception of NuxTaku) or "horse," being told that she has "hooves" or "butt floof," claims that Canada doesn't exist, and claims that she runs a cult.
 * Nyatasha Nyanners' winter coat is canonically lined with Haruka's butt floof.
 * Her favorite color is blue.
 * Haruka's favorite anime are Cardcaptor Sakura, Inuyashiki, Kakegurui, Mob Psycho 100, My Next Life as a Villainess, and Ouran High School Host Club.

Miscellaneous

 * In real life, Haruka was diagnosed with autism at a young age. She suffered from a delay of several years in her speech development, and openly talks about how the condition has affected her.
 * She was hit early on in her streaming career by a Twitch error that functionally made her cease to exist on Twitch while live streaming for 2 months.
 * She does an amazing impression of Toad from the Mario series. She is also able to do impressions of various vtubers and hololive members, with notable ones including Nyanners' blegh and Houshou Marine's catchphrases.
 * She has a very cute & energetic pupper named Charlie. She also has two cats in Minecraft, named Tim and Horton's.
 * She is known for her "Yandeer" impression, though her fans wonder if it's truly just an act.
 * Despite claiming to be bad at singing, on 15 Oct she released a rap cover of Mori Calliope's Excuse My Rudeness, But Could You Please RIP? as part of the rap remix contest, which was met with acclaim. She has since released two more covers as well, one a parody of "Here Comes Santa Clause", and the other a parody of "Watame's Lullaby."
 * She has 1,837,371,717,272,717,919 brothers in her Caribou family.
 * One of the brothers, George, was sacrificed so Haruka could take his antlers.
 * Her original model was illustrated by Riki-to &#124; リキートウフ and modeled by BorisuDenpa. Her new model, introduced in November 2021, was illustrated by @rimuuarts and rigged by @sei_soy of Iron Vertex.
 * She has been a long-time fan of Lucahjin's Let's Plays since 2013.

Media

 * Haruka Karibu - YouTube channel
 * Haruka Karibu VODS - YouTube channel for Twitch VODs
 * Haruka_Karibu - Twitch channel
 * @haruka_karibu - Twitter account

Twitter hashtags

 * #hueagh - General hashtag
 * #harukArt - Art hashtag
 * #HaruKultured - Art hashtag (18+)

Other

 * Discord server
 * Streamlabs

Харука_Карибу