Kobo Kanaeru

Kobo Kanaeru (こぼ・かなえる) is a female Indonesian Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive, debuting as part of its Indonesian (ID) branch third generation of VTubers alongside Vestia Zeta and Kaela Kovalskia.

Profile
A carefree girl who lives in the topmost room of a lighthouse, she is actually the bloodline of the strongest rain shaman in the area. She has great potential to control rain, but she does not like to do it as a task.

In order to win back her Rain Master title, she needs to prove to her family that she can keep their rain shaman service afloat. Not only does she have to train daily, but she also needs to adopt some sort of virtual marketing strategy to succeed!

Personality
Because of her short stature and immature mannerisms, Kobo initially projects the image of an endearing and energetic child with strange tendencies, though in reality she often acts like a sassy spoiled brat who frequently demands praises and playfully insults her peers and viewers and banters with them. She can very quickly lose her temper when enraged or provoked, and also gets flustered easily, particularly when being given genuine compliments or being called "princess." However, she can also be somewhat respectful of others, especially the ones she rarely interact with or personally idolised.

She is often considered one of the most "childlike" members of hololive that inspires others to pamper her like their little sister or daughter, although she is not above taking advantage of this to gain (often material) benefits. In spite of her childish "gremlin-like" attitude, not only is she tremendously talented and clever, but also capable of genuine sweetness when expressing her gratitude and happiness.

Her somewhat clumsy English and weeb-level Japanese tends to project the image of an innocent, clumsy, and clueless child, yet those who understand Indonesian tend to understand her bratty mannerisms and profane language more. However, as she got more used to talking with her fellow members, the gap between the two has diminished.

Background
Auditions for hololive Indonesia's third generation were held from 25 August to 20 September 2021.

On 24 March, hololive Indonesia's YouTube channel revealed its third generation with a small introductory video. On this date, Kanaeru also made her first tweet, and a small teaser video was uploaded to her YouTube channel. Her YouTube channel was created on 27 January 2022.

Kobo debuted on 27 March 2022 at 10PM (JST). Her debut stream received a peak viewership of 46,922. It featured an elaborate presentation designed in the form of a corporate website for her business as a rain shaman. It also featured a preview of Kobo's original song Mantra Hujan ("Rain Spell"), which she composed, wrote, sang, and created the music video for herself. Kobo completed the music video only thirty minutes before her debut stream. After her debut, she released the full video of Mantra Hujan.

2022
On 28 March, Kobo reached 200,000 YouTube subscribers.

On 1 April, Kobo held a karaoke stream to celebrate her channel monetization. Due to the internet problem, the stream was cut into two parts.

On 5 April, Kobo reached 300,000 subscribers on YouTube during a "Valorant" stream with Vestia Zeta. Coincidentally, in that stream Zeta also reached 300,000 subscribers.

On 30 April, she reached 400,000 subscribers during a karaoke stream.

On 9 May, her YouTube channel was terminated without warning within hours of it happening to various other VTubers, including Mika Melatika, Koinoya Mai, Ibara Muan, Sakuya Tobari and Keyla Estella. The reason YouTube gave for their termination is "severe violations of YouTube's policy on nudity or sexual content." According to the information, it happened while they were streaming, and the appearance of spam messages by bots in their chat box, which triggered YouTube's algorithm.

On 10 May, her YouTube channel was restored.

On 12 May, Kobo reached 500,000 YouTube subscribers. This makes her the 53rd hololive member to reach this milestone and the first of her generation to do so.

On 14 May, her YouTube channel was terminated without warning for the second time with the same reason as her previous ban. According to the information, it was triggered by a similar bot that caused her first ban.

On 16 May, her YouTube channel was restored.

On 20 May, Kobo opened the membership feature on her channel.

On 25 May, Kobo reached 600,000 YouTube subscribers during part 3 of her Plants vs Zombies gameplay.

On 6 June, Kobo reached 700,000 YouTube subscribers during her donation reading + free talk stream.

On 19 June, Kobo reached 800,000 YouTube subscribers.

On 25 June, she released her first solo cover song "TONDEMO-WONDERZ" by sasakure.UK, to celebrate her 500,000 subscriber milestone.

On 3 July, she reached 900,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel during an unarchived karaoke stream.

On 10 July, she reached 1,000,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel during a stream of "Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage." This makes her the 30th hololive member to reach this milestone, as well as the first member of her generation to achieve it. She is also the 2nd fastest Virtual YouTuber in hololive, the fastest Southeast Asian VTuber to reach this milestone.

On 18 August, she had her first collaboration cover song with fellow hololive ID members (from 1st to 3rd gen), of the song "Bebas" by Iwa K.

On 15 September, Kobo reached 1,500,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel. This makes her the 13th hololive member to reach this milestone, as well as the first member of the Indonesian branch.

On 12 October, Kobo was tested positive for COVID-19.

On 21 October, Kobo resumed her activities.

2023
On 30 January, hololive Indonesia's Twitter account announced that their nine members would get new kimono costumes.

On 5 February, Kobo debuted her second 2D costume, a kimono to celebrate the new year. Kobo has big buns that turn into twintails hairstyle decorated with multiple small white hairpins and small white frame sunglasses on her left bun. Kobo's kimono is white with gray shaded patterns that gradient to black with big fluffy decorations on her shoulders. The kimono has multiple prints including multicolored clouds and flowers on the sleeves, while the black portions are decorated with golden elements in multiple shapes and three stars in blue, green and yellow. She uses a wide white obi with a gray concentric circle pattern and a multicolored scenery tied together with a white and red braided ribbon. Kobo wears white long fluffy boots. Kobo can also hold an oil-paper umbrella or wear a white and gray ushanka decorated with a heart shaped light blue jewel.

On 27 March, Kobo celebrated her one year anniversary. During the stream, she released her second original song "Oh! Asmara," (lit. Oh! Love) which she composed and wrote.

On 20 April, Kobo reached 2 million YouTube subscribers, becoming the first member of hololive Indonesia, and the 6th in hololive to do so. She reached the milestone during an unarchived karaoke countdown stream. To avoid reaching 2 million subscribers before the stream started, she temporarily changed the karaoke stream title to "UNSUBSCRIBE PLEASE, and then subscribe again at 20.00 WIB (GMT+7)." Despite this, she reached 2 million before finishing one song.

Discography

 * ''Main page: Kobo Kanaeru/Discography

Events

 * On 16 July 2022, Crunchyroll Expo's Twitter account announced that Kobo and other members of hololive Indonesia would appear at "Crunchyroll Expo 2022," which was held from 5-7 August 2022.
 * On 3 September 2022, Indonesia Comic Con announced on Twitter that Kobo and Moona Hoshinova of hololive ID 1st Gen would be appearing as guests at "Indonesia Comic Con 2022," which was held from 1-2 October 2022.
 * On 12 September 2022, Comic Frontier announced on Twitter that Kobo and other hololive ID members would be appearing at "Comic Frontier 15," which was held from 24-25 September 2022.
 * On 1 March 2023, Anime Boston's Twitter account announced that Kobo and other members would appear at their event which would be held from 7 to 9 April.

Mascot and Fans

 * Kobo's fan is officially called Kobokerz.
 * A pun on the fandom name, Cebokerz, has also been used pretty often by Kobo and her fans. According to Kobo, Cebokerz is the dark side of Kobokerz.
 * Kobo's membership is officially called Kobolonimbus, which is a combination of "Kobo" and "Kumulonimbus" (Indonesian word for Cumulonimbus).
 * On 12 December 2022, Kobo's mascot called "Cilus" (short for "cimol mulus" or smooth small meatballs), was revealed during her birthday countdown stream.
 * Cilus is a small cloud surrounded by a rainbow which two smaller clouds orbit along. When appears, it floats above Kobo's head. It has special modes based on feelings including happy (sunbeam mode), sad (rain shower mode) and angry (Raijin mode).

Relationships

 * "Kobollie," alongside Kureiji Ollie.
 * "KoPaSu," alongside Pavolia Reine, and Ayunda Risu.
 * "KoboChama," alongside Akai Haato.
 * "Moonabok," alongside Moona Hoshinova.
 * "Bozet," alongside Vestia Zeta.
 * "KoMeHa," alongside Watson Amelia, and Kazama Iroha.
 * "ReinBo," alongside Pavolia Reine.
 * "RoKobo," alongside Roboco-san.
 * "KoboMel," alongside Yozora Mel.
 * "KoboKoyo," alongside Hakui Koyori.
 * "KobAlt," alongside Regis Altare.

Name

 * The name Kobo Kanaeru is a pun on kobokan, Indonesian for "finger bowl," and air, Indonesian for "water."
 * "Kobo Kanaeru" can also be read as an abbreviation for the Japanese 「零せば叶える」, "kobo(seba) kanaeru," meaning "(if you) spill it, it will come true." In Indonesian culture the meaning of this phrase is "If the shaman spills the water from their mouth to their patient, their request will be granted."
 * Kobo Kanaeru writes her name entirely in hiragana, 「こぼ・かなえる」.

Lore

 * Kobo is a rain shaman. According to the website shown in her debut, she requires a ten meter radius to cast her rain spells, and will only displace dense clouds to certain places. To contact her, you must call her name twelve times gently with all your heart. Her umbrella is used in casting her rain spells.
 * A rain shaman, or pawang hujan, is a type of shaman in Indonesian culture said to have the power to control the weather. Even in modern times, they are hired in the hopes of preventing rain during outdoor events.

Likes and dislikes

 * Kobo likes meatballs, matcha, horror, basketball, rainy weather, singing, and all her senpais.
 * She dislikes math, vegetables, reading long text, swimming, and spiders.

Miscellaneous

 * Her goals are to do the "kayang" (bridge yoga pose) in 3D, to reach subscriber milestones (100k, 500k, 1m, 10m and 100m), to collab with other VTubers, to have a proper stream and recording studio, to get a horse, to go to Japan, "going inside television" (to appear on TV), voice acting for games and anime, to acquire fast internet speed, to make many original songs and covers, and to become a famous idol.
 * In her debut, she announced that stream plans are gaming (particularly FPS and mobile games), free talk, singing, learning languages, reviews, cooking ("I can't cook, though. At least I have the spirit!"), ASMR, and "Malam Jumat with Kobo" (Friday's Eve with Kobo).
 * In addition to Indonesian, Kobo speaks "kinda broken" English and "weeb level" Japanese. She also speaks some Chinese but was not mentioned in her debut stream.
 * She knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Although she describes herself as "still learning," her debut video presentation was made in the form of a webpage with highly advanced features including CSS animations and transitions.
 * A typo in her intro claimed that Kobo weighed "40 mg" rather than 40 kg. 40kg is equivalent to 40 million milligrams.
 * In her debut. Kobo debated whether to use "Kobo" or "Aeru" as her nickname. Chat suggested "Kobokan."
 * Kobo's art hashtag, #AeruSeni, means "Aeru art" in Indonesian. However, it is also a homonym for "air seni," meaning "urine."
 * Her jacket's outer later is transparent, as it is a raincoat. The tag on her jacket reads "Rein Shâman." The sleeve of her jacket features embroidery of a jasmine flower, the national flower of Indonesia. The jasmine flower also appears in her earrings.
 * Kobo is also able to play guitar. She also had a violin, but it was broken.
 * When Kobo plays a horror game, she most certainly will ask her chat to backseat her for guidance or what to do next. She often forget the word for backseating and mistakenly call it backstabbing, backflip, backpacking, etc.
 * Kobo was nominated Hololive ID best brat in 2022.

Media

 * Kobo Kanaeru Ch. hololive-ID - YouTube channel
 * Kobo Kanaeru's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com
 * @kobokanaeru - Twitter account
 * Kobo Kanaeru hololive ID - Page on Facebook
 * kobokanaeru - Instagram account
 * @kobokanaeru - Tiktok Account

Twitter hashtags

 * #KoboKanaeru - General
 * #OnAeru - Stream talk
 * #KoboCast - Announcement
 * #AeruSeni - Fan art
 * #Kobobrok - Memes
 * #Kobokerz - Fans

Old Twitter hashtags

 * #Kobo_Kanaeru - General

Further readings

 * こぼ・かなえる - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * Kobo Kanaeru - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * 코보 카나에루 - Namu Wiki
 * Kobo Kanaeru - hololive Fan Wiki