Akai Haato

Akai Haato (赤井 はあと) is a female Japanese Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive, debuting as part of its first generation of VTubers alongside Yozora Mel, Aki Rosenthal, Natsuiro Matsuri, and Shirakami Fubuki.

She is also known by her chaotic alter-ego, Haachama (はあちゃま). The connection between Akai Haato and Haachama has been the subject of elaborate lore development.

Profile
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Akai Haato
Haato appears to be a classic tsundere who teases her fans by calling them kimo ota (creepy otaku),among other things and sometimes flusters easily. She is mostly calm to where others can find relaxation in her streams, with Minecraft specifically of note. She has also been referred to as seiso (pure) by even the higher ups (managers, ect) that they told the other hologirls, as stated by Houshou Marine, to use her as the example of purity.

When playing video games, Haato has considerably more confidence than actual skill, which usually ends up biting her in the back. She is infamous for her ear-splitting scream, and often releases these screams even when not playing horror games. Fans refer to these brutal screams as "Haato's blessings."

However, after the introduction her own nickname as "Haachama" around early 2020, originally intended as a less formal nickname to "Haato-sama", her personality underwent a radical change to the point that the fanbase started considering both Haato and Haachama as two different personas while other hololive girls simply disregard the change in behavior as Haato trying a different kind of character. But as time went on and her channel got wilder, around mid-February 2021, it became very clear that the Haato and Haachama became separate entities, which eventually started creeping out her fellow holo-members such as Omaru Polka and Oozora Subaru even when they were talking to Haato.

Haato typically freezes or comes close to mindbreaking anytime she reads or repeats Haachama's name. On top of this, when her sanity is intact and talks to Haachama, she expresses a distaste for Haachama's childishness and games directly to her. Haato is also clever enough to take sleeping pills before bed so to paralyze Haachama when she takes over.

Haato greets her viewers with "Oha-rouge".

Haachama
Unlike Haato, Haachama can be described as an Eldritch Baby that loves repeating her name.

With a fondness for Haato's Candy Gothic Lolita outfit, she adopts a very childish personality that can sometimes borderline on evil, unsettling or insane despite her cutesy, giggly, playful demeanor. Haachama does whatever comes to impulse. She does nothing to discourage creepy behaviors, and frequently does weird, creepy things herself such as sniffing her own feet, and decorating her home in Animal Crossing: New Horizons with lewd drawings of herself and Tsunomaki Watame and even going so far to fondle Haato's breasts whenever she feels discomfort.

Though Haato compares her fans to pigs, Haachama seems perfectly content to (metaphorically but most likely literally) splash in the mud right next to them. Her sense of humor is extremely deranged even by hololive's standards. She often publishes short, random clips that make little sense even to Japanese listeners, sometimes pretends to be Akai Haato via a clone she made.

This contrast in personality with Haato's lead fans to joke about Haachama killing Akai Haato, something that she was happy to play along with such as: pretending Haato doesn't exist or doesn't know her name while giggling uncontrollably during the "Trapped Haato" arc, to even actually beheading her at the end of the brief "Haato's Amnesia" arc. She also enjoyed mocking her fans who were worried about Haato, as if the fate of Haato's life was all just a game to her.

Haachama shows an extreme amount of distain towards Haato stemming from a (currently) vague promise. She loves to psychologically haunt Haato, such as leaving signs around Minecraft of her greeting resulting in Haato subconsciously freezing (evident by her blank stares) despite not knowing clearly who Haachama is yet. Haachama also expresses a toxic sense of awareness and possessiveness over Haato's lifestyle, such as stalking and criticizing her for streaming while she's sleeping without her permission, leading to her beheading Haato in her "#FREEHAACHAMA" stream as "panishment" (typo intentional). The following stream had Haato's decapitated head searching for her body and stitched back on like a Haaton. It didn't take long for more tormenting to continue. However, not all of Haachama's actions towards Haato are inherently violent or traumatizing, as in a now member's only stream simply titled "H", Haachama tried childishly pranking Haato and the chat by smearing lotion all over Haato so to make her think she was covered in seed when she woke up and to frame members of the chat for it for fun.

While initially vague, it became clear in a stream renamed "#Bad End" that Haachama has various reality altering abilities, such as walking in a parallel reality to effect the real world around her (similar to a ghost or Onryo), making illusions become real (such as clones, beheadings or her own physical presence) and, of course, fusing herself with Haato while she sleeps to take control of her. But as powerful as Haachama is, she isn't always the smartest when it comes to controlling her surreal abilities, as during the era in which Haato was trapped inside Haachama (as seen in a now unarchived stream titled "[DEBUT STREAM #HololiveEN0" ]) she was tricked by Haato into singing "Faded" by Alan Walker which literally started fading her out of existence and freeing Haato from her being for a few days, seemingly with amnesia.

Haachama greets her viewers with "Haachama-chama."

Shared Traits
However, in spite of their extreme differences, both Haato and Haachama share some common traits such as using cropped lewd art as video thumbnails, and questionable cooking skills as seen of various streams previous to the introduction of Haachama, but as Haachama she started a series of cooking videos in which she commits unholy atrocities ranging from boiling beef in a mixture of Mentos and cola, melting marshmallows over sliced ham or, worse yet, cooking and eating tarantulas and scorpions on fish and ramen.

Under extreme circumstances, however, the two are capable of communicating face to face.

Background
On 2 May 2018, COVER Corporation announced auditions for a group of five characters which would later become known as hololive 1st Generation. Unlike later generations, the character designs were revealed in advance, with prospective talent auditioning for specific characters. Auditions closed on 13 May, with selections taking place between 9 and 18 May. Of note, NIJISANJI member Hoshikawa Sara also considered auditioning for the role of Akai Haato, and watched her debut.

Haato's Twitter account was opened on 21 May 2018, while her YouTube channel was created on 24 May.

Haato made her debut stream on 2 June 2018.

2018
On 26 December, Haato revealed her second 2D costume, consisting of a white dress with an optional red jacket.

2019
On 24 January, Haato announced on her Twitter acccount that she would debut her 3D model. On the next day, she debuted her 3D model.

On 12 April, she announced in a stream that she would be receiving a new 3D model. It was announced that the debut date is 17 April.

On 17 April, Haato debuted her 3D model.

On 9 July, Haato showcased the swimsuit for her 3D model. It was first announced at the end of their karaoke session earlier on 7 July.

On 30 September, she announced on her Twitter account the demonetization of her channel because her ASMR videos were considered of sexual nature by YouTube.

On 13 November, she introduced a stream with a no Japanese challenge playing the video game Ring Fit Adventure, where she restricted herself to only speak in English. Following this stream, she occasionally made English-language content.

On 27 November hololive Official English Twitter account opened. The first tweet included a small greeting from Haato, promising more English-language content in the future.

On 9 December, Haato created a "Sub" channel named Akai Haato Sub 赤井はあと as a result of the demonetization of her main channel in September. Her first stream took place on 12 December, where she jokingly presented herself as a rookie VTuber, with plans to update both channels. Stream archives on the channel were later privated at some point in 2020 for unknown reasons.

2020
On 1 January she announced her third 2D costume, which was later revealed that day during stream to be a kimono celebrating the new year.

On 24 January along with the other hololive girls up to the third generation, she debuted her 3D idol outfit at hololive's 1st fes. Nonstop Story.

On 31 January, she announced on her Twitter account the remonetization of her main channel.

On 6 June, Haato debuted her first original song: "RED HEART" however the full song was not released.

On 30 July, she announced on her Twitter account that her original 2D model would receive an update. She debuted her updated model during a stream later the same day, jokingly posing Himemori Luna's and Amane Kanata's models as her updated one first. Her updated model has more facial expressions and she can turn in more directions.

On 24 August, she revealed that she has to attend a 3rd grade high school exam, thereby reducing her YouTube activities.

On 27 September, she and Kiryu Coco were suspended for 3 weeks, preventing them from doing streaming and Twitter activities following the controversy when she and Coco displayed "Taiwan" in "Top Countries" when divulging through their confidential YouTube channel's analytics, which sparked outrage from some of the PRC audience.

On 19 October, she returned to her activities with an English only ASMR stream that was later made available to members only.

On 25 October, hololive's official Twitter account announced that she and Matsuri would receive new 2D costumes. Haato debuted her fourth 2D costume next day on 26 October, a multiple layered black and red gothic dress, the costume also includes a new hairstyle now using twintails decorated with a lot of small hearts, she also has the option to wear an eyepatch.

On 21 December, Haato participated on stage 1 of "hololive 2nd fes. Beyond the Stage," where she performed the full version of her song RED HEART.

2021
On 10 January, she released the full version of her first original song RED HEART on her channel.

On 12 January, she reached 900,000 YouTube subscribers during a singing stream.

On 10 February, she reached 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers, making her the 8th hololive member to reach that milestone and the 6th member of the Japanese branch to do so. She is also the second member of Gen 1 to achieve it. The celebration stream continued the "HAACHAMAXAkaihaato" story arc.

On 3 March, Haato unfortunately privated videos relating to her "Haachama X Haato" saga while her plans to continue the storyline were put on hold, citing rules changes within hololive to protect talents from YouTube's sporadic rules changes. Membership only side content relating to the story were still available to watch after paying. For clarity, the storyline has been cut right when a twisted and not-so-pure cannibalistic 3rd personality (either real or fake) was introduced named by the fanbase "Red Heart-chan" in a stream titled "[DEBUT STREAM HololiveEN2.0 #HololiveEN0 #TEAMHAATO"]. Shortly thereafter, Haato made a statement on Twitter that she would "go on a journey to find [herself] for a while" before going on hiatus. There has been no activity on her YouTube channel or her Twitter account throughout March apart from a contracted promo Tweet regarding a collaboration with FamilyMart.

On 28 March, a select set of privated storyline videos were suddenly made public again, save for the "Red Heart-chan" livestream, but no further new explanation was provided.

On 30 March, she returned to streaming, as the storyline finally reached its conclusion. In the post-storyline talk of the stream, she revealed that she lied about needing to "find herself" as she already knew what she wanted to do next. She also talked about twisting her dream of becoming an anime VA into making an anime herself and her "Action first, think later" approach to telling the story as well as her general management of it (describing herself as a masochist under pressure) as well as how much fun it was to make the story before promising to resume more conventional hololive streams, starting with planned Super Chat and Marshmallow readings the next day before canceling it in favor of a singing stream, without informing her audience that it would kick off her new time loop horror series.

On 6 April, she went on another hiatus for the sake of her mental heath before returning on 26 April, totaling in a 3 week break.

On 3 June, she released her second original song "Infinity" to celebrate the third anniversary of her debut.

On 12 June, Haato announced she would go on an indefinite hiatus for undisclosed reasons during a short livestream, though later she attended Kiryu Coco's graduation stream live on 1 July and Uruha Rushia's second year anniversary 3D live on 18 July.

On 24 July, Haato returned to her streaming activities after a 6-week hiatus, which she explained as for academic reasons. Haato was not planning on returning to streaming so soon, but was persuaded by Amane Kanata and Kiryu Coco to return when the three of them had meal together. Her post-return stream the following day was a Reddit Meme Review, originally hosted by Kiryu Coco.

On 23 November, the profile picture and banner of her secondary channel were changed (with the former being the same artwork used for her Twitter banner), then on the following day the channel was renamed from "Akai Haato Sub 赤井はあと" to "HAACHAMA DARKWEB CH," with the channel now being used for uploading #Shorts videos.

2022
On 24 March, Haato reached 1 million Twitter followers.

On 31 March, hololive's Twitter account announced that Haato would get her fifth 2D costume.

On 1 April, Haato debuted her fifth 2D costume. In this costume Haato got a new hairstyle using straight twintails with long locks to the sides, her hair is adorned by a silver tiara with red rose ornaments and a hairpin to the left side. She wears a white and red ruffly dress decorated with a red bow on her chest, two on her waist and two more on the lower portion of the skirt. Her sleeves are decorated with red laces similar to the ones present in her hair in her main and second costumes. Haato uses white socks with a red outline and red shoes. Haato also carries a Haaton that mimics her blinks.

On 7 July, hololive's Japanese Twitter account announced that the members of the first generation would get their models updated to the 3.0 version.

On 9 July, the members of the first generation debuted their 3.0 models. The update includes various new facial expressions including the ability to have teary eyes or stick out the tongue. They also received new visual cues to emphasize other emotions. They can also wave their hand, hold a videogame controler and use a keyboard and mouse without external assets.

On 9 August, as part of the "hololive Summer 2022" event, Haato debuted her second 3D swimsuit in a stream held on hololive's official fanclub page in a segment alongside La+ Darknesss, Omaru Polka and Roboco-san. Unlike the original swimsuits from 2019 that had individual designs, these swimsuits are meant to be matching outfits similar to the 3D idol costumes. The swimsuits come in two types one with thin straps for the top and a diagonal cut mini skirt and the other one has ruffled straps in the top and an even mini skirt. Both version are white with various patterns including hololive's and Holoearth's logos, hearts and sparks. The swimsuits are personalized by including different colors to match each talent. Additionally they have the option to wear a hoodie.

On 25 December, hololive's Twitter account announced that Haato was tested positive for COVID-19, prompting her to take a temporary break from streaming.

2023
On 21 January, Haato returned to her activities.

On 18 March, Haato debuted her new 3D idol costume during hololive 4th fes. "Our Bright Parade" DAY 1.

On 19 March, Haato's manager published on her Twitter account that she would go on hiatus for a while due to poor health.

Discography

 * ''Main page: Akai Haato/Discography

Events

 * On 12 September 2019, she made an appearance in hololive's collaboration with Dawn of the Breakers as one of the characters alongside Natsuiro Matsuri, Shirakami Fubuki, Nakiri Ayame, Oozora Subaru, Sakura Miko and Ookami Mio.

Mascot and Fans

 * Her fanbase is officially called "Haaton" (はあとん), which is a combination of "Haato" and "ton" 豚 (pig). They are represented by a yellow plush pig that also works as her mascot. The pigs are shown with stitches around their necks and frequently wearing signs with "打ち首" (decapitation/beheading) written on them. She is sometimes depicted as playfully manhandling them, and sometimes outright even severing their heads.
 * She often calls her viewers "senpai" (先輩) when tweeting.

Quotes

 * "Ahh, the pepeloni, pepeloni. You know the pepeloni? the nooo one. I always, I always order the, the Domino. Domino pepeloni and without pepeloni. I always order the pepeloni and without pepeloni. Pepeloni! I like pepeloni, yeah. I always, I always order the, the cheese- cheese pan. Ahh how can I explain? I can explain by my drawing! I always order like the cheese pan that it has cheese on here, this part, the ear. Ear of pizza. And then, I order- wh- when I order pepeloni, the ear- it always have a pepeloni on h- on a top, but I pick up these... Away! cause I don't eat it. And then I eat the cheese pan pizza. Okay? you understand? understandable! pepeloni! yes."

Name

 * Akai (赤井) is a homophone for 赤い (red).
 * Haato is the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "heart".
 * Notably, Haachama takes the Japanese initials of " Haa to" (はあ) and ends her name with "-chama" (ちゃま), a combination of the Japanese honorifics "-chan" (meaning small, often used to imply cuteness or endearment, especially around children) and "-sama" (used to imply power or superiority, comparable to, and often translated as, English "Lord/Lady" or "Master").

General

 * As seen in her English introduction, she is able to speak some English due to studying abroad in Australia.
 * As of December 2020, she has graduated from high school there and has returned to Japan.
 * She orchestrated the spread of her "Haachama" nickname (by pretending that her older sister was using it), as she wanted to be called something less formal than "Haato-sama". However, thanks in part to Houshou Marine during a game of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, fans usually stylize it as "HAACHAMA!?"
 * Haato's channel has changed names the most of all hololive members. Originally named "Haato Channel 赤井はあと" during her introduction, later on when she established her Haachama persona the channel was renamed "Haachama Ch. 赤井はあと," then in circa January 2021 the channel was renamed again to "Haachama Ch. はあちゃま," later in February 2021 during the "HAACHAMAxAkaihaato" story arc the channel was renamed "Akaihaato Ch. 赤井はあと," later in the same month it was changed to "HAACHAMA Ch. 赤井はあと". The "Akaihaato" name briefly returned on early May 2021, then changed back to "HAACHAMA" at some point in July 2021. As a result of these names changes, Haato's channel lost the verification mark.
 * Her Twitter username also followed similar name changes, first adopting the "Haachama" name on January 2021, then in February 2021 during the "HAACHAMAxAkaihaato" story arc the username was changed to "Akaihaato," only to be changed back to "Haachama" few days later, later in the same month it was changed to "HAACHAMA" in all uppercase. As with her YouTube channel, "Akaihaato" name briefly returned on early May 2021, but it was changed back to "HAACHAMA" later on the same month.
 * She enjoys playing games that are designed to frustrate players, and at one point claimed that she could no longer find joy in normal games.
 * She occasionally streams herself cooking, but the resulting food is often burned, likely because she doesn't seem to understand how to use cooking oil.
 * It's also worth noting that she usually cooks "gyoza" a type of dumpling, into or with her cooking
 * She is allergic to eggs and therefore cannot cook or eat anything containing them.
 * She has Japanese-English mixed ancestry being 1/4 British.
 * She is very close with Nijisanji's Hoshikawa Sara with whom she shares many similar interests. Both girls revealed that they had watched each other's debut streams in real time. Sara also revealed that she had considered auditioning for the role of Akai Haato when she saw the recruitment ad (she never actually applied) and that she watched Haato's debut stream to see who ended up getting the role.
 * Her favorite English musician is Alan Walker.
 * Aside from Australia and Japan, Haato has visited both Singapore and the Philippines before and has loved both countries. She is also planning to visit North America and Europe someday.
 * She went to Jollibee back in her visit in the Philippines. She also claims that her stomach reacted badly when she drank tap water during her stay, resulting in her stomach having higher tolerance than usual.
 * Her "gothic" model has her twin tails twitch whenever her eyes blink.
 * She sometimes collaborates with members of the hololive English branch in order to practice her English skills, even going so far as to jokingly refer to herself as "hololive EN 0th Gen" in stream titles and descriptions.
 * Her infrequent collaborations with hololive EN's Amelia Watson, combined with their similarities in physical appearance (blue-eyed blondes) and personality (very chaotic, but also hard-working and creative, can also be very kind and caring) has lead to some fans joking that they could be mistaken for sisters, a joke that they seem to be aware of, as they have on occasion referred to each other as "sister" on Twitter.
 * She is the twentieth hololive member to join the official Hololive Subreddit as a moderator.
 * She shares the same character illustrator with Quon Tama, Utsugi Sawa & Kattarina Qutie.

Haachama x Haato Storyline

 * As noted by Himemori Luna, Haachama tried teaching her a how to speak "Haachama-chama-go" which is a language entirely comprised of syllables in Haachama's name repeated ad-nauseum. Whether this is another of Haachama's weird jokes is unknown.
 * As revealed in her English class steam, one rule of Haachama-chama-go is that any "to" syllable gets replaced with "chama." Example: Tomato gets turned into "chama-ma-chama" when read in Haachama-chama-go.
 * Haachama is fond of the number 8. While confusing to westerners, the number 8 is pronounced "hachi" in Japanese and simply as 八 (haa) when read with Kanji shortenings. She even marks every "8" of the month as "Haachama no hi" (はちゃまの日, lit. Haachama day)
 * Haachama's Twitter bio from February to September 2021 states Haato and Haachama are apparently sisters.
 * It was implied in various loosely scripted livestreams (featuring uniquely edited animated scenes and borrowed fan-art) that Haato's head is now apart of Haachama's body, being seen with her new 2D model implements her first model's head and hair onto her shirtless gothic model.
 * These unique short animatics have also been uploaded individually out of context, while few live streams that have featured these animations and scenes in context have been privated for due to using copyrighted music to tell their story.
 * The stitches around her neck seem to have healed since said incident.
 * As time went on it became more clear that Haachama was, indeed, still alive and whole in spite the severe beheading. This has to do with Haachama's abilities.

Media

 * Akaihaato Ch. 赤井はあと - YouTube channel
 * HAACHAMA DARKWEB CH - #Shorts YouTube channel
 * akaihaato_hololive - Twitch channel
 * Akai Haato's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com
 * @akaihaato - Twitter account
 * 赤井心Official - bilibili channel
 * @akaihaato - OPENREC.tv channel
 * @akaihaato - Marshmallow account
 * /u/haachama810 - Reddit account

Twitter hashtags

 * #赤井はあと - General
 * #はあとん - Fans
 * #はあとart - Fan art
 * #はあとch #はあちゃまなう or #はあちゃま病 - Stream talk
 * #赤井イングリッシュ - Stream talk for English streams
 * #ここ好きはあと様 or #はあちゃま切り抜き - Video clips

Further readings

 * 赤井はあと - Nicovideo Encyclopedia
 * 赤井はあと - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * 赤井はあと - Japanese Wikipedia
 * 赤井はあと - unofficial hololive Seesaawiki
 * 赤井心 - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * 아카이 하아토 - Namu Wiki
 * Akai Haato - Hololive Fan Wiki