Nanashi Mumei

Nanashi Mumei (七詩ムメイ) is an English-language Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive. She debuted in 2021 as part of hololive -Council-, the second generation of members of hololive English, alongside Tsukumo Sana, Ceres Fauna, Ouro Kronii and Hakos Baelz.

Profile
A member of the Council and the Guardian of "Civilization," a concept crafted by mankind.

As a living embodiment of the sum of mankind's efforts—the mark that humans have left on the world—she is far removed from her fellow members, as well as other lifeforms. Due to not being created by the Gods, she was free to choose her own appearance, and decided to make herself owl-like, after the bird that symbolizes wisdom.

She is gentle, wise, and an unbelievably hard worker. As a well-traveled vagabond, she is blessed with a wealth of knowledge of the world. She has seen, heard, and experienced so many things that she has forgotten most of them, one of them being her own name.

For some reason, she seems to project a rather pitiable aura. Perhaps this is in part thanks to the loneliness she has often felt in her perennial travels. That is what gave her the idea of making her own friend out of a material that was indispensable to the development of human civilization: paper.

"It may fade and rip, but once a friend, forever a friend."

Personality
As a cheerful, caring and introverted barn owl, Nanashi Mumei takes her job seriously as a guardian protector of mankind. Though she has elements that make Hoomans want to protect her — such as the ease with which she becomes embarrassed and overwhelmed, as well as her general forgetfulness (the latter frequent enough to make Hoomans joke that she "forgor" and "rembers" during streams) — she undeniably takes pride of place as the apex predator of the skies with her boundless, near-psychopathic fascination of the morbid and cursed; a trait most prominently evidenced in her drawing streams.

At debut, Mumei gave the impression of a cheerful, gentle girl who is soft-spoken and somewhat innocent, especially when compared to her peers. She was initially very shy and often visibly nervous during streams.

However, as she has gained confidence in streaming, a different persona has emerged. Mumei’s streams are now characterised by the duality between a relatively low energy, relaxing, and comfortable tone to another side which is more spontaneous and energetic; with her often demonstrating psychopathic tendencies in these moments. Though the disparity between her macabre thoughts and cute voice surprised many at first, the line separating these two sides has since blurred to a point of seamlessness – with Mumei’s appreciation of the grotesque and ‘cursed’ being wholly embraced by Hoomans today.

This can be seen clearly whenever Mumei is asked to draw something; no matter what the original subject was supposed to be, Mumei will often end up drawing something Tim Burton-esque at best, and outright demonic at worst. Some fans theorize that this is simply what observing the accumulated sins of human civilization for thousands of years does to a person.

Despite this, she can be rather emotive, and is known for her hearty wheezing laugh, which is often heard during collabs with Ouro Kronii due to her tendency to laugh at nearly anything she says. She often vocalizes and hums randomly, which has been compared to bird chirps or "birb noises." She's also somewhat scatterbrained, and has a tendency to forget things easily.

In stark contrast to her psychopathic tendencies, an early instance of Mumei being overwhelmed in a heartwarming manner was her monetization celebration stream, in which she chose not to read chat at the beginning because she knew that she would (and eventually did) get startled by the fast rate of donations sent to her. However, this same stream also highlighted the care and appreciation she holds for her fans, with her stating numerous times throughout the stream that she sees the precious time people set aside to watch her streams “genuinely as valuable [as money]”. Similar sentiments were also shared during Mumei's membership opening stream in which she said that she didn't mind if Hoomans didn't become members as she was "so appreciative of... anybody who comes and watches", and also was understanding of viewers who wanted to wait until she was feeling better before purchasing membership because she was feeling notably unwell at the time of this stream - this choice making "a lot of sense" to her.

Outside of these celebration streams, her appreciation can further be seen in frequent Tweets expressing her gratefulness to those who watch and convey their enjoyment of her streams (particularly when the stream does not go as planned), her responses to those expressing gratitude for her content during streams, and her general interactions with chat. Such interactions include her pleading with tired fans staying up late for her stream to go get some sleep, as well as her expressing the happiness she felt knowing Hoomans were inspired to draw because of her, and were also using her #watchMEI Twitter hashtag to draw alongside her during her first drawing stream.

Although she has moments of high energy and excitability (especially while under the effects of caffeine), Mumei regards herself as a "low energy" individual with the social aspect of streaming being surprisingly tiring at times. She believes herself to be an awkward individual and this introverted disposition manifests itself during streams whenever she finds it difficult to know what to say; with her often resorting to impromptu singing or noises to fill the silence if streaming in silence, or at times struggling to find an appropriate greeting or response while in the presence of others (though this can result in entertaining but nonsensical conversations with other hololive members such as Gawr Gura and Mori Calliope). These bouts of random sounds and responses may also be partially attributed to her birdbrained nature, with Mumei herself admitting that she has a very short attention span and finds it difficult to multitask.

At debut, Hakos Baelz described Mumei as having the cutest voice in hololive -Council-, though she has also demonstrated a rather unexpectedly wide vocal range, along with a tendency to emit high-pitched screeches when surprised or agitated. Her fans and even other members of hololive, particularly Ceres Fauna, have developed some degree of protectiveness for her, due to her soft nature giving a "little sister" vibe, though Mumei's later behavior would eventually create uncertainty as to who needs to be protected from whom.

Appearance
Nanashi Mumei has golden-brown eyes and long, brown ponytail hair with a pair of feathers atop her head. She dresses in a brown cloak secured with a ribbon. Mumei also wears gloves that are fingerless on her index and pinky fingers. She has a belt wrapped around her waist with a lantern, pouch, and small dagger around it. Below her outfit is a pleated skirt. She has leggings with her right leg reaching above her thighs and the left leg below her thighs, and wears brown boots. Friend flying beside her is a paper bag with a drawn mouth and a plaster shaped like a cross on his face.

Background
Following the success of hololive English in 2020 and 2021, COVER Corporation announced auditions for a second batch of English members from 12 February to 26 March 2021. Twitter accounts for the five new members were created in June 2021 and YouTube accounts created on 26 July 2021.

Teaser videos for the new generation began on the official hololive English YouTube Channel in August 2021. On 1 August, "Prelude" revealed a story of gods creating the four concepts of space, nature, time, and civilization. On 14 August, "Omen" described the creation of avatars of those four concepts plus that of the primordial force of Chaos, revealing five silhouettes. On 17 August, "Council" revealed the five new hololive English members and announced a grand debut scheduled for the coming weekend. Although the traditional term "generation" was not officially used to refer to the new members, who had been referred to as "hololive English Generation 2" by fans, the new members nonetheless formed a group known as "-Council-".

Upon conclusion of the Council debut PV, all five new members' Twitter and YouTube accounts were revealed, and each made their first tweet. Twitter quickly restricted Nanashi Mumei and Ouro Kronii's accounts due to the sudden increase in followers.

On 17 August 2021, around 24 hours after the initial announcement, Nanashi Mumei reached 100,000 YouTube subscribers before her debut. However, YouTube soon removed around half of this number, possibly due to the sudden subscriber growth on a channel with no videos yet, which may have triggered a YouTube anti-bot algorithm.

Debut
Nanashi Mumei's debut was scheduled for 22 August. However, the -Council- debuts were postponed for 24 hours due to unspecified technical issues, which members jokingly blamed on the "EN curse", a perceived tendency for hololive English members to suffer from unexpected technical problems. The debuts were rescheduled at the same time on Sunday 22 August (US/Europe time) or Monday 23 August (Japan time).

Mumei made her debut stream on Monday 23 August at 6:30 AM JST (22 August 2021 at 2:30 PM PDT, 10:30 PM BST). She was the fourth member of -Council- to debut. The stream had a peak viewer count of over 90,000, and she reached over 100,000 subscribers by the start of the stream. She previewed an unnamed original song.

2021
On 26 August, Mumei reached 200,000 YouTube subscribers. She had previously reached this milestone on 23 August, but a number of subscribers had been removed by a YouTube anti-bot algorithm.

On 5 September, Mumei's channel got approved for monetization.

On 22 September, Mumei reached 300,000 YouTube subscribers.

On 24 September, her channel became open for memberships.

On 27 September, Mumei held her first official collaboration with another hololive member outside her generation, playing Minecraft with Takanashi Kiara.

On 30 October, Mumei reached 400,000 YouTube subscribers.

On 20 December, Mumei and the rest of hololive EN collaborated on a cover song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by Frederic Austin, which was also her first official cover song.

2022
On 1 January, Mumei reached 500,000 YouTube subscribers. She is the 47th hololive member to reach this milestone.

On 6 January, hololive's Twitter account announced that both Myth and Council members would get new year costumes.

On 15 January, Mumei debuted her second 2D costume, a kimono to celebrate the new year. In this costume, Mumei got a new hairstyle: short hair with a braided lock in the front to her right side. While claiming in the past that she had never pierced her ears, for this outfit reveal Mumei pierced her left ear to wear an earring. Her kimono is white and has a pattern of flowers and feathers, alongside white lace gloves and dark brown boots. The obi is dark brown with a plaid pattern. On top of it, the obi has a textured white lace and is decorated by a thin green ribbon. Mumei holds a small basket with a green ribbon. Inside of it, there is a small light brown eagle-owl. On its forehead, the owl has feathers with a "loading" circle pattern. Mumei can also wear a dark brown beret with two feathers in the top and a red shawl. Mumei's mascot, Friend, also receives a top hat and bow tie.

On 17 January, Mumei released a full MV of her first original song "A New Start." Twelve days later, on 29 January, it reached 1,000,000 views.

On 22 February, -Council- celebrated their 6 month anniversary on Mumei's channel. They also released a cover of the song "Hikaru Nara" after the stream.

On 25 March, Mumei reached 600,000 YouTube subscribers right at the start of an endurance karaoke stream where she sang her song "A New Start" in multiple variants, voices, and settings.

On 3 April, her first original song "A New Start" reached 2,000,000 views.

On 26 May, she released her first official solo cover song "Dilemma" by DECO*27 before taking a break for about 2 weeks.

On 20 July, during a stream on Mumei's channel -Council- and IRyS debuted "Beeg Smol" 3D models designed by Sana.

On 3 August, she reached 700,000 YouTube subscribers during an unarchived karaoke stream.

On 23 August, during -Council- first anniversary celebration, they debuted their first group original song: "Rise." with the music video premiering just after the stream ended. Tsukumo Sana is also featured in the song even after her retirement.

On 26 August, her first original song "A New Start" reached 3,000,000 views.

2023
On 18 March, Mumei debuted her 3D idol costume during hololive 4th fes. "Our Bright Parade" DAY 1. She also reached 800,000 YouTube subscribers on the same day.

On 19 March, Mumei debuted her main 3D model during hololive 4th fes "Our Bright Parade" holo*27 stage.

On 4 April, Mumei announced on her Twitter account that she would get her third 2D costume.

On 8 April, Mumei debuted her third 2D costume. Her hair is shorter than her default costume but longer than her kimono costume. She wears red berry earrings, a black choker and a gold necklace with a rune that symbolizes new beginnings. The outfit itself consists of an oversized white hoodie with brown shadows and a gray undertone with a white sweater and a wine-colored t-shirt underneath. She has a long brown plaid-pattern skirt. Her shoes are brown and white high-top sneakers. Optionally, she can also wear glasses and put on the hoodie's hat which has animal ears.

On 30 May, Mumei announced merchandise to celebrate 774k YouTube subscribers (774 is goroawase for "na-na-shi"). She also went on hiatus for a number of weeks to rest her voice.

Discography

 * Main page: Nanashi Mumei/Discography

Events

 * On 26 October 2021, Anime NYC's Twitter account announced that every holoCouncil member would be appearing at Anime NYC.
 * On 14 July 2022, Crunchyroll Expo's Twitter account announced that Mumei and other members of hololive English would be appearing in "Crunchyroll Expo 2022," which would be held from 5 to 7 August 2022.
 * On 19 August 2022, it was announced that the additional download "Hit Song + VTuber Pack 4" for the Nintendo Switch game "Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!!!!" including Mumei and Nekomata Okayu's original songs would be available for download on 25 August 2022. Specifically, the patch included Mumei's first original song "A New Start", and Okayu's two original songs "adieu, Salauds" and "Doku no Oujisama".
 * On 21 October 2022, Youmacon's Twitter account announced that Mumei, Ayunda Risu, Pavolia Reine, and Ceres Fauna would be guests at "Youmacon 2022," which would be held from 3-6 November 2022.
 * On 9 March 2023, hololive's Twitter account announced "hololive EN café," a collaboration with CAPSULE Inc., featuring all hololive English members: Myth, Project HOPE, Council in foods and limited goods. The event would be held from 3 to 23 March 2023.
 * On 21 March 2023, MomoCon's Twitter account announced that Mumei, Kronii and other members of -TEMPUS- would be appearing at "MomoCon 2023," which would be held from 25-28 May 2023.
 * On 9 May 2023, VALKYRIE CONNECT's Twitter account announced the second collaboration with hololive, featuring Mumei, Kronii, Houshou Marine, and Sakamata Chloe.

Mascots and Fans

 * Her fanbase is officially named "Hoomans," a portmanteau of "hoo," a sound that owls make, and "humans."
 * Her channel's members are named "Owl Pals."
 * Her mascot is a paper bag. She gave him no name, because she is afraid she might forget his name. Instead, she simply refers to him as "Friend," because she will never forget that he is her friend.
 * Like Nanashi Mumei herself, whose names both mean "nameless," the paper bag friend has no name.
 * The writing on the bottom-left of her paper bag friend's face is in Norse runes, "ᚠᚱᛁᛖᚾᛞ," spelling "FRIEND." They appear to be in either the Elder Futhark alphabet, used primarily in pre-Christian Scandinavia between the 2nd and 8th centuries, or the similar Anglo-Saxon Furthorc alphabet, which continued to be used in what is now Britain until the 11th century. The English word "friend" is itself of Anglo-Saxon and Norse origin, dated to at least the 10th century in the Norse poem Hávamál and Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, where it originally meant "kinsman." However, the word written on Mumei's friend's face uses a more modern spelling.
 * The three glowing orbs around the bag also show Norse runes: ᛒ, ᛟ, and ᛉ. representing the letters B, O, and X or Z (X in the Anglo-Saxon Furthorc, Z in the Norse Elder Futhark).
 * The runes appear to be able to vary. A 2023 tweet shows Friend with the runes ᛒ, ᛚ, and ᚷ, representing the letters, B, L, and G.
 * In what may be an intentional pun, both "owl" and "bag" in Japanese can be written "fukuro." Paper bag in particular is "kamifukuro," while owl is written "fukuro" or "fukurou."
 * Friend resembles an improvised mask created from a paper shopping bag with eye holes, similar to a sort worn by characters in fiction to preserve their anonymity. Examples of characters include Faust from Guilty Gear. The connection to anonymity is particularly appropriate to the nameless Mumei.
 * The concept of bringing an inanimate creature to life by writing runes on it appears in the Hebrew myth of the golem, and later popularized via Dungeons & Dragons. According to the myth, it can be rendered inanimate again by erasing the runes. In one version of the story, the golem is animated by writing on a piece of paper.
 * Mumei insists that Friend is always getting into trouble and has a suspicious countenance, so she prefers to keep him "carefully folded away" most of the time. On occasions when Friend makes an appearance, Mumei usually claims he escaped.
 * Mumei's New Year costume included a handbasket holding a small owl, which she can also display on its own. In July 2022, Mumei revealed that she had decided to call the owl "Hootsie."

Relationships

 * Notable units and groups Mumei is part of:
 * "-Council-," alongside Ceres Fauna, Ouro Kronii, Hakos Baelz and Tsukumo Sana.
 * "KronMei," alongside Ouro Kronii.
 * "FauMei," alongside Ceres Fauna.
 * "preYdator," alongside Hakos Baelz.
 * "SNOTCast," (Shark, Nature, Owl and Time) alongside Gawr Gura, Ceres Fauna, and Ouro Kronii.
 * "holobirds," alongside Oozora Subaru (duck), Pavolia Reine (peacock), Takanashi Kiara (phoenix), and Takane Lui (hawk)
 * "Girlstalk," alongside Takanashi Kiara and Ceres Fauna.
 * "SelAMei," alongside Watson Amelia and NIJISANJI EN member Selen Tatsuki.

Quotes

 * "Civilization is proof of humankind's footsteps. We cannot advance simply by building. Never forget who you really are."
 * "Well, well I'm, I'm gonna make sure, you, you all, I'm gonna... I'mma make sure you... you, I... I'mma do it."
 * "thank you. you have given me a purpose. i am eternally grateful. :)"
 * "a time... will come... in time..."
 * "Oh hi!"
 * "I'm moomin'"
 * "Today we moom"
 * "A Moom's gotta moom what a Moom's gotta moom"
 * "Thank you [Superchatter] for the (supa/aka supa/sticker), don don! (hitting gavel)"
 * "Civilization is temporary, humanity is temporary, you are all going to die one day!"

Name

 * Both "Nanashi" and "Mumei" mean "anonymous." This refers to her canonical inability to remember her original name.
 * The name "Nanashi" is written with the kanji 「七詩」, meaning "seven" and "poetry."
 * The name "Mumei" is written in katakana, often used to write foreign names. The word "mumei" is usually written in Japanese with the kanji 「無名」.
 * Nanashi, meaning "anonymous," is perhaps best known in Japanese internet pop culture as the default username on the popular Japanese forum 2channel. Nanashi is also occasionally used as a Japanese given name, such as the name of the protagonist of the video game Akiba's Trip.
 * Mumei reads her name in Eastern order, like Gawr Gura, Ninomae Ina'nis, Takanashi Kiara, and Ceres Fauna.

Lore

 * Mumei is the only member of the five of her generation who was not created by the gods. Instead, she is the living embodiment of mankind's efforts on the world.
 * Her job as the Guardian of Civilization is to collect and record human history so that it isn't forgotten, as well as encourage the success of humankind as a whole. However, she herself is also prone to forgetting things.
 * Mumei's current name is merely the one she last remembers receiving. Her original name is unknown.
 * Mumei's form was inspired by the owl, a creature which represents wisdom.
 * She mentioned that her appearance is based on a barn owl.
 * Mumei created her own friend from paper, a material valuable to mankind's development thanks to the value of writing as a store of knowledge.
 * She has the ability to take the form of an owl. She claims that switching forms too much in the past turned her brain more bird than human, resulting in her memory problems.
 * Her age is unknown, as she has forgotten it. However, going from the trends of her genmates, Mumei is likely as old as human civilization, which would make her the youngest member of the Council, as Civilization is much younger than the ages provided by the council members (the ages Earth, the universe, and infinity). Logically, the existence of Civilization, an artificial creation, is far younger than abstract concepts like Nature, Space, Time, and Chaos.
 * If Mumei is assumed to be as old as recorded civilization, it would put her at 5,000-6,000 years old; if she is instead assumed to be as old as humanity (ie. Homo sapiens), this would make her about 200,000-300,000 instead. In her debut stream, she remarked that she has been recording human history for about 6,000 years, making it likely the former.
 * Hakos Baelz has the potential to be younger than Mumei, as her age is randomized. However, as the concept of primordial Chaos, she logically far predates humanity or human civilization.

Likes and dislikes

 * Mumei likes obtaining knowledge, vegetable broth, drawing stuff, and singing.
 * She dislikes forgetting things, mud, printers, and mosquitoes.
 * Her favorite anime are Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Steins;Gate, Hunter x Hunter, Bokurano, and Made in Abyss.
 * Her favorite manga are Tokyo Ghoul, To Your Eternity, and Promised Neverland.
 * Her favorite music genres are folk, JPop, Vocaloid, and "pop punk metal with yelling."
 * Her favorite games are simulators (especially Rollercoaster Tycoon 2), world building games, and rhythm games.
 * Her goals are to have a song appear in a rhythm game, learn Japanese (again), collab with senpais, improve and learn new skills, write a song on guitar, and perform a 3D live.
 * She has a fondness for berries in video games, a quirk that originated from her first time playing in HoloEN's Minecraft server. On a related note, her favorite flavor of yogurt is raspberry.

Miscellaneous

 * Mumei's birthday, 4 August, is International Owl Awareness Day.
 * The Egyptian hieroglyphs on Mumei cape.jpg The Egyptian hieroglyphs appear on Mumei's cape, which is a transliteration of "IRA LUXURIA GULA ACEDIA SUPERBIA AVARITIA INVIDIA," the seven deadly sins in Latin. Egyptian hieroglyphs are one of the earliest known writing systems, dating back to around 3,200 BC, while the Latin language dates back to around 600 BC and remained in used as an academic language until the modern era.
 * Her golden hair clip is the symbol "ᚱ", the Norse rune equivalent to the modern English letter "R." The significance is unknown, as the letter "R" does not appear in her name, although in Norse rune poems it stands for the word meaning "ride" or "journey".
 * Mumei's shirt is fastened at at the top with a brooch in the shape of the symbol "ᛟ", a Norse rune meaning "home" or "inherited estate." It represents the letter "O".
 * In her new casual outfit unveiled in April 2023, she wears a necklace with the symbol "ᛜ", representing the sound "ng". According to Mumei, it represents fertility, new beginnings, and isolating oneself to grow.
 * Mumei is one of several hololive members who are identified as birds. Previous members include phoenix Takanashi Kiara, peafowl Pavolia Reine, and Oozora Subaru, who is identified by fans as a duck. The next member after her is hawk Takane Lui.
 * Like Kiara and Tsukumo Sana, Mumei can also speak Bird language.
 * Mumei's original outfit, including a cape, belt, dagger, and lantern, resembles the archetype of an adventurer of the medieval fantasy roleplaying game genre.
 * The feather used as her emoji reflects both her appearance as an owl, and the quill, an animal feather traditionally used as writing instrument.
 * A few screenshots show that Mumei initially used the emoji 🦉 (owl) on her Twitter username, but quickly changed it to 🪶 (feather) within hours of the official announcement.
 * In English, the sound made by some species of owl is often rendered as "hoo," a homonym for "who" which sometimes appears in jokes (e.g.: "One of us is secretly an owl." "Who?"). This may be an intentional pun on Mumei's theme of anonymity. She used this pun in a tweet shortly before debut: "I wonder hoo will be there.." At debut, she noted that her name could be interpreted to mean "who who," another owl noise.
 * Mumei considers theme parks to be one of the peaks of civilization.
 * Mumei shares her Live2D modeler with several hololive-affiliated VTubers, including fellow EN members Ninomae Ina'nis, IRyS and Ceres Fauna.
 * Mumei is often associated with the I forgor 💀 meme due to her forgetfulness.
 * If she is to remember what she forgot, her chat tends to relay the counterpart phrase "she rember," a reference to the I rember 😁 meme.
 * Despite this, she herself tends to refrain from saying it on stream. She says this is because "I forgor" is a meme that existed before her debut, and she prefers to use memes that rise organically from her own content.
 * Mumei is also associated with the simple text emoji :D due to her regular use of it in her stream descriptions.
 * On 21 April 2022, she replaced her old fan art hashtag "#drawMEI" with a new one "#drawingMEI" when she discovered some accounts were using it to share comics.
 * Mumei celebrated her birthday on 4 August 2022.
 * Unfortunately, Sana couldn't attend because she had graduated on 31 July 2022. Instead, she prepared a prerecorded message which Mumei played during her birthday celebration stream. Given the timing of Sana's retirement, Mumei was the only member of -Council- and Project: HOPE who did not get to celebrate her birthday while Sana was active.
 * That same day, Mumei released a cover of "Dandan Chikaku Naru" by 40mP. The music video, made by Kanauru, featured bright colors and cute characters for the most part, but the content was quite dark, depicting various disasters and atrocities from recent human history. The video was made private within a few hours of uploading, with hololive announcing that they wanted to clarify questions from some viewers before deciding whether to repost it.
 * On 3 September, a new version of the song "Dandan Chikaku Naru" was uploaded with some changes to the video content.

Media

 * Nanashi Mumei Ch. hololive-EN - YouTube channel
 * Nanashi Mumei's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com
 * nanashimumei_en - Twitter account

Twitter hashtags

 * #watchMEI - Stream
 * #drawMEI - English fan art (current tag)
 * #drawingMEI - English fan art (temporary alternative tag)
 * #ムメ絵 - Japanese fan art
 * #memeMEI - Meme

Statistics

 * Nanashi Mumei Ch. hololive-EN - Social Blade YouTube stats

Further readings

 * 七詩ムメイ - Nicovideo Encyclopedia
 * 七詩ムメイ - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * 七诗无名 - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * 나나시 무메이 - Namu Wiki
 * Nanashi Mumei - Hololive Fan Wiki