Nanashi Mumei

Nanashi Mumei is an English Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive, debuting as part of its English (EN) branch second generation of VTubers 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.

Personality
Mumei Nanashi is gentle, wise, an incredible hard worker, and well-traveled. She has lived long and experienced so many things that she has forgotten much, including her own true name.

Appearance
Mumei Nanashi has golden-brown eyes and brown hair with a pair of feathers atop her head. She dresses in a brown cape secure with a ribbon.

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 Mumei Nanashi 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.

Nanashi Mumei's debut was scheduled for 21 August 2021 at 2:30 PM PDT, 10:30 PM BST, or 6:30 AM JST on 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).

Quotes

 * "Civilization is proof of humankind's footsteps. We cannot advance simply by building. Never forget who you really are."

Name

 * Both "Nanashi" and "Mumei" mean "anonymous". This refers to her canonical inability to remember her own 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.

Lore

 * Nanashi is the only member of the five of her generation who was not created by the gods. She is the living embodiment of mankind's efforts on the world.
 * Nanashi's form was inspired by the owl, a creature which represents wisdom.
 * Nanashi created her own friend from paper, a material valuable to mankind's development thanks to the value of writing as a store of knowledge.

Miscellaneous

 * The Egyptian hieroglyphs which line Nana's cape appear to spell out the seven deadly sins in Latin.
 * 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 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).
 * 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".
 * Her friend is shaped like a paper bag with eye holes, sometimes worn by characters in Japanese animation as a makeshift mask to disguise one's identity and remain anonymous.
 * Nanashi 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.
 * Nanashi'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 Nanashi initially used the emoji 🦉 (owl) on her Twitter username, but quickly changed it to 🪶 (feather) within hours of the official announcement.
 * Nanashi's paper bag friend may be another pun. Both "owl" and "bag" in Japanese can be written "fukuro." Paper bag in particular is "kamifukuro," while owl is written "fukuro" or "fukurou."
 * 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 Nanashi's theme of anonymity.

Media

 * Nanashi Mumei Ch. hololive-EN - YouTube channel
 * Nanashi Mumei's corporate profile on hololive.tv (English)
 * Nanashi Mumei's corporate profile on hololive.tv (Japanese)
 * nanashimumei_en - Twitter account

Twitter hashtags

 * #watchMEI - Stream tag
 * #drawMEI - Fanart tag (English)
 * #ムメ絵 - Fanart tag (Japanese)
 * #memeMEI - Meme tag
 * #watchMEI - Stream tag

Statistics

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