Nakiri Ayame

Nakiri Ayame (百鬼あやめ) is a female Japanese Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive, debuting as part of its second generation of VTubers alongside Minato Aqua, Murasaki Shion, Yuzuki Choco and Oozora Subaru.

Personality
Ayame is an oni who seems to talk to humans as if they are below her. However in spite of this, she is very friendly, playful and treats her audience equally to herself. Even sometimes looking up to humans she respects such as Houshou Marine to where she had difficulties approaching her.

Ayame is infamous for her approachability and her rather sensitive funny bone, as it's very easy to make her let loose a cute little giggle from the slightest amusement. She will laugh when she's up to no good, chuckle at her observations on things, giggle at her mistakes and burst at her chat's cheap jokes. Bad Japanese puns are especially her weakness as she starts giggling and laughing to where she can't contain herself anymore, bashing her table uncontrollably and needing to stop whatever she's doing just to let it loose.

She can be very analytical of new people in a social context, oftenly taking 5 separate encounters before she collects enough "data" to know how to approach someone, which can sometimes cause analytical meltdowns when around people who prefer to know someone ASAP (like Marine). Additionally, typical of an oni, she can also have a really violent temper if pushed too far as she got into a physical fight with her father and kicked a hole in the wall when someone deleted all of her cable recordings...again. But when streaming she always keeps herself in a fantastic enough mood to avoid showing her anger in front of her fans, save for cute toothless outbursts.

She greets her fans with "Konnakiri!"

Background
Her Twitter account was opened on 1 August 2018 while her YouTube channel was created on 12 August although she did not start her activities on her channel until her introduction stream which was live on 3 September.

2019
On 14 May, she announced she will be getting a 3D model. She debuted her 3D model on 17 May.

On 9 August, she debuted her 3D swimsuit costume.

On 20 November she announced on her Twitter account a new 2D costume which debuted during a stream on 23 November.

2020
On 1 January, she published in Twitter, that she would get her new year costume, which was later revealed during a stream the same day.

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 28 July, she announced on her Twitter account that her original 2D model would be updated to the 2.0 version, later on 31 July she debuted her updated model during a stream. Her updated model features more facial expression, her mouth for example has much more movement while talking and smiling, her hair bangs now have natural movement and she can turn freely in more directions, in line with the model capabilities of hololive members from the GAMERS unit onwards.

On 21 December, she reached 600,000 YouTube subscribers.

2021
On 28 April, hololive's Twitter account announced that Ayame would get fourth 2D costume.

On 2 May, Ayame debuted her fourth 2D costume. In this costume Nakiri styles her hair with twintails, she wears a white blouse with a black tie and a black skirt, she wears a jacket below the shoulders with a color scheme similar to her standard outfit, on the right site the jacket has the word "YODAYO," while the left site has "OGRE PUNCH" accompanied by a badge with the same design as the tatoo she has on her back, Ayame can also remove her jacket. At the peak of the reveal, she reached an audience of over 100,000 people.

On 23 May, Ayame reached 900,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

On 8 July, Ayame reached 1,000,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, making her the 20th hololive member, as well as the 15th member of hololive JP, to reach this milestone. She is also the third member of the 2nd generation to reach it.

Events

 * On 12 September 2019, she made an appearance in hololive's collaboration with Dawn of the Breakers as one of the characters alongisde Akai Haato, Natsuiro Matsuri, Shirakami Fubuki, Oozora Subaru, Sakura Miko and Ookami Mio.
 * On 27 November 2019, she made an appearance in hololive's collaboration with Azur Lane as one of the characters, alongside Shirakami Fubuki, Ookami Mio, Natsuiro Matsuri, Murasaki Shion, Minato Aqua and Tokino Sora, she was available from 27 November to 10 December.

Fans

 * Her fanbase is officially called "Nakiri-gumi" 「百鬼組」.

Trivia

 * She has a bad sense of direction, often going the wrong way. This has lead to the birth of the "Docchi Docchi" MAD (Songs made out of clips set to music), and she is sometimes teased with it by other members.
 * Before becoming a VTuber, she revealed she used to be a loner and had trouble interacting with others. Since joining hololive, she was progressively able to make bonds with the other members, open up and rely on them, and gain self-confidence.
 * She admitted to wearing glasses. In fact, her eyesight is typically very terrible.
 * She's a fan of FPS games and frequently plays them on stream, possessing lightning quick reflexes rivaling Minato Aqua as can be seen when she plays shooters like Apex Legends.
 * She's bad at horror games and is easily scared.
 * Ayame shares her illustrator Kagura Nana with Spade Echo from hololive China.
 * Yukihana Lamy and Shirogane Noel are big fans of Ayame.
 * She owns a pet cat named Jirusuke.
 * She always carries twin katanas on her back. The black-handled oodachi is the cursed sword Rakshasa (Japanese: 妖刀ようとう 「 羅刹らせつ 」, youtou "Rasetsu"), and its blade is haunted by dark mist. The red-handled dachi is the demon blade Asura (Japanese: 鬼人刀きじんと 「 阿修羅あすら 」, kijinto Asura) and has a red blade. Both appear on her original design sheet, while their English names are attested in Ayame's appearance in Azur Lane.
 * The original character board describes Rakshasa as an oodachi, or extra-long sword. While this term is often used to describe a sword longer than a normal katana, Ayame's sword appears to be of normal length, although it is slightly longer than Asura, which is described merely as a dachi, or sword. This combination of a katana and shorter sword (wakizashi) commonly appears in depictions of samurai, as popularized by Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings and other works.
 * Rakshasa is referred to as "youtou", meaning a cursed, magical, or demon blade. The first kanji "you" appears in "youkai", a Japanese term for spirits or monsters of folklore.
 * Asura is referred to as "kijinto" or "kijin katana", with "kijin" referring to a type of supernatural creature such as a demon, god, or rakshasa. The first kanji of kijin is the kanji for "oni", which also appears in the name Nakiri.
 * Both rakshasa and asura are named after types of supernatural beings of Hindu myth. The rakshasa is a demon-like creature created from the breath of Brahma, and later popularized via in Dungeons & Dragons as having a tiger-like appearance. The asura is a type of being who wars against the devas or gods.
 * She is a fan of Pretty Cure. Her favorite series is Smile Pretty Cure, and her favorite characters are Cure Happy, Cure Peace, and Cure Beauty. However, she denies being an otaku. This is because, domestically, Otaku is used to describe a person who is overly knowledgeable about a particular subject, similar to a mega nerd, as opposed to the western adopted meaning flanderized as "Anime fan".
 * Ayame appears to be way more hyperactive than who she actually is in holo no graffiti, especially when she's the main driving character of the episode. Notable episodes featuring this are "Help! I'll be burned!" and "Beware, Beware the Blues of May". This hyper personality has partly influenced the jacket design on her 4th costume to read "YODAYO", a greeting fans took a liking towards because of the mini-series.
 * She claims that she's asked why she has horns around every six months, to which she always responds with being born with them because she's an Oni. When asked, she would respond with "Why don't you humans have horns?"
 * Ayame has once noted that she has a very strict mother, who would usually get on her for the smallest things such as having her elbows on the table before saying she won't eat or saying she won't help her if she doesn't help herself. Many traits (from how Ayame explains them) point to mama Nakiri being a very strong headed woman.

Media

 * Nakiri Ayame Ch. 百鬼あやめ - YouTube channel
 * Nakiri Ayame's corporate profile on hololive.tv (EN)
 * Nakiri Ayame's corporate profile on hololive.tv (JP)
 * @nakiriayame - Twitter account
 * 百鬼绫目Official - bilibili channel

Twitter hashtags

 * #百鬼あやめch - Live stream
 * #百鬼絵巻 - Fan art
 * #あやめ夜行 - Related tweets

Further readings

 * 百鬼あやめ - Nicovideo Encyclopedia
 * 百鬼あやめ - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * 百鬼あやめ - Japanese Wikipedia
 * 百鬼あやめ - unofficial hololive Seesaawiki
 * 百鬼绫目 - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * Nakiri Ayame - Azur Lane Wiki