IRyS

IRyS is an English Virtual Singer associated with hololive as part of its English (EN) branch's "Project: HOPE."

Profile
IRyS, a half-demon, half-angel also known as a Nephilim, once brought hope to “The Paradise” during the ancient age. Her full name is ███████ Irys. This current era, riddled with despair and desperation, has brought upon her second awakening. She has arrived to deliver hope, with her feelings put into her lyrics and songs, and determination in her voice.

Though she tends to retain her Nephilim form, she is still quite young within her race. With emotion and “other factors,” it is possible that her form may lean to either side. When that occurs, she bears a brief change in her appearance.

She does not speak of the events that preceded her second awakening. She faces ever forward, perhaps because she is Hope Incarnate, though no one knows for sure. Or could it be...

“The future is not what helps people; the future is made with our own hands.

Salvation is hypocrisy. If people know they are to be saved, they simply will not try.

From the depths of despair: a glimmer of light, the warmth of recovery.

As long as we are with hope, we live. We stand tall.”

Personality
IRyS is a sweet, somewhat shy girl who holds positivity close to her heart, looking on the brighter side of things while encouraging others to do the same. At the same time, she often displays a more "sadistic" side with a penchant for violence and (often unintentionally) saying questionable things. The duality of her personality is often joked about by her fans as the dichotomy between her angelic and demonic sides.

Her speaking voice is high-pitched, soft and calm, akin to Yukihana Lamy's, though she can produce a more powerful and deeper tone when singing, similarly to Tokoyami Towa's vocal capability.

Background
On 30 November 2020, hololive's official Twitter account announced the start of auditions for a VSinger for hololive English; auditions were open until 29 January JST.

On 7 July 2021, a premiere countdown started on the hololive English channel titled "#CountdownWitnesser #hololiveEnglish". As the 8 hour countdown reached its end, a new video was released on the channel. This video was an animated teaser video revealing IRyS as part of "Project: HOPE", as well as becoming the first VSinger introducted to hololive English.

Her Twitter account was created in February 2021, while her YouTube channel was created on 20 May 2021. After making her first tweet on 7 July, her Youtube Channel and Twitter account was restricted due to excessive activity. In the following days prior to her debut IRyS reached 200,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

On 11 July 2021, just hours before her debut stream, the restriction on her Twitter account was lifted. IRyS debuted with an introductory stream on her YouTube channel later the same day, where she presented a short version of her first original song and PV "Caesura of Despair." IRyS also announced that she would release her first EP 𝄆 Caesura of Despair the next day on 12 July on various streaming platforms. She also crossed the 300,000 Youtube subscribers milestone after her debut.

2021
On 18 July, one week after her debut, IRyS reached 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, making her the fastest member of hololive to achieve this milestone, surpassing Gawr Gura's record of 13 days. She's the 39th hololive member to reach this milestone.

On 29 July, IRyS held her first official collaboration with another hololive member, playing Just Shapes & Beats with Mori Calliope.

On 13 August, IRyS announced the opening of her channel's membership feature.

On 24 August, IRyS reached 600,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Discography

 * Main page: IRyS/Discography

Fans

 * Her fanbase are officially called "IRyStocrats" a mix between "Aristrocrats" and her name "IRyS."
 * Members are called "Nephamily," a portmanteau of the words "nephilim" and "family."

Likes and dislikes

 * She likes good spaghetti with meatballs and tofu.
 * She enjoys sleeping, singing, PvP Games and sudoku.
 * Her favorite anime and manga are Evangelion, Bakuman, Death Note, Angel Beats!, Kaguya-Sama, The Promised Neverland, Gundam SEED Destiny. She also loves romance comedies and shojo manga.
 * She dislikes celery, heights, bugs, Santa, math, ceiling fans and helicopters.
 * Despite having wings, IRyS prefers to walk because of her fear of heights.
 * IRyS claims that she dislikes Santa because, as she is a half-demon, Santa Claus never visited her, forgetting that she is also a half-angel.
 * She claims that she dislikes ceiling fans out of two reasons, first being that she considered them inefficient and obsolete due to the advent of air conditioning, and second being that she became paranoid of ceiling fans falling on top of her ever since watching Final Destination, which caused her to develop a discomfort towards spinning objects, hence her dislike towards helicopters as well.
 * In the past, she couldn't stand gore and was afraid of surgeries. Nowadays she can handle it better, but still feels uncomfortable when the gore is too extreme.
 * Her goals are:
 * Releasing a full original album.
 * Hold a 3D debut live concert.
 * Singing an anime OP/ED song.
 * Make a lot of friends.
 * Make collaborations with every hololive member.
 * Bring hope to this world!

Miscellaneous

 * IRyS is the fifth hololive Production member to have heterochromia after Houshou Marine, Himemori Luna, Kureiji Ollie and Yukoku Roberu. She has one purple eye and one blue.
 * IRyS can speak English and Japanese, making her bilingual.
 * She is the first member of hololive since AZKi to debut outside of a generation and is also the first one to do so outside the Japanese branch of hololive.
 * IRyS often makes puns with her name, such as "HIRyS" and "BYERyS," to name a few. She even has member badges with "RyS" and encourages her "Nephamily" to use them more often and make even funnier word combinations.
 * IRyS is also known for combining her name and phrases starting with "S" when creating usernames for video games. The following has confirmed so far:
 * "IRySuperGlue" for Minecraft.
 * "irysocool" for Apex Legends, Just Shapes & Beats and Dead by Daylight.
 * "IRySwitch" for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, possibly referencing the Nintendo Switch.
 * "IRYSOPRO" for Gartic Phone.
 * "IRySoSus" for Among Us, referencing "sus", a slang for being suspicious popularized by the game's fanbase.
 * IRyS is a nephilim, a half-angel, half-demon being.
 * The term "nephilim" appears in the Bible (Genesis 6:1-4; Numbers 13:32-33), where they refer to an ancient group of people sometimes interpreted as giants or fallen angels, beings who served God but were cast out for rebelling against Him. By some interpretations, the nephilim lived on Earth and intermarried with humans, but were wiped out in the Biblical flood which Noah and his descendants survived by building his ark.
 * In her first album, Caesura of Despair, the term "caesura" refers to the ‖ symbol, a double verticle line mark used to denote a pause in a song or poetry. In the fourth track, "Caesura of Despair (attacca ver.)", "attacca" refers to music played without a pause between movements.
 * IRyS used to have a childhood crush on Nintendo's Luigi.

Media

 * IRyS Ch. hololive-EN - YouTube channel
 * IRyS's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com (EN)
 * IRyS's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com (JP)
 * IRyS's corporate profile on hololive.tv (EN)
 * IRyS's corporate profile on hololive.tv (JP)
 * @irys_en - Twitter account
 * @irys_en - Marshmallow account

Twitter hashtags

 * #IRyS - General
 * #IRyShow - Stream
 * #IRySart - Fan art

Further readings

 * IRyS - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * IRyS - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * IRyS - Namu Wiki