Inugami Korone

Inugami Korone (戌神ころね) is a female Japanese Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive, debuting as part of the group "hololive Gamers" (ホロライブゲーマーズ) alongside Shirakami Fubuki, Ookami Mio and Nekomata Okayu.

Personality
Korone has a sweet and goofy personality comparable to that of an actual dog. She often kisses other hololive members for no reason, and has a high-pitched laugh that resembles the cry of a screeching seagull.

Like most dogs, Korone is fiercely loyal, specifically to Nekomata Okayu with whom she forms a pair known as "OkaKoro". In fact, the two are so close that Okayu didn't mind Korone grabbing and massaging her breasts during their sleepover after Korone had a exhaustive day of dance practice and concert work, which can be seen in a more maternal light. They also often casually kiss each other on the lips.

Korone has a fondness for retro games, especially those that are more niche (or even poorly-made). She gets a lot of amusement from the strangeness in these games, often laughing at how absurd they can be.

While her activities usually look playful and sugary, Korone can also be nonchalantly terrifying at times; for example, she accidentally revealed that she had searched for torture/execution methods in her mobile browser history, laughed joyfully while using the chainsaw in Doom, and was completely unfazed by a scene in Heavy Rain where the protagonist (under Korone's control) was forced to cut off his own finger. Many holoGirls, A-chan included, have gone out of their way to say Korone is flat out crazy. Unlike the axe-crazed Suisei, Korone has a childish style of psychopathy that suggests that she does not appreciate the severity of the physical pain she inflicts on others.

Korone is a fan of splatterhouse styled horror, referencing movies like Human Centipede and Saw as her preferences, while voicing traditional ghost stories as her least preferred genre, which was further cemented in her 2 playthroughs of "Tsugu no Hi" games with her screaming at literally everything (or sometimes at absolutely nothing). She has also gone on the record to abuse her fans (represented by Listener-kun), usually seen at the end of her streams where she forgets to give her fans' fingers back until they rot, or even having comical backdoor tragedies happen like giving back Listener-kun's finger only to swipe her fans money to gamble with in Dragon Quest, and is quick to jump on her viewers like a jealous housewife when she sees traces of other women around them. The fact that she is both cute and scary at the same time has only increased her appeal amongst her fanbase.

In a more dry and serious light, however, Korone has shared confidence issues during her Roomania 203 playthrough due to measuring her worth to other's actions causing her to criticize herself unneededly. Though her time in hololive seems to be helping in this aspect.

Korone's greeting her viewers with "Yubi! Yubi!" which originated from her desire to have her own unique greeting. During her first stream with the other members of hololive Gamers, Korone noticed that she was the only one out of the group that didn't have her own greeting. She joked about possibly greeting her viewers by asking for their fingers, after which they would reply "Yubi! Yubi!" in return, "Yubi" being the Japanese word for finger. Her battle cry when playing games is "Orayo!"

Background
She was first announced on 22 March 2019 in Shirakami Fubuki's stream during which Fubuki debuted her new 3D model. Fubuki announced that she alongside with Nekomata Okayu would join hololive Gamers in April This was followed up by an announcement on hololive's Twitter account on 25 March. She was officially introduced on 1 April.

Her Twitter account was opened on 24 March 2019 while her YouTube channel was created on 25 March. She made her debut on 13 April although she had appeared on the streams of other members before her debut, the first being on Oozora Subaru's channel on 7 April.

2019
On 10 September she announced on her Twitter that she would be getting her 3D model, later on 14 September she debuted her 3D model during a stream.

On 26 December she published on Twitter that she would get her second 2D costume. This costume was later revealed that day during a stream, and features a mostly brown dress with a ribbon and a hat.

2020
On 1 January, she debuted her third 2D costume, a kimono in celebration of the new year. The outfit also comes with a ridiculous kadomatsu-shaped hat, with three bamboo stems that can bob up and down.

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 1 November, Korone became the second hololive member to reach 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers and the first one of the Japanese branch to do so. She is also the first member of hololive GAMERS to reach it.

2021
On 13 April Korone debuted her first original song "SAIKYO TENSAI WONDERFUL WORLD of KORONE."

On 10 May, she reached 1,500,000 YouTube subscribers.

On 12 July, Korone announced on her Twitter account that she would get her fourth 2D costume.

On 14 July, she revealed her fourth 2D costume new along with Okayu. In this costume Korone got a new hairstyle, featuring an almost clear forehead thanks to the use of a pink diadem, her clothes consist of a pink jacket with a white hat shaped like a dog drawn in Korone's style that she can wear optionally, a shocker with a decorative finger, a black t-shirt decorated with illustrations of fingers (Yubi), her mascot Hosoinu among others, in this costume she wears denim shorts and a pair of slippers with Okayu's symbol.

Events

 * On 28 January 2020, it was announced on Dengekionline that she would made an appearance in the game Neptunia Virtual Stars as one of the VTuber guest characters alongside Tokino Sora, Roboco, Sakura Miko, Shirakami Fubuki, Minato Aqua, Yuzuki Choco, Shirogane Noel and Houshou Marine.
 * On 3 July 2020, Korone announced on her Twitter account that she would appear in a collaboration with CyberStep's online crane game Toreba, where cushions with her image can be obtained, available until units run out.
 * On 17 February 2021, Rakugaki Kingdom's Twitter account announced that Korone alongside Fubuki, Shion, Marine, and Okayu would appear in the mobile RPG game by mid March. In addition to this Korone also designed a monster for the crossover event.

Mascot and Fans

 * Her fanbase is officially called "Koronesuki" (ころねすきー) and is represented on screen as Listener-kun, sometimes with Hosoinu her dog mascot.
 * Japanese fans often donate 563 yen. This is goroawase, or a number-based pun, read as "Koro-san". Although Korone didn't pick up on the pun until April 2021 when she was reading super chats after a Dragon Quest stream.

Quotes

 * "Yubi yubi!"
 * "I am Volkswagon."
 * "I am Mercedes-Benz. OK?"
 * ”I am Elvis Presley. Oh no!”
 * ”Falcon Punch!”
 * "Water in the fire WHY?!"
 * "Have confidence! ... No confidence!"
 * "I'm die. Thank you forever."
 * "Pi-pe!"
 * "Orayo."
 * ”Hey guys!”
 * ”Wowowowow!”
 * ”X-Potato!”
 * "I am justice!"
 * “I am God Dog.”
 * ”No no no! Three brothers!”
 * ”Amazing Spider-Man!”

Trivia

 * "Korone" resembles the Japanese word for "chocolate cornet", a type of sweet bread from Japan, which plays with the fact that she works in a bakery.
 * Korone's surname "Inugami", roughly translated as "Dog God" or "Dog Spirit", is a spiritual possession by the spirit of a dog, widely known about in western Japan.
 * She has cited on several occasions that her specific breed is the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. This was also backed with her original song "ころねの最凶天災☆わんだふぉー❤わーるど" where she mentions her breed type.
 * During her introduction, her height was incorrectly listed as 156 m instead of 156 cm. This has caused her fans to joke about her being a giantess whenever her image is portrayed especially bigger compared to other VTubers in the same video.
 * Korone has some knowledge of English (as seen in one of her tweets). Korone is also noted by fans as one of the Japanese-speaking VTubers who's made the most effort to reach out to their English speaking audience, using Google Translate whenever she's at a loss for vocabulary or pronunciation. She treats these interactions as a fun way to gradually learn more English.
 * Korone has inspired the term "Bonking" within the hololive community. This came after she was playing around with her PNG props and used her mouse cursor, holding a mallet, to bonk Listener-kun and the chat for fun.
 * Occasionally during Korone's streams, the screen mirroring software she uses to do live streams (named "AirServer") glitches or times out, causing her model to turn into a giant AirServer icon.
 * She has mentioned on stream that her accent comes from a combination of her grandmother's Kansai dialect and an unknown dialect of her parents that has not been revealed. She is working on changing it into a more common one.
 * Her accent seems to differ most notably from the inflections of syllables. For example, she pronounces 皆 as MIIN-na rather than the more typical min-NAA.
 * Korone is capable of martial arts, with her fighting style of choice being boxing. This has led many fans to joke that they should never get on Korone's bad side, especially after she punched her chat (Listener-kun) in the face for obnoxious backseating during one of her Super Mario World streams. But most fans don't heed these warnings, resulting in Korone releasing a short video of Listener-kun being battered and bruised by her while pretending to be a sweetheart after the Koronesukis voted her as the one giving them the hardest time for tossing a dirty rag on their face in a S.M.O.K. collab (in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, of course).
 * She was the monster designer for the upcoming Rakugaki Kingdom × hololive event. In said event, she made a monster version of Hosoinu. She created the monster for the game in secret due to a collab ban surrounding hololive at the time.
 * Fans have noted that Korone's personality has changed noticeably over time. In many of her earlier streams, and especially in collaborations, she was quieter and more reserved. However, as time passed, she developed more of the open, friendly and energetic personality she is now known for. Korone herself has acknowledged this, and credits hololive's helpful and friendly atmosphere, in particular her close friendship with Okayu.
 * According to Kiryu Coco, her daily schedule suggests that she only sleeps about 2-3 hours a day in between working at the bakery and streaming. Fans have expressed concern over her health.
 * She shares the same character designer with Civia of hololive China and Shellin Burgundy from Nijisanji.
 * Korone has a notable interest in American popular culture. She is a fan of South Park, Steven Spielberg movies (especially Jurassic Park), Phineas & Ferb, Gravity Falls, Michael Jackson's music, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
 * When her background was updated to feel like "her room", other bits of Americana were shown, such as a oversized baseball and a Blue-ray shelf filled with movies, with Child's Play and The Mask being displayed on stands as collector's items.
 * There was an Easter egg in Doom Eternal's DLC "The Ancient Gods: Part 1" that referenced Korone: pressing the dedicated Chainsaw button four times while on the rune slot screen would make a "DOOG Eternal" logo pop-up, a nod to Korone's avid use of the Chainsaw while playing Doom 64 and Doom 2016. Unfortunately, it was removed by id Software in the 3.1 Patch Update, likely due to the "DooG" logo being copyrighted by Cover corp. and hololive Production, thus presenting a legal risk.
 * She and Amane Kanata are avid baseball fans and have attended games together. Korone also has baseball games on her tablet, as seen when her game crashed and revealed the menu. In another situation where her phone leaked her app history, she is shown to have a baseball app for the upcoming baseball games.
 * During the credit-scroll of Korone's stream of Blasphemous, the topic of conversation turned to Expósito; one of the game's most memorable bosses. Wanting to know how to properly pronounce the name using Google Translate, Korone mistakenly pronounced it as "X-Potato". This instance took off and became a widely repeated meme among her fanbase, with the term "X-Potato" sometimes used as a stand-in label for Korone's viewers.
 * Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the YouTube AI began automatically placing the "Get the latest information from the CDC about COVID-19" tab on all of Korone's videos, regardless of their topic or context. This even extended to edited and translated clips from her streams uploaded by other YouTubers. It has been speculated to be due to an error in YouTube's AI resulting from Korone's name being similar to the spelling of "Corona" in several different languages.
 * Also because of the pandemic, YouTube began pushing more of its moderation work onto AI instead. The YouTube AI began abruptly ending and deleting streams of many VTubers (even without violation of YouTube's Community Guidelines). Korone began posting many positive comments about her love for YouTube in her stream descriptions in an attempt to prevent this for happening. She stopped doing this after her Plug & Play stream.
 * Because of the "Korone Virus" incident, some fans have started to adopt this into their usernames for other VTubers to show their support or who their favorite is by replacing Korone's name with another.
 * She is the most frequent target of "Eating Mike Tyson's Ass", a user who donates to various English-illiterate VTubers to prank them into reading his name. Due to the many, MANY successful attempts especially within the realms of hololive, he's considered a legend by many though Korone has since smartened up to his antics by twisting his name to her own liking on stream.
 * On 28 August 2020, YouTuber 2ManySnacks posted Eekum Bokum, an animation of Korone saying the phrase of the same name, which eventually led to the phrase becoming a meme. She said this phrase in a livestream from 25 August 2020, in which she, seemingly amused by the phrase, would repeat it whenever it played in Banjo-Kazooie, a 1998 video game originally released for the Nintendo 64, which she was playing in the livestream. The sound is played upon collecting a Mumbo Token.
 * On 19 September 2020, 2ManySnacks posted NomNomNom, another animation of Korone, this time featuring various voice clips from her second Banjo-Kazooie livestream. This animation also features the phrase "Eekum Bokum". The animation has also seen a sizable amount of edits, and could be considered a meme in its own right.
 * She likely has an intense fear of worms, or certain types of bugs, as suggested in a part of her Metal Slug 3 stream.
 * Her search history was leaked accidentally but Korone got permission to stream it later, it contained: Pentatonix, The Rocky Horror Show, top 16 torture methods, slow execution methods and Cut Wound Ouch.
 * As of 1 November 2020, Inugami Korone is the second hololive VTuber to reach 1 million subscribers, the first being Gawr Gura.

Media

 * Korone Ch. 戌神ころね - YouTube channel
 * Inugami Korone's corporate profile on hololive.tv (EN)
 * Inugami Korone's corporate profile on hololive.tv (JP)
 * @inugamikorone - Twitter account
 * 戌神沁音Official - bilibili channel

Twitter hashtags

 * #戌神ころね - General
 * #生神もんざえもん - Stream talk
 * #ころねすきー, #ごまキング - Fans
 * #できたてころね - Fan art
 * #ちょこっところね - Video clips
 * #戌神ころねMMD - MMD

Further Readings

 * 戌神ころね - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * 戌神ころね - Nicovideo Encyclopedia
 * 戌神ころね - Japanese Wikipedia
 * 戌神ころね - unofficial hololive Seesaawiki
 * 戌神沁音 - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * 이누가미 코로네 - Namu Wiki