Nanashi Mumei

Nanashi Mumei 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
Mumei is a cheerful, gentle girl who is soft-spoken and somewhat innocent, especially when compared to her peers. She's somewhat scatterbrained, and has a tendency to forget things easily.

Mumei is shy and can be nervous during streams. However, she can be rather emotive, and is known for her hearty wheezing laugh, which is often heard due to her tendency to laugh at nearly anything. She often vocalizes and hums randomly, which has been compared to bird chirps or "birb noises".

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.

Appearance
Nanashi Mumei has golden-brown eyes and long, 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 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 23 August at 6:30 AM JST (21 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 algorithm.

On 5 September, her 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.

Mascots and Fans

 * Her fanbase is officially named "Hoomans," a portmanteau of "hoo," a sound that owls make, and "humans."
 * Her mascot is a paper bag. It has no name, because she is afraid she might forget his name. She simply refers to it as "my friend," because she will never forget that he is her friend.
 * Her channel's members are named "Owl Pals."

Quotes

 * "Civilization is proof of humankind's footsteps. We cannot advance simply by building. Never forget who you really are."
 * "thank you. you have given me a purpose. i am eternally grateful. :)"
 * "a time... will come... in time..."

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 recieving. 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, pop punk, JPop and Vocaloid.
 * 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.

Friend

 * Mumei is accompanied by a paper bag "friend" of her own creation. Its emotions mirror her own.
 * Like Nanashi Mumei herself, whose names both mean "nameless," the paper bag friend has no name. Mumei never gave him a name, because she would be upset with herself if she ever forgot his name. She refers to him as "friend" because while she might forget his name, she will never forget that he is her friend.
 * 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 the word written uses 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).
 * 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."
 * Mumei's 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 approprite 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.
 * The use of paper and ancient writing is particularly appropriate to Mumei, whose task involves recording the history of civilization in writing.

Miscellaneous

 * Mumei's birthday, 4 August, is International Owl Awareness Day.
 * The Egyptian hieroglyphs which line Mumei's cape appear to spell out 𓇋𓂋𓄿 𓃭𓅱𓎡𓌟𓅱𓂋𓇋𓄿 𓎼𓅱𓃭𓄿 𓄿𓋴𓇋𓂧𓇋𓄿 𓋴𓅱𓊪𓇋𓂋𓃀𓇋𓄿 𓄿𓆑𓄿𓂋𓇋𓏏𓇋𓄿 𓇋𓈖𓆑𓇋𓂧𓇋𓄿, 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 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.
 * 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 the peaks of civilization.
 * Mumei shares her Live2D modeller 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.

Media

 * Nanashi Mumei Ch. hololive-EN - YouTube channel
 * Nanashi Mumei's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com (EN)
 * Nanashi Mumei's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com (JP)
 * 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