Hikakin

YouTube informationChannelsYears active2006–presentGenresSubscribersTotal viewsNetworkUUUMAssociated acts

Creator Awards
	100,000 subscribers	2014
	1,000,000 subscribers	2014
	10,000,000 subscribers	2021

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Last updated: September 27, 2023

Hikaru Kaihatsu (開發 光, Kaihatsu Hikaru, born April 21, 1989), professionally known as Hikakin (Japanese: ヒカキン), is a Japanese YouTuber and businessman who is the co-founder of UUUM,^[2] a Japanese multi-channel network. A video of his Super Mario Bros. beatbox went viral in 2010, reaching over 3.8 million views by mid-September of that year.^[3][4] He, alongside fellow Japanese YouTuber Megwin, quit their day jobs in 2012 to focus entirely on their channels.^[5][6] He also collaborated with Gille, appearing in her promotions for her single "Try Again", where it is stated that he is one of the most popular Japanese YouTubers.^[7]

Early life

He was born on April 21, 1989 in Myoko Kogen-machi, Nakakubi-gun, Niigata Prefecture (now Myoko City, Niigata Prefecture) as the second son.^[3] His older brother (eldest son) is also a YouTuber, Seikin, and as a child he was an unusual boy in the corner of the classroom.^[8] Growing up in the snowy Joetsu region, his dream as an elementary school student was "to compete in the Olympics in ski jumping," and he continued ski jumping until high school.^[3] When he was in elementary school, he participated in the "Hamonepu League," a corner of the variety show "Riki no Dinchi Gogo Gogo! a variety show that aired on Fuji Television network at the time, he developed an interest in human beat box.^[3]

He attended Myoko Kogen Minami Elementary School (later Myoko City), Myoko Junior High School (currently Myoko City Myoko Junior High School), and then Niigata Prefectural Arai High School. Then, in March he graduated from Niigata Prefectural Arai High School and moved to Tokyo. Many of the supermarkets in Tokyo were from Niigata Prefecture, and they made a living by working at Yoshiike, which happened to have a job offer for their high school.^[9] Furthermore, since he did not have his own bank account at the time, he had no savings and moved to Tokyo with only 20,000 yen given to him by his parents. The supermarket where he worked had a dormitory for employees, and the rent was deducted from his monthly salary, so he didn't have to worry about finding a place to live.^[10]

Career

2006-2008: Opening a YouTube channel

He opened his own official channel "HIKAKIN" on YouTube in December 2006. He originally started the service to watch videos of overseas beatboxers, but he thought that if he posted his own videos, people would watch them, so he started posting videos. He started posting videos soon after opening the site, but since he deleted it himself, very few videos from that time remain. The oldest extant video is a beatbox he filmed in his home bathroom in 2007 (he was a high school senior at the time). In 2015, a remake version of this beatbox video, "2015 ver.'', was posted, which was shot in the same environment and clothing as at the time. Since then, I've been recording a number of beatbox videos using a cheap microphone in the bathroom of the company dormitory or in my room at night, carefully selecting the ones that I thought were good, and uploading one or two videos a month.

He once applied to become a YouTube partner (a system for earning advertising revenue), but was rejected at the time. After that incident, he began to think, "I'll do it so that I can get offers from the YouTube side," and began to make videos from the viewer's point of view.^[11] Although nothing major happened for about two years after his arrival in Tokyo, the number of views gradually increased, and the most popular video at the time had about 200,000 views. At the time, YouTube was still not well known in Japan, and most of the views were from overseas, with only about 10-20% coming from Japan.

2009-2014: Rise to Fame

In 2010, he uploaded "Super Mario Beatbox," a beatbox medley of background music from the "Super Mario Bros". This video recorded the No. 1 access on YouTube for the month in Japan and was featured in the top news story of "CBS News" in the United States.^[12] After recording 200,000 hits 24 hours after uploading the video and 1 million hits a week later, Hikakin received an offer from YouTube to become a YouTube partner,^[11] He said that he thought, "I have YouTube even when customers get angry at me in the supermarket or my boss gets sarcastic with me. Furthermore, he was selected as one of the top 500 best YouTube partners in the world in 2010^[13] and won the "WOW Star Project 2010" and was invited to Las Vegas.^[14] These events led to a gradual increase in requests to perform live and on TV shows as a performer.

In June 2011, the YouTube Partner Forum was held in Japan. At the time, he did not even have the idea of posting videos for a living, but meeting American YouTuber Michelle Phan at this event and being impressed by her speech was a turning point, and he began posting videos in earnest.^[15] Later, an opportunity presented itself when a contest called "YouTube NextUp 2011" was held, with 10 winners and a prize of 2 million yen. At the time, he had the largest number of channel subscribers in Japan, and people around him thought he would be accepted. He entered the contest with the confidence that he could quit his job and concentrate on YouTube, but he was not selected. After this humiliating setback, he sought advice from Tomohiro Sato, who works as an advisor to YouTubers. There, he received a handbook outlining the basics of video creation and lots of individual advice. On his own, he studied videos by top creators in Japan and abroad, and imitated their editing skills, such as titles and thumbnails. After about three months of doing so, he realized that his income from YouTube exceeded his company employee's salary.^[16]

In December 2012, Hikakin released his first album, a collaboration with video game music composer Hideki Sakamoto, for the soundtrack of the Echannel drawing application of the PlayStation Vita. In May 2013, Hikakin participated in the Social Star Awards and the subsequent Singapore Social concerts, performing with Aerosmith during their stage set and beatboxing before performing with the band on "Walk This Way".

In February 2014, Hikakin did a collaboration beatbox video with American singer Ariana Grande, beatboxing to her song "Baby I."

In October 2014, Hikakin was one of the performers for the first YouTube FanFest in Tokyo, Japan. At the same YouTube FanFest, Japanese breakbeat music duo Hifana performed with their instruments and using Hikakin's beatbox broken down into several parts, they created a new combination of his beatboxing and their instruments.

In December 2014, Hikakin went to New York City to do another collaboration video with Ariana Grande, doing a beatbox of that song, while she was singing "Break Free." In the same month, Hikakin uploaded a beatbox video that featured American singer Ne-Yo. They performed Ne-Yo's song "Coming with You" and his famous 2007 hit "Because of You."

2015-present: Mainstream success

On December 22, 2017, he became the first YouTuber to appear on Music Station Super Live.^[17] On May 12, he collaborated with members of SMAP on Fuji Television's SMAPxSMAP.^[18]

On December 8, 2020, it was ranked No. 1 in the "Domestic Annual Top Trending Ranking" announced by YouTube official.^[19]

On April 8, 2021, the number of subscribers to his YouTube channel exceeded 9 million.^[20] He personally took the lead in calling for people to refrain from living with the new coronavirus in 2020, and to wear masks.^[21] He also had an online conversation with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, asking her questions about coronary measures and other issues.^[22]

At 12:11 on September 10, 2021, the number of subscribers to his YouTube channel "HikakinTV" surpassed 10 million. On the day of the event, he made a live broadcast, and at the moment he reached the milestone, he was so moved that he cried.^[23]

The 10 million live record includes 130,000 more channel subscribers in about 10 minutes, 160,000 simultaneous connections, about 7.5 million views in the first five days of video release, and a total superchat amount of $3 million raised in about 10 minutes, ranking the channel number one worldwide in YouTube's superchat rankings for channels worldwide.

YouTube content

Bunbun Hello YouTube! Hello, I'm HIKAKIN.

— Hikakin

We have opened 5 channels on YouTube, and as of April 2023, the total number of subscribers for all channels is approximately 20 million, the total number of views has reached approximately 18 billion, and we are ranked 6th in Japan. The "Bunbun'' in his video greeting, "Bunbun Hello YouTube! Hello, I'm HIKAKIN," is a nod to the American beatboxer Rahzel. He says that his fan base is mainly elementary and junior high school students, and he wants to create content that the whole family can watch while having a meal.^[24] The origin of the name HIKAKIN is that his senior ski jumper from 3rd grade to 3rd year of high school started calling him Hikakin, a twist of his real name.^[25] He asked his senior why he was called "Kin'', but he was not told, so the meaning remains unclear. When he was in junior high school, he posted beatboxing sounds on bulletin boards under the name HIKAKIN, and the name gradually spread, so it stuck.^[26]

Reception

As of 2024, there have been no major scandals and social trust is extremely high.^[27] Many of his videos are moderate, and there are extremely few scandals. He is also known as "Flameless'', and when the scandals of other popular YouTubers are reported, his relative reputation increases and he is even called a "saint''.^[28] Even if he did get flamed, most of it was minor, and on the contrary, the voices of his defense were louder.^[29] In addition, in 2015 and 2020, false rumors were spread by viewers and caused a stir, and Hikakin posted two videos at the time to clear up misunderstandings.

On the other hand, in a live commentary video of Apex Legends that was uploaded on July 12, 2022, he repeatedly yelled abusive words at an ally player on the same team, and in the comments section, he exposed the player's name and said, "If you find this annoying, please press the good button.'' As a result of the post, he was flooded with criticism on social media and became a hot topic. On the 19th of the same month, he deleted the aforementioned comment and apologized in the comments section. On August 13, he called her directly in a video to apologize and report that they had reconciled.^[30] At first, he expected that the comment section of the video would be filled with criticism of the other party, but in reality, he himself was criticized, and he apologized, saying, "It was all my fault.''

According to Noko, the frontman of Shinsei Kamattechan, who is an old friend, he describes his personality as "There is no other person who is so open-minded.'' He is kind to everyone from an ordinary person's point of view, and doesn't care about profit or loss. He says he is a person who can take action. The first time I met him was at a party hosted by Takafumi Horie in 2013, and when he told me that his goal at the time was "I want to exceed the number of subscribers on a corporate channel,'' he said, "Normally, if I were to see him as a rival, I wouldn't have to be an individual.'' "Isn't it? It's amazing that the other party was a company."^[31] Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2ch, said during the 2021 banquet scandal involving multiple YouTubers, "I've been saying from time to time that "personality'' is what is needed to do well on YouTube in the long term, but it is important to properly handle situations like this. It's amazing how Hikakin is avoiding him...''^[32]

Takafumi Horie describes his impression of Hikakin as "an ordinary child." He also said, "There aren't many people who are popular on the internet who are very pushy, and even though they weren't really outstanding during their school days, they're just average people. So it's just as I expected."^[33]

Personal life

In July 2018, she adopted a male Scottish Fold cat, "Maruo,'' and in September, she adopted Maruo's brother, "Mofuko.'' She has always liked cats since she was a child, and she had been thinking about getting one for a year.^[34]

On January 1, 2024, Hikakin announced his marriage on his channel.^[35] His brother Seikin, born 30 July 1987 is also a YouTuber with more than 4.6 million subscribers.^[36]

Publications

Single author

• My work is YouTube (僕の仕事はYouTube, Boku no shigoto wa YouTube) (July 19, 2013, Housewife and Lifesha) ISBN 978-4391143799
• How to make a YouTuber loved by 4 million people (400万人に愛されるYouTuberのつくり方, 400mannin ni aisareru YouTuber no tsukurikata) (October 30, 2014, Nikkei BP) ISBN 978-4822220792

See Also

• The Great Yokai War: Guardians - a 2021 film in which Hikakin appeared as the yōkai named "Yōtuber Hikakin".^[37]

References