Aqua Ch. 湊あくあ

      

“	A-quality day to one and all! I'm Minato Aqua!	”
―Minato Aqua

Aqua Minato (湊あくあ) (birthday: December 1) was a Japanese VTuber associated with Hololive,^{[citation needed]} as part of its second generation of VTubers alongside Shion Murasaki, Ayame Nakiri, Choco Yuzuki, and Subaru Oozora.^{[citation needed]}

Content

Aqua debuted on August 8, 2018, and her next streams were of her playing Minecraft. She has also streamed Super Mario Party, Mario Kart Deluxe, ARK Knights, Little Witch Nobita, Cat Mario, Minecraft, NieR:Automata, Biohazard, Resident Evil Village, Monster Hunter Rise, Penguin, Super Smash Bros., Cooking Simulator, Papers, please, Visage, Plug & Play, Super Mario Maker 2, Dark Deception, The Legend of Zelda, Jump King, Slither.io, PIEN, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, D4DJ and is extremely skilled at APEX Legends, Sekiro, Dark Souls and League of Legends.^{[citation needed]}

On August 21, 2020, she held her solo concert Minato Aqua Anniversary Live 2020 AQUA IRO SUPER☆DREAM on Niconico and bilibili streams, where she also released her first original song Aqua Colour Palette.^{[citation needed]}

Prior to this, she had been singing for months, with her first song cover being released on Valentines Day 2019. She has also covered Gabriel Dropkick, One Room Sugar Life, Ochame Kinou, Turing Love and Dadadada Tenshi. She also likes to host karaoke streams, and some of her karaoke streams are of anime songs-only.^{[citation needed]}

She is also a huge anime/manga fan, and streamed herself reacting to Gleipnir and Welcome to the Classroom of the Elite. However on December 2, 2021, she streamed herself and Botan reacting to Arcane, a Western cartoon animated by French and American studios based on the lore of the League of Legends series, citing the game as one of favorite.

She hit the 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers milestone during a singing stream.^{[citation needed]}

Retirement

On August 6, 2024, it was announced that Aqua would be leaving Hololive, citing creative differences as the reason. Many idols tried to talk her out of it but she had made up her mind.

Collaborations

While streaming, she was prone to throwing tantrums if things weren't going the way she wished, hyperventilating, smashing her keyboard and playing pranks on others, though she is often on the receiving end herself. This has led to fans believing that she is a masochist, especially her tendency to ask fellow Hololive VTubers to bully her, especially Rushia. Like Pekora, she has her own construction company in Minecraft, Akukin Kensetsu, which is a rival company to Usada Kensetsu. Her second in command is Marine, and her third in command is Mio. Other Akukin Kensetsu employees include Lamy, Nene, Choco, Aki, Iofi and Flare. In her early days in the Hololive Japan Minecraft server, she tried to overthrow Sora, but dropped the act once Sora confronted her. She would also have a rivalry with Shion, but this has mellowed down and nowadays the two tend to bicker as if they are a married couple. She has played Clubhouse 51 with Marine, Kanata and Shion.

Sometimes she will collab with VTubers out of Hololive, having played Dead by Daylight with Kurama Tsumugi.^{[citation needed]}

She ended up crying tears of frustration during the 2021 Hololive Mario Kart 8 Deluxe collaboration due to almost winning the Winner's bracket, only for Fubuki to defeat her in the last race. However Suisei ended up winning.^{[citation needed]}

In a Minecraft stream Gura accidentally murdered Aqua out of excitement upon seeing her for the first time in-server, as Aqua was the one who pulled her down the VTuber rabbit hole. On September 14, 2021, during a Super Mario Party collab where Gura was the host, Hololive announced that Marine, Aqua, Gura and Ina'nis would form a new unit "UMISEA", due to their shared oceanic themes, and several videos and streams featuring the unit would be released throughout the month.^{[citation needed]}

Design

Her illustrator is Gaou, who also designed Mochizuki Himari (For "Unicreate") and Hourei Tenten (For disbanded trio "Melty+"). Her first modeler is rariemonn, her second Live2D modeler is 入江燈 and her second anniversary dress was designed by schwarz.^{[citation needed]}

• • She has actually stated she is uncomfortable with how her artist designs her breasts, so he toned it down.^{[citation needed]}

Lore

"A-quality day to one and all! I'm Minato Aqua!" A marine maid-styled virtual maid. She is trying her very best, yet is still sometimes awkward and clumsy.^{[citation needed]}

Other

• When Shion asked why Aqua was bad at cooking and cleaning if she was supposed to be a maid, Aqua retorted that she was a "gaming maid"^{[citation needed]}

Discography

2020

#AquaIroPalette

Release date: August 22, 2020

Songs
"#AquaIroPalette" (#あくあ色ぱれっと)
"#AquaIroPalette" (instrumental)

Kirameki Rider☆

Release date: February 24, 2020

Songs
"Kirameki Rider☆"
"Kirameki Rider☆" (instrumental)

Bouqet

Release date: December 7, 2020

Songs	Disc 1
Dreaming Days (Bouquet ver.)"
"BLUE CLAPPER (Bouquet ver.)"
"Shijosugi Adtruck (Bouquet ver.)" (至上主義アドトラック, Ad Truck of Supremacy)
"STARDUST SONG (Bouquet ver.)"
"Hya-kka Ryoran Hanafubuki (Bouquet ver.)" (百花繚乱花吹雪, Blooming Blossoms Fill the Air)
"Daily Diary (Bouquet ver.)" (でいり～だいあり～！)
"Halloween Night, Tonight! (Bouquet ver.)" (今宵はHalloween Night!, Koyoi wa Halloween Night!)
"Suspect (Bouquet ver.)"
"Candy-Go-Round (Bouquet ver.)"
"AsuiroClearSky (Bouquet ver.)" (あすいろClearSky)
"Precious Photographs (Bouquet ver.)" (大切フォトグラフ, Taisetsu Fotogurafu)

Songs	Disc 2 (digital bonus)
Dreaming Days (Bouquet ver.)"
"Shiny Smily Story (Bouquet ver.)"
"Yumemiru Sora He (Bouquet ver.)" (夢見る空へ)
"Kirameki Rider☆ (Bouquet ver.)" (キラメキライダー☆)

Hacha-Mecha Miracle

Release date: 18th December 2020

Curry Love with Minato Aqua and Oozora Subaru

Songs
"Hacha-Mecha Miracle" (Hacha-Mecha ミラクル)
"Hacha-Mecha Miracle" (instrumental)

2021

Candy-Go-Round

Release date: January 13, 2021

Songs
"Candy-Go-Round" (ヒロインオーディション)
"Candy-Go-Round" (instrumental)

AsuiroClearSky

Release date: February 18, 2021

Songs
"AsuiroClearSky" (あすいろClearSky)
"AsuiroClearSky" (instrumental)

Domination! All the World Is an Ocean

Release date: September 19, 2021

Songs
"Domination! All the World Is an Ocean" (浸食!! 地球全域全おーしゃん, Shinshoku!! Chikyū Zeniki Zen Ocean)
"Domination! All the World Is an Ocean" (instrumental)

It Comes Ryuuu And It goes Kyuuu

Release date: August 29, 2022

Songs
"It Comes Ryuuu And It goes Kyuuu" (りゅーーっときてきゅーーっ!!!)
"It Comes Ryuuu And It goes Kyuuu" (instrumental)

Partnerships

For V-Ani 2019, Aqua was one of the four VTubers who collaborated with the Kakegurui manga (the others being Aoi Fuji, Kaede Higuchi and YuNi), and illustrations were released of them and the characters swapping outfits. She appeared in the games Dawn of the Breakers, Neptunia Virtual Stars, Last Idea and Azur Lane. .

She has also collaborated with D4DJ, Red Bull and Curry Week Live. On November 28, 2022, Smile Base Cafe announced a collaboration with Gura, Ina'nis, Marine, Aqua, Botan, Suisei, Mio, Pekora, Watame, Sora, Mel and Subaru.

Twitter hashtags

• 湊あくあ - General
• #湊あくあ生放送 - Stream talk
• #あくあクルー - Fans
• #あくあーと - Fan art
• #切り抜きあくたん - Video clips
• #湊あくあMMD - MMD

Fandom

Aqua's fans are called the Aqua Crew.^{[citation needed]}

In-jokes/memes

• In one of Aqua's Ring Fit Adventure stream, she accidentally leaked her mom's name (Kumiko). Since then Aqua and the Aqua Crew mention it casually. She also revealed her weight to be 44.5kg, which many fans have lampooned, and she even brought it up in her 445,000 subscriber special.^{[citation needed]}
• Amelia nicknames her "Vegetable-senpai". She is nicknamed "Onion" because of her hair, nicknamed "Sololive" as she often plays alone and "Baqua" (a pun on her name and Baka). Her other nicknames include Akutan, Dai Tenshi Aqua and Aqua Maji-Tenshi.^{[citation needed]}
• Despite being a "Baqua", she has moments of being smart, which have been dubbed as "5000 IQ moments" because she once said her IQ was 5000.^{[citation needed]}

Trivia

• According to her HoloTalk episode, Aqua's daily routine consists of sleeping through the morning and she usually wakes up at noon. She then plays games for the rest of the day.^{[citation needed]}
• In Super Smash Brothers, her mains are Lucina, Joker and Cloud.^{[citation needed]}
• She got a 1 in Choco's quiz.^{[citation needed]}
• She is 4'10 (158cm)^{[citation needed]}
• Her favorite animes are Yosuga no Sora and Lovelive!.^{[citation needed]}
  • She likes reading light novels, but has difficulty reading them, and instead prefers reading manga.^{[citation needed]}
• One of her "pranks" is faking retirement (she has done this several times).^{[citation needed]}
• Like Marine, her aesthetic is sea-based, but while Marine is based on a pirate, Aqua is based on a marine maid.^{[citation needed]}
• When Aqua and her fellow genmates met in real life by going out to dinner, they noted that Aqua was extremely shy to speak to anyone. Aqua is also so shy that she can't go to a doctor's appointment without her mother.^{[citation needed]}
• She is a big fan of Sword Art Online and once tweeted herself in Kirito's outfit. This prompted a reply and a follow from the Sword Art Online light novels' author Reki Kawahara.
  • She has also stated that Asuna from the series is her ideal wife.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2021, Aqua was chosen, along with Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII from as a character to be crafted into a bust and placed at the examination site of Kyoto University and have various offerings placed in front of her, as per school tradition. The offerings Aqua received included 1,000 Yen, a bottled water, rice balls and a discounted purple onion.

Gallery

• Original model
• Second outfit
• Third outfit
• Other outfits
• 3D model
• Art from Illustrator
• Animated gifs
• Partnerships
• Albums

Portrait

Full body shot

Headshot

[Full body shot]

Headshot

Full body shot

Full body shot

Headshot

Headshot

Headshot

Alt outfit

Alt outfit

Alt outfit

Hololive 1st fes. 2nd Gen and Gamers Concept Illustration.jpg

hololive 2nd fes. Beyond the Stage Illustrations

Headshot

3D model

Full body shot

Second anniversary celebration illustration

Drawn by her character designer, Gaou, to celebrate 600,000 subscribers

Drawn by character designer Gaou

[Drawn by character designer Gaou]

Drawn by character designer

Drawn by character designer

Drawn by character designer

Drawn by character designer

Loading screen

In Dawn of the Breakers

In Last Idea

In Dawn of the Breakers

In Azur Lane

In Azur Lane

In Azur Lane

In Azur Lane

In Azur Lane

In Azur Lane

In Azur Lane

In Neptunia Virtual Stars

Hololive's collaboration with Curry Week Live. Left to right: Minato Aqua, Oozora Subaru and Usada Pekora

D4DJ X Hololive collaboration

Aqua with Marine, Okayu & Suisei From LAWSON

Minato Aqua figurine advertisement

Minato Aqua figurine advertisement

Minato Aqua figurine advertisement

Minato Aqua figurine

Minato Aqua figurine

Aqua, YuNi, Kaede, and Aoi in Midari, Yumeko, Kirari, and Mary's costumes (From V-Ani 2019 and Kakegurui×× Collaboration)

Midari, Yumeko, Kirari, and Mary in Aqua, YuNi, Kaede, and Aoi's costumes (From V-Ani 2019 and Kakegurui×× Collaboration)

Minato Aqua: Aqua Iro Super Dream Ver. 1/7 Scale Figure

Pop Up Parade Minato Aqua

#Hololive If -Relax Time- Minato Aqua Non-Scale Figure

Akai Haato and Minato Aqua figurine

Nendoroid Minato Aqua

Solo

#AquaColorPalette

Fake.Fake.Fake

Collaboration

Kirameki Rider☆

AsuiroClearSky

Hacha-Mecha Miracle

Bouqet

Candy-go-round

Domination! All the World Is an Ocean

It Comes Ryuuu And It goes Kyuuu