| “ | HikakinTV, every day! | ” |
―HikakinTV's intro song | ||
| “ | ブンブンハローYouTubeどうもヒカキンです
Bzz bzz, hello YouTube, this is Hikakin. |
” |
―HikakinTV's intro greeting | ||
Hikaru Kaihatsu (Japanese: 開發光; born: April 21, 1989), better known online as HIKAKIN (Japanese: ヒカキン), is a Japanese YouTuber, beatboxer, and the co-founder of UUUM; a Japanese multi-channel network. He is known for being one of the most famous YouTubers in Japan.
He gained respect for being kind to everyone, and having little controversy, despite being extremely popular. He tries to make his contents child friendly, so the family can watch his videos together.
His brother, Seiya Kaihatsu, also is a popular YouTuber in Japan, under the name of SEIKIN. They often collaborate, and they've even made songs together.
Personal life[]
HIKAKIN was born on April 21, 1989, in Myoko City, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. He later moved to Tokyo, after graduating the high school.
Since there was much snow in Niigata, he used to want to become a ski jumper and participate in the Olympics. He was into ski jumping until he was in high school, and he even got the 8th place in a Japanese ski competition.[1]
He used to work at a supermarket in Tokyo, until he became a full-time YouTuber in 2012.[2]
He has two Scottish fold cats called Maruo (male) and Mofuko (female). These two cats are siblings.
On January 1, 2024, HIKAKIN married a simple woman in her thirties. After a ten-day countdown, when Japanese clocks struck midnight, a celebratory video of him announcing the marriage 100 times was premiered.[3] Exactly seven months later, the pair announced the birth of a girl.[4] HIKAKIN became a father over 6 years later than SEIKIN.
Channels[]
HikakinTV[]
Currently it's his main channel. It was originally made for vlogs, but nowadays, he mainly reviews various items. He also posts miscellaneous videos that don't belong to other channels there.
HikakinGames[]
On this channel, he posts gaming contents. He mainly focuses on Minecraft, Fortnite, and Ao Oni. He recently started to play Apex Legends, as of August 2021.
HIKAKIN[]
This is his first channel, which was originally his main channel. He posts beatbox videos here. Videos on this channels are intended to be watched by people all over the world, therefore there are comments in multiple languages. He collabed with some globally famous musicians, such as Ariana Grande or Aerosmith.
HikakinBlog[]
On this channel, he occasionally posts vlogs.
HikaruKaihatsu[]
This channel was originally the second channel for HIKAKIN. He posted some beatbox videos there, but he stopped using it in 2 months.
Career[]
When he was an elementary school student, he got interested in beatboxing, after watching beatbox on TV. He learned beatboxing by himself, while referring to beatbox videos on YouTube.[5] He opened his first YouTube channel called HIKAKIN on December 30, 2006. He originally used YouTube just to watch videos, but then he decided to post his beatbox, so he started his YouTube career in 2007.
He was originally leaned towards hip-hop side of beatbox, but he thought people would be more interested if he tried more popular music, so he adopted Super Mario BGM, AKB48 songs, and so on.[6] As a result of this change, in 2010, his video "Super Mario Beatbox" went viral, and it even got featured on the top of CBC News.[7] Thanks to it, he was offered to be a YouTube partner.[8]
He decided to become a full-time YouTuber in 2011, when he listened to Michelle Phan's speech in YouTube Partner Forum which was held in Japan. He successfully became one in 2012.
On June, 2013, he founded the YouTuber company UUUM with Kazuki Kamada.[9] It is now known for being the biggest YouTuber company in Japan.
Road to 10 million subscribers[]
His channel kept growing consistently since then, and it hit 9 million subscribers on April 8, 2021. He set 10 million subscribers as the next goal. When his HikakinTV channel marked the 10th anniversary, he announced that he is going to post 10 videos with extra effort, from August 1 to 20. It has an official playlist.[10] Additionally, he changed his intro animation to the one which he encourages himself to reach the goal and celebrates HikakinTV's 10th anniversary.
On the first video posted on August 1, he reenacted a viral meme music video ウ”ィ”エ” (English: VEAH), while adding his beatbox.
On the second video posted on August 3, he got his VTuber avatar, and collaborated with Kuzuha and Haru Shibuya. His avatar was drawn by Roaro Honda who also drew Kuzuha, and modeled by Live2D Creative Studio.
On the third video posted on August 5, he put all the intros he has ever made in one video.
On the fourth video posted on August 8, he collaborated with a popular Japanese idol Rino Sashihara and cooked 100 servings of fried rice, spending 1 million yen.
On the fifth video posted on August 10, he went to a luxury watch shop, and spent over 100 million yen on them.
On the sixth video posted on August 13, he prank-called a popular Japanese singer Ado to make her say a famous line in her most popular song "Usseewa".
On the seventh video posted on August 15, he had a beatbox game with his beaxbox YouTuber friend Daichi. They've posted beatbox games four times before, so it was the fifth time. The first beatbox game between them took place in 2012.[11]
On the eighth video posted on August 17, he invited a famous actress, fashon model, YouTuber, and game developer Tsubasa Honda to his home. They played together, including a mobile game Tsubasa created.
The tenth video, which concludes the wave, posted on August 20, was a music video for SEIKIn and his new song "FIRE".
On August 24, he announced that he's going to start a stream which would not end before hitting 10 million subscribers, when he comes 50 thousand subscribers away from the goal.[12] On September 10, the promised stream has started. The stream lasted for approximately only 20 minutes, since when he realized that he has to start the stream, the subscriber count was already skyrocketing. Income he received from superchats in this stream was donated to prevent medical collapse caused by COVID-19.[13]
Quotes[]
- "HikakinTV, everyday" (His intro song)
- "ブンブン、ハローYouTube (Hello YouTube!) どうもHIKAKINです (It's HIKAKIN)" (His intro greeting)
Trivia[]
- He made 2 videos about his Rewind appearances.
- When he was a ski jumper, once he has practiced with Sara Takanashi, who later became an Olympic medalist.[14]
- His family name 開發 (Kaihatsu) is extremely rare. There are approximately only 70 people with this family name.
- Since November 3, 2014,[15] almost all HikakinTV videos end with "Janken Time", where HIKAKIN shows rock, paper or scissors to the viewers. Exceptions apply for:
- Shorts videos;
- some live streams;
- and unmonetized videos with links to donations related to COVID-19 and natural disasters.
Subscriber milestones[]
HikakinTV[]
- 100,000 subscribers: November 8, 2011
- 1 million subscribers: April 10, 2014
- 2 million subscribers: March 2, 2015
- 3 million subscribers: April 23, 2016
- 4 million subscribers: April 5, 2017
- 5 million subscribers: August 26, 2017
- 6 million subscribers: May 7, 2018
- 7 million subscribers: February 4, 2019
- 8 million subscribers: March 3, 2020[16]
- 9 million subscribers: April 8, 2021
- 10 million subscribers: September 10, 2021
- 11 million subscribers: December 18, 2022
- 12 million subscribers: November 29, 2023
- 13 million subscribers: March 11, 2024
- 14 million subscribers: April 27, 2024
- 15 million subscribers: May 4, 2024
- 16 million subscribers: May 11, 2024
- 17 million subscribers: May 19, 2024
- 18 million subscribers: May 25, 2024
HikakinGames[]
- 100,000 subscribers: December 12, 2013
- 1 million subscribers: July 13, 2014
- 2 million subscribers: April 19, 2016[17]
- 3 million subscribers: August 3, 2017
- 4 million subscribers: December 6, 2018
- 5 million subscribers: February 3, 2021
- 6 million subscribers: February 15, 2024
HIKAKIN[]
- 100,000 subscribers: May 17, 2011
- 1 million subscribers: December 7, 2013
- 2 million subscribers: April 20, 2017
Video view milestones[]
HikakinTV[]
- 100 million views: March 4, 2013
- 1 billion views: April 11, 2015
- 2 billion views: April 5, 2016
- 3 billion views: March 6, 2017
- 4 billion views: November 15, 2017
- 5 billion views: August 26, 2017
- 6 billion views: May 7, 2018
- 7 billion views: February 4, 2019
- 8 billion views: February 14, 2021
- 9 billion views: November 4, 2021
- 10 billion views: August 16, 2022
- 11 billion views: June 20, 2023
- 12 billion views: January 5, 2024
HikakinGames[]
- 100 million views: March 29, 2014
- 1 billion views: March 3, 2016[18]
- 2 billion views: February 3, 2017
- 3 billion views: March 3, 2018
- 4 billion views: July, 2019
- 5 billion views: June, 2020
- 6 billion views: June, 2021
- 7 billion views: September, 2022
HIKAKIN[]
- 100 million views: February 6, 2012
HikakinBlog[]
- 100 million views: March 29, 2013
Discography[]
Single[]
- YouTubeテーマソング (2015, with SEIKIN)
- 雑草 (2017, with SEIKIN)
- 今 (2018, with SEIKIN)
- 夢 (2019, with SEIKIN)
- 光 (2021, with SEIKIN)
- FIRE (2021, with SEIKIN)
- コール (2024, with SEIKIN)
Album[]
- えちゃんねる SOUND CHANNEL (2012, with Hideki Sakamoto)
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://www.excite.co.jp/news/article/Otapol_201904_post_62123/
- ↑ https://getnews.jp/archives/1865126
- ↑ Simple = not a celebrity. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOzW1zieR7w
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icg7eV5XTCw
- ↑ https://www.joetsutj.com/articles/51734603
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20151211011834/https://www.wwdjapan.com/focus/interview/youtuber/2015-05-02/5664
- ↑ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-mario-beatbox-viral-video-hit/
- ↑ https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/188001?page=3
- ↑ https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/194684
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL617D-j_ZPXLdpOKn_wsy8J8c5P8Ts6g6
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COoKRYk-HWU
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLi7IC7OaBc
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRD_j5dbrYE
- ↑ https://www.sponichi.co.jp/entertainment/news/2019/04/17/kiji/20190417s00041000355000c.html
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxmqiFkgErQ
- ↑ https://twitter.com/uuum_news/status/1235158673950789632
- ↑ https://twitter.com/hikakin/status/722435679142031360
- ↑ https://twitter.com/hikakin/status/705398447973642240