The Tensai Knight

My History

I found out about Virtual YouTubers when Kizuna Ai was booming. I watched and followed her and a few other OG Virtual YouTubers (henceforth VTubers) at the time, such as Kaguya Luna and Mirai Akari. Just like many others, however, at some point, I lost interest.

Later on, perhaps just like many, I (once again) fell into the rabbit hole again during the pandemic. I stumbled upon English clips in YouTube of various VTubers, from Nijisanji to Hololive (I already forgot which clip I watched first). Then came the very first English clip of Holostars by Kaname about Rikka.

That's how I found out about Holostars. I don't know what came to me, but after watching Rikka's live streams of him singing, I started to watch other Holostars members one by one, trying to find someone who attracted me the most. It somehow turned out to be Kishido Temma. Out of all streams, I first tuned into his stream when he talked about Bakuman manga. Yeah, don't ask me, I don't know why either. I think I found him cute from the get-go. Perhaps it was like a love at first sight.

I used this website and found out when exactly I first subscribed to Holostars. Below are some screenshots as examples, with the main point being when I first subscribed to Rikka and Temma.

There is quite a gap between the two. I don't remember why exactly, but anyway.

Before I knew it, I kept watching Temma's streams. Before I knew it, I had fallen into the rabbit hole - to the deepest of the pit.

Why I Love Him

Why do I love Kishido Temma? Honestly, that's quite a tricky question. I believe like and hate need not a reason. Despite being a writer, it's sometimes hard to put my feelings into words. However, I’ll try my best to pour them out here.

Kishido Temma is...

First of all, I love his appearance. He is good-looking, leaning toward the cute spectrum for me - exactly my type. His voice also helps with that impression. He even likes to sing cute songs or other songs in general in a cute way (even if the song is dangerous). However, he can also be cool, like a true knight in shining armor. This is especially true in his first original song, “Shooting Star”. The gap is quite striking, but I love it, and I love both sides of him.

Generally, I seem to be a character/moe gap enjoyer. Other than being able to be cute and cool, Temma also has a tendency to be mischievous or outright evil despite being a knight, giving him the very fitting nickname “Dark Knight”. It started from his Dead by Daylight streams where he's very skilled as a hard-to-use, but awesome killer, Nurse. But even outside that, he shows it sometimes. For example, he betrayed Hanasaki Miyabi in Among Us, though them betraying each other isn't unusual. His New Year outfit further cemented this.

Further gap: He isn't very good at horror games and thus very rarely play them.

He thinks out of the box, so much that “Temma tensai” is a thing and Roberu once said “we need Temmanual” to understand him. He does weird things on stream I haven’t seen from a VTuber before, such as “making a gacha game by himself”, "making an otome game", and “byun byun goma ASMR", but it’s all very enjoyable. He never fails to surprise me and I’m living for it.

Despite seemingly having a heavy airhead side, he is also hardworking and diligent, as one can especially see when he studied English on stream. He consistently ranks the top at his school before. He likes to challenge himself on the hard mode and despite all the pain and suffering, refuses to give up. That is inspiring in so many ways. Though of course, admittedly, I also love it when he suffered and got karma, or as we like to call it, hubris.

He is physically strong and healthy. He is a black belt in karate. One can see a show of his prowess on a few 3D streams, such as when he easily carried Astel Leda and held Kageyama Shien on his thighs. There are also a few Mario Kart streams where he did a workout if he ranked low. He maintains his health by exercising regularly and following a regular food schedule. Although his sleep schedule can be a bit screwed up…

Lastly, I especially love how Temma is true to himself. When he is addicted to a game (or as we call it, brainrot a game), he’ll continuously play it. It got to the point where he once played Smash Bros when during an important announcement stream with others. It was hilarious. He might say “I’m sorry I keep playing this!” but he’ll keep going anyway. Go on, knight, live your best life. If he’s having fun, then I’m happy too. He brings joy to my life with whatever he does.