Takashi is a big fan of the top Virtual Youtuber Kizuke Yai. One day, he walks into his dad's room and finds out that his dad mid-stream of being Kizuke Yai.
Thus begins the Cringe Comedy of Takashi having to live with knowing the Awful Truth, and how VTubers work in general.
Written by Wataru Akashingo, My Dad's the Queen of All VTubers!? (Oyaji ga Bishoujo ni Natteta Hanashi, lit. "The Story of How My Father Became a Cute VTuber Girl") is a manga about the ups and downs of the VTuber business. It was originally posted as a series of strips on Twitter in 2019 before being fully serialized in Monthly Comic Action. Kaiten Books picked up the English licence for the series starting in 2020.
My Dad's the Queen of All VTubers!? provides examples of the following tropes:
- Awful Truth: Takashi finding out that the Virtual Youtuber he's been fawning and worshiping turns out to be an old man behind the scenes. Even worse, it's his own father.
- Becoming the Mask: After accusing his father of being so into his VTuber personality that it's leaking into his real-life behavior, it's pointed out that Takashi himself is starting to do the same. The chapter even ends with the He Who Fights Monsters quote to drive the point home.
- Blood from the Mouth: Played for Laughs, with Takashi frequently vomiting blood as he cringes over the fact that he's been worshiping and fawning over his own dad.
- Brain Bleach: Ever since finding out the Awful Truth, Takashi can only see his father's face when he sees images of Kizuke Yai.Takashi: "Until that day... When I came to know about VTubing by chance... I had opened the doors to a world I never knew. The scene has changed before my eyes. I can't go back to the time before I knew all of this."
- Cringe Comedy: Oh HELL YES. A lot of the funny moments come from how Takashi has to deal with knowing that the idol he's been fawning over is actually a man, and his own father no less. The embarrassment reaches new heights when Takashi gets roped into his father's shenanigans and ends up debuting as a VTuber too!
- Deconstructive Parody: This manga examines the life of a VTuber and how they work.
- Since VTubers are ultimately virtual avatars, there's really no way to tell who the person playing the character really is. And thanks to voice changing technology, it may even be someone of the opposite gender.
- Not everyone can be a successful VTuber, but a successful VTuber can come from anywhere. In this story, we have Takashi's father who plays the most successful VTuber in the nation, through a combination of charm, acting, and knowing what the audience likes. Meanwhile, the mother desperately wants to be a successful VTuber, even if only a little bit, but constantly fails due to lacking in the necessary charms to draw in the right audience and is often thought to be an old man behind the scenes. The fans she does get like that about her, and when she tries to do an "ask me anything" in a calmer fashion, she starts to lose subscribers.
- Sex Sells. There's often an element of Fanservice in VTubers (and idol business in general), and tapping into it can be... lucrative.
- G.I.R.L.: The manga's comedy is fueled by the notion of the cute Virtual Youtuber being played by an old man with a voice-changer, and the Cringe Comedy stems from seeing what happens on the other side of the stream. Every major VTuber has this trope running with them; Takashi's mother even is subject to accusations of this.
- The Lad-ette: Takashi's mother tries to muscle in on her husband's territory but her behavior, especially when riled up, perpetuates an In-Universe Running Gag that she's actually a Guy In Real Life. It doesn't help that she has trouble shaking off her tomboyish background, and to rub salt in the wound, she fares a lot better at navigating a normal dating sim compared to an otome game.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Takashi's dad is feminime enough to act as a female and popular VTuber in contrast to his mom, whom everyone thinks is an old man due to how masculine she acts.
- Naked People Are Funny: Takashi's friend, Himuro, who as the VTuber X-Ta-Sy streams in the buff for personal excitement. Not that the internet knows this thanks to mocap technology.
- Shout-Out:
- Kizuke Yai's name is a very obvious reference to Kizuna AI, the defining example of the VTuber as people know them.
- In a side chapter where Takashi's father spies on him reluctantly trying out his new VTuber avatar, the final panel bears close resemblance to the famed "Here's Johnny!" scene from The Shining.
- When Takashi's mother is, once again, accused of being an old man behind the screen, one of the comments scrolling across her feed reads "How many times must we teach you this lesson, old man?"
- On another side chapter, Takashi utters "GUH!" while doing a Double Take at his father's growing pile of requests. It happens to be Calliope Mori's Catchphrase.note
- An in-universe tournament pits several VTubers in a battle royale on Suplex Legends.
- Chapter 18 opens with Takashi challenging his father to a video game duel. Dad's response is "Oh? You're approaching me?"
