VTuber Birthday Projects in Japan: How Fans Organise One Card
Japan has more VTubers than anywhere else, and the fan projects around a birthday or a debut anniversary are the most established. Here is how organisers run one, the words the community uses, and how a group card compares with the tools fans reach for first.
Japan is where most of this started and where most of it still happens. Streams Charts put Japan at 52.2% of the top four thousand VTubers in its Q2 2024 report, and at a 37% share a year later. Two things worth saying about those numbers: they count creators rather than viewers, and Streams Charts marks Hololive English talents as Japanese in its database, so the real Japanese share is lower than the headline. Either way the point holds. If you are organising a fan project anywhere in the world, you are probably following a pattern that was set in Japanese fandom first.
So it is worth getting the vocabulary right before you post anything. Fans will judge a project in about one line.
The words, and why they matter
Oshi is the creator a fan supports above the others. It comes from osu, to push. An oshi mark is the emoji a fan puts in their display name for that creator, and you will see it all over a project hashtag.
Debut anniversary is the day they first streamed as that character. It gets its own hashtag every year, and for long-time viewers it matters more than the birthday, because it is the date they arrived too.
Birthday is usually the date on the character profile, not the person's real one. Nobody finds this confusing except newcomers.
Totsumachi is the birthday stream where other VTubers call in, one after another, for hours. If your oshi is running one, your card is not competing with it. It is the thing they read between calls.
Graduation is a creator retiring the character. It is a goodbye. Treat it as a celebration and you will be told.
What a Japanese fan project usually looks like
A hashtag goes up a few weeks early. Artists post work to it. Somebody opens a form to collect messages, and then spends a long night pasting them into a video or a PDF. Some projects buy a support advertisement, a oshikatsu tradition that has moved from idol fandom into VTuber fandom.
The weak point is always the messages. A hashtag buries them within a day, and a form response sheet is not something anybody opens twice. The art survives because artists repost it; the words from people who cannot draw usually do not survive at all.
Running it as one card instead
A group card changes who does the work. Fans write straight onto it, so there is nothing to collect and nothing to paste at two in the morning. Each message keeps the name it was signed with, so a viewer from the debut stream and one who arrived last month are both visible as themselves. Everything is on one page that still opens next year.
Three practical things for a Japanese project specifically:
- Write in Japanese. Messages are stored and shown exactly as typed, so there is no transliteration and no mojibake. Fans who want to write in English can, on the same card.
- Set the time, not the date. A card can be scheduled to the minute in the recipient's own time zone, which matters when half the fanbase is not in it.
- Read it first. The organiser sees every message before the card goes anywhere, and can remove anything. A public link does not mean an unmoderated card.
How it compares with what fans reach for first
Details below are from each company's own pricing page, checked in October 2026. "Not listed" means we could not find it on that page, not that it is missing. Prices change, so check their site.
| What a fan project needs | Thankeeu | Kudoboard | GroupTogether (US pricing) |
|---|---|---|---|
| How many fans may sign | Unlimited, and the price does not change with the number | Lite up to 20 posts, Premium up to 100, unlimited on Milestone | Unlimited messages |
| Voice notes from fans | Yes, on every card including the cheapest | Not listed | Not listed |
| Video messages | On Premium and Pack cards | Premium and above | Not listed |
| Price | Classic $4.99, Premium $7.99, Pack cheaper per card | Lite $6.99, Premium $9.99, Milestone $19.99 | $5.50 USD |
| Free to start | Create, share and collect free; pay once when you send | Free trial offered; every board plan is paid | Card free with a money collection of at least $20 |
| Scheduled delivery | To the minute, in the recipient's time zone | Yes | Not listed on pricing page |
For a fan project, the row that usually decides it is the first one. A hundred-post ceiling is not a limit you notice on an office card; it is a limit you hit in an afternoon when a hashtag picks up. The second row matters for this audience in particular: these are people whose work is their voice, and a card that cannot carry a voice note is missing the obvious gift.
The third thing is the money, if your project collects any. On Thankeeu the contributor sees the processing fee before paying and the recipient pays nothing to withdraw, to a bank or as a gift card. GroupTogether's own page lists a contributor fee and a minimum collection. If your project is messages only, leave the gift off entirely.
Start here
If you are organising something, the VTuber group card page walks through the occasions and what each one needs. The online group card page covers the basics of signing, and pricing is one page with no subscription on it.
Fan projects elsewhere work slightly differently. There are guides for the United States and Indonesia too.