Shibuya Hal - VTuber

Shibuya Hal is a male, Japanese-speaking VTuber that is known for playing shooting games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and APEX Legends. He was also affiliated with a VTuber support company named Upd8 until the company’s closure in December 2020.

Shibuya Hal Background

Hal is a male human VTuber that likes to call himself the “world’s strongest convenience store employee”. Aside from his PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and other shooting game streams, Hal is widely known for organizing several game tournaments specifically for VTubers.

Shibuya Hal History

On May 6th, 2018, Hal would make his first appearance on his YouTube channel, marking his official debut as a VTuber. Several months later, on October 10th, Hal would host the first “Vtuber Collaboration Play-Offs”, an event that had VTubers from various backgrounds compete in a PUBG tournament. Although he started out on YouTube, Hal would later also make a Twitch channel as well, which he did on October 14th, 2019. In 2020, Hal would begin exploding in popularity. On February 29th, he would receive a new, more mature model to celebrate reaching 50,000 subscribers on his channel, though this number reached over 300,000 by the end of the year.

Shibuya Hal Physical Description

Hal is a young male with a small physique, short peach-colored hair with a pair of pink hair clips, and light blue eyes. Although he has received a few different outfits throughout his career, his original outfit consists of a standard convenience store employee’s uniform. This particular uniform includes a pink shirt with an “8-Twelve” logo and name tag on the chest as well as a pair of black slacks and white sneakers. Aside from the uniform itself, Hal also wields a black and gold katana on his back.

On September 26th, 2019, Hal would reveal a new costume for his avatar. Although he still wears his convenience store shirt, he now has a pair of baggy black combat pants, tall black boots, and a long black coat with his name written in orange along one of the sleeves. Instead of a katana on Hal’s back, this outfit has Hal carrying a black revolver in one of his hands. Hal would also receive an entirely new model on February 29th, 2020. This model has a significantly more mature design and includes a formal white, gold, and black suit with a black and gold jacket that is worn over his shoulders. Instead of wearing it on his back, this iteration of Hal wears his katana on his side.

Shibuya Hal Personality

Generally speaking, Shibuya Hal is a very casual and laid-back person that loves playing games above anything else. During his debut, he mentions that rather than eating or sleeping, he would prefer to just play games instead. When it comes to games, Hal is quite confident, particularly when it comes to PUBG and APEX Legends, which Hal considers to be the games that he is best at.

Associated Company

Prior to its closure in December 2020, Shibuya Hal was affiliated with Upd8, a project managed by Activ8 that sought to make the process of becoming a VTuber easier by offering resources and networking to upcoming characters in exchange for a portion of their earnings. This group included other VTubers like Kizuna Ai (prior to the formation of the Kizuna AI Corporation), AZKi, the Omega Sisters, Tomari Mari, and Kimino Miya. On December 31st, 2020, however, Upd8 would cease its support project, resulting in many of its affiliated VTubers continuing their activities on their own.

Notable Series

Although he sometimes plays various other games on his YouTube and Twitch channels, Hal can almost always be seen playing either one of two games: PUBG and APEX Legends.

PUBG

PlayerUnknown’s Battleground is an international hit and is one of the games that popularized the battle royale genre as a whole. Although Hal does not play this particular game as much as he did at the beginning of his career, it still makes up a significant amount of the content on his channel. Furthermore, Hal has gone on to organize one major VTuber PUBG tournament as well: the first “Vtuber Collaboration Play-Offs”. This tournament had VTubers from many different agencies and groups come together and included popular VTubers like Shirakami Fubuki, Minato Aqua, and Kagura Mea.

APEX Legends

Many different VTubers like playing APEX Legends on their channels, Hal specializes in it specifically. He has proven to be quite skilled and has earned the Predator rank in the game’s competitive mode several times. Hal also regularly uploads highlight videos of his APEX streams and are some of his most popular uploads on his channel. Much like his PUBG tournament, Hal also organized an APEX tournament specifically for VTubers as well. This tournament saw significantly more successful than the previous one and brought even more guests with it. Some notable participants include Tokoyami Towa, Nakiri Ayame, Kanade Izuru, and Shiina Yuika.