[Who is Mochi Hiyoko?]
She has been namedropped several times in this thread, yet from what I see most anons don't get the reference. She's kinda in the club of "that girl that I probably saw somewhere, but didn't bother learning the name of". Kinda like Tamaki, but to even a lesser extent.
Here's the thing: Even on JP side, she's most well-known for being Ponpoko's best friend, so the curse of side character applies to her anywhere.
She debuted in Jan 2018, so an OG. Started off mostly unimpressive, she took off when joining the Smash Bros V-1 Grand Pix with many other famous chuubas at the time: Aqua, Fubuki, Subaru, Toya, Tsukasa, Maimoto, Meika, Master,...
After this event, she also got access to many collabs that helped her grow further with Fubuki, Chihiro, Mirai Akari. But the only connection that sticked after 6 long years, is Ponpoko (and thus 2 of their newer friends that formed the quartet, Sae Yahiro and Hoshizaki Tia, as well as Ponpoko's brother Peanuts-kun).
By 2019, she was big enough to form her own agency called MochiPro, but it didn't have a very happy ending when all of their 4 talents graduated from MochiPro after 2 years. This was also a point where I chose to believe in the "goodness" of Hiyoko that the people around her see, because she let them go indie with the models and channels without batting an eye. To this day, Hiyoko remains the only talent in her own agency.
By 2022, she along with Ponpoko, Peanuts-kun, Fairys and Mimic3 formed the channel @ParallelWalker where they do a bunch of VRchat stuff. It's still going and pretty fun to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/@ParallelWalker Every year, when Peanuts-kun celebrates Christmas over at Kenmochi's channel, Hiyoko would be the one to celebrate it with Ponpoko in PokoPea's channel. Before that, on every Halloween, it would be her, Ponpoko, Tia and Sae doing an annual kikaku stream that I would never miss.
Like many OGs who have been left behind by time, Hiyoko's current viewership and metrics are not indicative of the journey she walked. But for what's it's worth, she's just one tag away from being discovered by all the big indies that are still going strong.
If you want to know more? Hiyoko has made a video herself about "Who is Mochi Hiyoko?", summarizing her 5 years journey at much more detail than I did. Check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bhq-o1b6bQ