>>71555167Debut stream, extremely memeable intro 'a' moment and very cute voice, kinda scuffed but that made people sympathize because she's cute, then Ride on Time was a fantastic song choice and she surprised everyone with amazing singing ability.
First gaming stream, maneater - incredibly scuffed and boring, but ended with Gura having this really vulnerable moment of being almost in tears because she wanted to show people she was a better gamer, and then a large swathe of viewers fell in love with her because it activated the PROTECT SMALL CUTE HELPLESS CHILD instincts, memeable moment with the barracuda in the midst of this.
Next gaming stream was Muse Dash, blew away everyone with her rhythm game ability being unironically 10/10 skill after setting expectations low in the previous stream, this was the one-two knockout blow set up and delivery of any great anime protag - make you care about them and want them to succeed despite hardship, then show off that they have some hidden talent or ability and there is potential here. She was speedrunning the idol journey. Also she gushed about her senpai, particularly fubuki, and people realized she was an actual Hololive fan which made her relatable and countered the early narrative that EN girls didn't care about JP stuff.
Next gaming stream was TABS, was silly and fun and lighthearted and demonstrated Gura's skill at comedy and humor. Okay she's not just good at rhythm games she can also make you laugh and not just with gimmicky memes like "a" which would have gotten old fast. Plenty of vtubers can have that one meme moment but then they fall off quickly because they don't show anything new. Gura kept evolving and quickly.
I believe after this was the extremely hyped unarchived karaoke, and then she showed more of her singing ability with slower songs, Fly Me To The Moon was the fucking killing blow, a hundred thousand goslings who would take a bullet for her were born that day, Yagoo himself acknowledged her in the chat, a legend was born.
Sometime shortly after this was Dark Deception, where Gura showed yet ANOTHER side of herself with bratty mesugaki taunting monsters and then cutekino screams running away. Every stream was something new, there was always more to her revealed in these early days.
I believe not long after this was Outlast, a game that not only played upon the strengths of the survival horror just mentioned, but in which she really got into the character and the world and got immersed and had fun. We also started getting some personal weird lore out of her and learning more about her as a person.
Sometime later we get the start of the Minecraft arc which is essentially zatsudan and start learning even more, and every new fact revealed makes her more mysterious, more fascinating, more based. She manages to be extremely autistic, extremely feminine, somewhat tomboyish even though that should be totally at odds with the previous one, funny, bratty, witty, able to interact with chat and keep up bants, has interesting ideas but sometimes fails hilariously at pulling them off, is extremely talented at very specific things and incredibly incompetent at others making you want to cheer her on no matter what. She speedran the idol experience. Then the fact that her numbers were climbing so fast became a self-sustaining effect unto itself, there was a mystique about her, the new rising star, the cute shark loli who was dominating the algorithm, it made people curious and want to know more and then they fed into the cycle until it became a vortex of the internet.
Eventually we reach the point where she hits the 1M sub mark mid stream and her chat talking about it forces her to acknowledge it, and we got the most adorable anxious, heartfelt confession ever, the admission that she was always unpopular in school, used to be bullied, didn't have a lot of friends, and she doesn't know how to deal with this popularity and didn't expect it, it hit those very same feels as the maneater stream and made her into a fucking angel because she was so humble and embarrassed and sincere.
Everything about this sequence of events was like watching the character development of an anime protag in some kind of adorable moe loli slice of life gamer girl drama and it was unfolding in real time with a real person on the other side of the screen you could interact with through chat. It's hard to explain how emotional it was if you weren't there. It was 100% earned, and the fact that she garnered so many haters and antis just by being popular only made her devoted fans circle the wagons to love her and defend her harder when she came under attack from assholes and trolls who didn't watch her and couldn't understand.
No matter how things have changed since then, those who were around for the first few months of Gura streams will never forget those feelings. I will always give Gura the benefit of the doubt when she's not streaming.
