Japanese Twitch streamer うん〇ちゃん (kato_junichi0817) went live on Twitch on September 13 and ended up hosting his most popular broadcast ever. The stream became the most popular Japanese content on Twitch ever, as Kato disclosed and discussed details from his personal life with his audience. Unfortunately, the record-breaking stream was marred by the fact that Kato was discussing being engaged in an extramarital affair. The old adage remains true: any press is good press.
On September 12, Kato was photographed in Los Angeles with Ai Hongo, a Japanese adult film star and internet personality. The next day, Kato went live playing some Valorant and was averaging a strong 40-50K concurrent viewers. Later in the stream, he changed the title to “加藤純一不倫裁判初公判” (“Junichi Kato extramarital affair trial first trial”), and he began to discuss the situation behind being photographed with Hongo. Initially, he claimed there was no affair, and his wife even shortly appeared on stream to corroborate his story.
Kato Junichi’s Extramarital Affair Trial Viewership
As the so-called ‘trial’ began, viewership immediately skyrocketed and reached 295.2K Peak Viewers, making this broadcast the most popular Japanese stream on Twitch ever. The broadcast was also highly profitable for Kato: September 2024 has so far recorded the highest New Subscriptions and Gifted Subscriptions for his channel since March 2022, the time of his wedding.
On March 12, 2022, Kato hosted his own wedding reception live on both Twitch and YouTube. The Twitch broadcast for the reception received 123.2K Peak Viewers, and was his fifth-most-popular broadcast on the platform, until a week ago. According to Japan Insider, the couple received about $1.84 million worth of donations while livestreaming the reception. This stream has now been pushed down to seventh place, falling behind his trial stream, and a follow-up discussion stream about the affair on September 15.
Most Popular Kato Junichi Twitch Streams
| Date | Stream | Peak Viewers |
|---|---|---|
|
13 Sep 2024 |
295 247 |
|
|
28 Sep 2021 |
241 593 |
|
|
27 Sep 2021 |
155 162 |
|
|
15 Sep 2024 |
139 003 |
|
|
04 Feb 2024 |
136 638 |
The follow-up discussion came about after Ai Hongo uploaded her own YouTube video sharing her side of the story. The video was her second upload to the platform, and despite her channel only having 87K Subscribers, the video quickly reached virality in Japan. As of September 20, the video has earned more than 1.1M views. Hongo alleged that Kato had tricked her into believing he was divorced, and the Japanese Twitch star went live again on September 15 to update his story.
Kato revealed in his follow-up broadcast that he had cheated on his wife, but also claimed that they are separated, but not divorced. Despite the streamer repeatedly calling himself “trash”, his fans remained positive, and Kato was shocked at the financial support he received through donations and subscriptions. The streamer is one of the livestreaming industry’s most popular celebrities in Japan, and the situation has only boosted his popularity: helping him to reach 1 million Twitch followers and receive a net-gain in both donations and exposure.
Most Popular Japanese Twitch Channels
Before the trial stream on September 13, Kato was already the most popular Twitch streamer from Japan ever, and the creator has now lengthened his lead ahead of other content creators from Japan. Fps_shaka is the nearest singular creator to Kato’s popularity, with the top-half of our rankings featuring many special events like RTAinJapan and esports organization channels like VALORANT_jpn.
Critically, Kato was one of the few channels here to record their peak viewership this year. Many of these most popular channels received their peak viewerships during the pandemic livestreaming boom. Events like RTA Japan and esports channels enjoyed significantly higher viewership during the pandemic than both before and after. Vodkavdk is the only other channel besides Kato to have recorded their record peak viewership during 2024, and his viewership came from co-casting a Valorant tournament, which attracts many passionate esports fans.
As it stands, Kato is 135.6% more popular than the next-highest-ranking streamer from Japan, fps_shaka. Although it remains unlikely that Kato will have another such viral situation in the near future, the events have still increased his exposure within Japan, and made countless Japanese social media users learn his name, if they didn’t know him before.
Most Popular APAC Twitch Channels
Not only dominant in Japan, Kato is the most popular Twitch streamer from the entire APAC region. The Japanese creator was only outperformed by the organization channels of the LCK and Riot_esports_Korea, which benefit from the large and passionate esports audience for League of Legends in South Korea.
The only other two personal Twitch channels in this APAC ranking, Pestily and 한동숙 (handongsuk), could not reach their peak viewerships alone. The Korean star reached 166.2K Peak Viewers during a collaborative party stream, attracting fans of many other creators to his broadcast, and Pestily received his 246.4K PV thanks to a special Escape from Tarkov event with integrated Twitch Drops. Of the Australian streamer’s top 15 most popular broadcasts, all of them mention “Drops” in the title.
Kato’s peak viewership becomes only more impressive with these contextualisations. The drama and gossip surrounding Kato was powerful and viral enough on his own to break Twitch records, and rocket him to the top of the APAC scene. Only clever collaborations, Twitch Drops, and industry-leading esports events are able to match the viewership power of Kato’s situation.
