The Nijisanji Koshien 2023, a VTuber event hosted by Nijisanji, was organized from August 11 to August 13. It is the agency's biggest annual event where many of its content creators battle it out in a virtual baseball tournament, and this year's iteration was a roaring success. An important point to note is that these talents didn’t play by themselves but rather used avatars that represented their likeness.
Nijisanji hosts this baseball tournament every year within eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2022, a popular game in Japan developed by Konami and available on the Nintendo Switch. 2023's edition saw ten teams of 16 to 17 VTubers put into two groups of five each. They first went head to head in a league phase across the first two days to determine the finalists, with the summit clash to crown the champion occurring on the third day.
8-0 GAMESET!!! NIJISANJI KOUKOU WON THE 2023 NIJISANJI KOSHIEN ????????????‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/9CEzesOwo4
— Ven ⚾ NJKOSHIEN!!! (@mdrtbh_) August 13, 2023
There was also a draft to decide the teams at the Nijisanji Koshien 2023, which took place on the company's official YouTube channel on July 1. Ten head coaches came together to pick their team, each containing 16 players from across the organization's various verticals. For those unaware, it was Shiina Yuika, head coach of Nijisanji HS, who clinched the Nijisanji Koshien 2023.
The draft format was such that each coach picked their player of choice for the first seven rounds before randomly assigning VTubers for the remaining nine rounds. At the end of this phase, the ten sides to be formed were Ouritsu Helesta High School, VR Kansai High School, Nijisanji High School, Yuusha Ikusei High School, Sei Azarashi High School, Kokuu Academy, Yokosuka Ryusei High School, Mameneko Kouka High School, Teikoku Corvus High School, and Kaitou Gakuin High School.
Where was the Nijisanji Koshien 2023 broadcast?
Although not that popular in the West, the Nijisanji Koshien draws in impressive numbers from across the globe, helped by the fact that each participant has their community to pull in when streaming the action. Moreover, the official Nijisanji YouTube channel also streamed all the matches and moments to make it a grand affair.
Viewership stats from the Nijisanji Koshien 2023
The official channel of the VTuber agency managed 3.66M Hour Watched, 253M Peak Viewers, and 161K Average Viewers over an airtime of almost 23 hours. The peak day came on August 13, the last day of the event, when Shiina Yuika won the Nijisanji Koshien 2023 for her team.
These broadcasts were highly successful for the channel, as they become some of its most watched and popular streams of all time. While the last day's action ended as the top entry on the peak concurrent viewership list, the one from August 12 became its most viewed video ever, pointing to the sheer demand and following that such events and their participants enjoy in this part of the world.
This was also This is Shiina Yuika’s second victory in the Nijisanji Koshien series, with her first one coming at the 2020 edition. For the uninitiated, she was a member of Nijisanji Gamers' third batch, alongside Kuzuha, Makaino Ririmu, and Setsuna, and they were branded "ZuShiRi" after Setsuna's graduation. She became officially affiliated with the organization in December 2013 after the merging of Nijisanji Gamers and Nijisanji SEEDs.
