Japanese Streaming Market: YouTube Gaming Dominates, Kick Surges, VTubers Rival Human Streamers
Stream Hatchet’s latest report on Japan’s livestreaming market finds YouTube Gaming capturing nearly 60% of all hours watched as of Q1 2026, with Twitch holding approximately 33% and Kick growing to a 7% share after starting from near zero.
Japanese livestreaming viewership grew from roughly 350 million hours watched in Q2 2023 to a peak of 894 million hours in Q4 2024, before settling at approximately 600 million hours in Q1 2026. OpenRec, once Japan’s leading domestic streaming platform, declined from 12.8 million hours watched in Q1 2024 to just 8,000 hours by Q1 2026. Kick’s rise during that same period accounts for its current 7.1% share of Japanese viewership.
Top Creators Split Between Twitch and YouTube
Eight of Japan’s top 10 human streamers by hours watched stream on Twitch, led by Junichi Kato (80.6 million hours), korekore_ch (72.4 million hours), and fps_shaka (57.6 million hours). korekore_ch streams on Kick and ranks second overall, a result that Stream Hatchet links directly to the platform’s viewership growth in Japan. Hamusho ranks fourth with 31.4 million hours, focusing on baseball and sports content, while k4sen (27.1 million) is known for organizing large-scale collaborative events.
VTubers Occupy Half of Combined Top 10
When VTubers and human streamers are ranked together, VTubers occupy five of the top 10 spots. All top VTubers stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming. Usada Pekora (45.6 million hours), Sakura Miko (45.1 million), and Kuzuha Channel (43.3 million) lead the VTuber rankings, separated by just 2.3 million hours across all three.
Games: Global Titles Lead, Japanese Franchises Overperform
“GTA V” leads all categories at 230 million hours watched among Japanese audiences over the past year, followed by “League of Legends” (132.6 million), “VALORANT” (131.3 million), and “Minecraft” (122.5 million). “Street Fighter 6” ranks inside the top five at 127.9 million hours, while “Apex Legends” (89.3 million) and “Monster Hunter Wilds” (57.6 million) outrank globally dominant titles, including “Fortnite” and “Counter-Strike.” Among Japanese-developed games measured by global viewership, Capcom and FromSoftware account for approximately 62% of the top 10’s total hours watched.
Events Centered on Nintendo and Esports
The “Switch 2 Direct” drew a peak of 3.4 million concurrent viewers, making it the single largest streaming event for Japanese audiences in the past year. Two additional “Switch 2” showcases reached 1.2 million and 976,000 peak viewers, respectively. The “Apex Legends” Global Series 2026 Championship drew 330,000 peak viewers, while a collaborative “VALORANT” tournament with VTubers reached 293,000. Fighting game tournaments, including EVO Japan 2025, accounted for additional top events in the period.
Image source: Stream HatchetThe full report is available here
