Gawr Gura had to retire her old VTuber personality after leaving the Hololive label, forcing her to leave her past behind and find a new audience. However, her first stream with the new model was more successful than she ever could have imagined.
The VTuber who was previously Gawr Gura has been reborn as Saba, a catgirl shark. With a new model and stream identity, she’s hoping to make a career for herself separate from the world of VTuber agencies.
And, if her opening viewership is anything to go off of, she’s having a great start. Maxing out at 198k viewers, she’s up there with some of the highest viewership debuts in VTuber history.
Saba instantly becomes one of the biggest VTubers
There have been a number of high-profile disputes between VTubers and their management companies, with big collectives like Hololive and Nijisanji being fraught with controversy in recent years.
Gawr Gura was very forthright about her reasons for leaving Hololive, claiming that she had disagreements with management. With her leaving on April 29, 2025, it took almost 2 months for her to come back as Saba.
The trailer teasing her new debut that arrived on June 1 immediately went viral, with people excited for their favorite VTuber to return and do something new.
Lo and behold, her debut hit 198k viewers at its peak, with the VoD having a total of almost 2.4 million total views and 850k subscribers at the time of writing.
And, while there are many who miss Gawr Gura’s old-school avatar and the big opportunities being with Hololive afforded her (like being on the big screen at a Dodger’s game), going independent gives her a lot more freedom to do what she wants with her content. At the very least, it seems like her fans are on board.
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