Spotlight: PRISM Project’s Sara Nagare Was Born To Be A VTuber, Seriously

Sara Nagare was practically born to become a VTuber.

The idol-obsessed Aussie of PRISM Project’s fourth generation has all the crossover interests ticked off. Singing, acting, dancing ⁠fulfills the performance trifecta. She has a deep-rooted love of anime and video games, making her primed for the streaming experience.

Coupled with a background in community theater and an uncanny ability to ramble for hours on end, it was only a matter of time until the serpent storyteller found a home in content creation.

“I’m the type of person who has been drawn to entertainment and performance,” she told NewsDrop.

“VTubing felt like a place where all my interests could come together and I could do something that combined everything I liked to do, in the performance space with my nerdy hobbies. VTubing felt like a natural progression from my hobbies into a skill people wanted.”

Her streams are reflective of that too.

Coming up on two years since her debut with PRISM Project, there’s hardly a genre of content creation Sara Nagare hasn’t touched. Even in her debut stream she jumped from a visual novel style snakes and ladders game, to karaoke, to talking about games and anime like no tomorrow.

Variety is the spice of life for Sara, with schedules full of gaming, karaoke, ASMR streams, and the odd collaboration that combines some semblance of her interests: “Because I really crave novelty, what I love about being a VTuber and that variety streamer background is I get to indulge in a lot of different passions.”

But it’s really that ability to just be there, on a virtual stage with a microphone and spotlight on her, that lets Sara truly shine.

She can talk. Really talk. It’s quite a handy skill to have as a streamer, but even she’s had to find new measures to stop herself from derailing simple gaming streams into hours-long zatsudan streams. She joked about a “mandated” 30-minute chatting section at the start of her stream⁠—no less, obviously, but she has to set an alarm to make sure she actually gets into her content.

It builds on this aura Sara has when you start to watch her. She appears to be calm and collected on the surface, but even she admits she “tends to lean more dorky” with how she comes off about her fandoms.

That kind of content has struck a chord with her audience.

“I asked in a poll to my audience the other day what flavor of Sara do you prefer the most? There was the idol Sara, the wholesome singing one. Gamer Sara, or Comedian Sara—the talking one—and I think the Comedian one won out.

“In streams I consider myself a passionate and energetic person, but it’s not in the loud and outrageous way, it’s more in the depth and breadth of conversations I like to have. I’m the person who likes to talk, and once I start talking I don’t stop.

“I am who I am though, and if it doesn’t match exactly what people had in mind, it’s still me.”

It’s all these different hats that makes Sara Nagare one of the select PRISM Agents out there in the world.

The title is not an exaggeration, meshing all these talents and interests together means she was born to be a VTuber. However, it’s one thing to have all the tools in the toolkit, but it’s another thing entirely to use them to build up a dedicated following and a career.

VTubing connected with Sara in a way like no other way of expression, and with her headstrong nature and determination, she made it click.

Three defining moments

When reflecting on Sara’s time in VTubing so far, there’s really three moments that distinctly stand out.

One of them is quite recent. Earlier in 2023, PRISM agents Sara and Rita Kamishiro became the first English-speaking VTubers to host a collab with a Japanese seiyuu. It was with Shu Uchida, who has had roles in shows like Asobi Asobase, How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift, and most prominently, Love Live! Nijigasaki School Idol Club.

That last point was a real treat for Sara given her idol fandom. And when the stars aligned, it made for an iconic stream and a “niche part of VTuber history” to hold forever.

“Siyu⁠—Shu Uchida⁠—recently became a VTuber and was looking for people to collab with, particularly Australian ones. I was like ‘I’m here, and I’m very Australian,’” Sara laughed.

“We reached out, everything went well, and we had a great idea for the stream we wanted to do. When it came to the day, we were able to just have fun with it because everything was really well planned out. I owe it all, in large part, to management for organizing it for everyone.

“I was a little bit nervous beforehand, a little starstruck. I’ve definitely heard her voice before, and it was really cool to have that opportunity. It quickly dissipated when I realized how chill and awesome she was.”

The second stretches back a bit further to Crunchyroll Expo Australia 2022. While PRISM has taken Sara all over the world (virtually), CRX AUS was her first convention in her home country.

Partnering with fellow Aussie Luto Araka for a primetime panel on the Sunday of the two-day expo, she was able to reach a new audience who might have been unaware of PRISM’s reach into Australia. It was full of clips of all the Agents, showing off their best (and sometimes more cursed) sides.

Seeing the turnout though “filled [her] with so much pride.”

“I wanted to reach out to a new audience and show PRISM has some incredibly passionate representatives of theirs, working hard to be VTubers,” she continued. “I think [Australians] have that mentality that we want to support people who are homegrown.

“I get it a lot in my streaming audience, because despite being an Australian a large part of my audience is from overseas. But they see me as a modicum of Australian wisdom, so I feel like I have to be a good representative and showcase a lot of the good things.”

The last big moment was taking part in Kizuna AI’s last live in February 2022. Sara was among the dozens of VTubers who sent off the mother of the medium to her hiatus.

“Kizuna AI is a huge inspiration to me. Back in the days where I used to be very into idols, I’d learn the dances of Kizuna AI’s stuff. Being able to be part of her last life and send her off in that beautiful concert in that way, was really wonderful.”

These three experiences go to highlight the diverse nature of Sara Nagare’s content. She loves idols and all things anime and gaming. She adapts to any situation and can put on a show no matter where she goes.

The “PRISM family”

However, Sara Nagare’s biggest ‘win’ throughout VTubing isn’t necessarily the experiences she’s had. It’s the people she’s journeyed alongside for the last two years.

PRISM Project has been very tight-knit since the early days, and those first four generations had a long time to get to know each other before a fifth one came along just recently.

All of those aforementioned moments would not have been possible without the agency and her fellow members’ support. It’s not an individual effort, and every small success has a ripple effect across PRISM.

“I don’t want to discount the efforts each of the individual talents in PRISM Project makes, but one of my mottos is a rising tide carries all ships. That’s very true here. A success for any single PRISM Agent is a success for all of us.”

For PRISM, that’s recently been a lot of wins:

• Shiki Miyoshino has become somewhat of a breakout star, cresting 140,000 subscribers and really pushing the agency’s name more broadly.
• Rita Kamishiro has made huge strides on the charity front, often doing mega donation streams and plenty of advocacy as an ambassador for mental health group NAMI.
• It can even be small acts of creative expression. Non Anon and Iku Hoshifuri pushed the envelope to create PRISM High, an anime-style skit show, entirely done with their Live2D models.

All these little efforts across the near-20 strong group nowadays helps grow everyone bit by bit. But beyond the metrics and numbers, there’s a stronger personal connection Sara emphasized that keeps pushing everyone to achieve their goals.

“I find it so incredible that I can meet this group of wholesome people and everyone gets along really well,” she said. “Every time we have big group collabs, it’s a riot to be in the Discord call beforehand to get everything set up. It just feels nice.

“Of course, there are other Agents I’m closer to than others. I’m very close to my fellow Gen 4 Agents, but all my senpai and now my kouhai have been amazing to talk to. Always supportive, always willing to help out. It’s an amazing environment to be in.”

Her Gen 4 partners, Non Anon and Naki Kamizuki, each have “one of [Sara’s] hands”, as she put it—whether in marriage or for headpats, you can decide.

The trio have stuck through thick and thin, including being the bully-able kouhais for 18 months. That changed with the recent Gen 5, 6, and 7 reveals (Note: This interview took place before Gen 6 and 7’s announcement), PRISM’s first since transitioning into Sony Music Entertainment Japan.

“We were the babies for so long, we kind of got used to it,” she laughed. “I’ve been told I’ve always given off senpai energy, so I’m glad it’s finally come true and I get to be a senpai.

“I can already say they are incredibly wonderful, talented, and they fit into PRISM Project perfectly.

“Both Ami and I love idols so I’m excited to get to know her better through that. Kou is funny and super easy to talk to. I feel like I’ve known her for ages just talking to her.

“And Lana is from New Zealand,” she mused, before bursting out in laughter. “I don’t just think that—I think she’s really lovely, she’s super charming and got that quality with her that you can’t help but be drawn to her, and that makes up for the fact she’s from New Zealand. I’ll put my differences aside!”

That partnership with the Japanese music giant has given PRISM a very solid launchpad for its future too. For Sara, it’s led to some of the aforementioned unforgettable experiences already. And it’s only going to get bigger and better.

“I’ve been able to attend a lot of amazing conventions and events around the world to showcase PRISM Project—not just including CRX AUS, but CRX in the US, Anime Festival Asia, Aniplex Online Fest, and SMASH this year which I’m so incredibly excited about.

“There’s a lot of other cool opportunities that I’m not at liberty to talk about yet but they’re coming quite soon, so watch this space. There’s a lot of cool things on the PRISM horizon.”

The future for Sara Nagare

Sara Nagare has already had her presence felt across some of VTubing’s landmark events, and it’s been less than two years since she debuted. Things are only starting to really ramp up within the PRISM Project camp too, and that leaves lots to be excited about.

Even now, she continues to be surprised by the little things she can do in the virtual world.

“For me, VTubing is that blend between reality as well as that fantasy element of animation. That blend between those worlds is the cool thing about being a VTuber and it’s something you can’t get by being a regular streamer or doing pre-recorded content.”

There is still one big thing on her list though. Looking all the way back to her November 2021 debut, there was one big point she wanted to highlight: a stage performance. The performer-at-heart still has that desire to give her fans the full idol experience, like she dreamed as a teenager growing up.

“My super lofty goal has always been to do a 3D Idol live [concert] one day. I want to do a big concert with the rest of the Agents where they can see us moving around and having fun and enjoying ourselves like that. That’d be a real treat for us and the fans alike.”

But before that comes something she left off her debut goal list. It’s not reaching a ludicrous amount of subscribers, or some massive project to knock the socks off of everyone in VTubing.

It’s a simple promise to spark joy in every stream she does, and every message she sends. While it’s gratifying to have the glitz and the glam of a big performance, at the end of the day, it takes a community to raise her up to those heights.

If she can continue to do that, that would satisfy her more than any material desire.

“At PRISM we want to create a world where people can feel happiness every day. That’s our mission statement. As long as I’m carrying that out, I don’t have any regrets. I’m going to keep finding new ways to make people happy and bring smiles to faces.”