This piece will diverge from my regular political content. Yesterday was the birthday of someone I really admire. Her name is Ouro Kronii, a streamer affiliated with the Hololive virtual Idol Group based out of Japan.
Kronii launched her debut on August 22nd, 2021, with Hololive English’s second generation, Hololive Council. Council was approved after the smashing success of Hololive English’s first generation, Hololive Myth, which debuted in September 2020.
Unlike Myth, whose members were meant to represent mythical beings, Council’s members are meant to represent universal concepts. In order of first appearance:
Tsukumo Sana, who represents the concept of space
Ouro Kronii, representing the concept of time
Ceres Fauna, representing nature
Nanashi Mumei, the embodiment of civilization
Hakos Baelz, embodiment of cosmic chaos
While this piece is going to be focusing on Kronii specifically, all of these girls are amazing and I recommend checking out Hololive and their different branches.
Ouro Kronii’s name is a combination of Ouranos and Kronos, the Greek Titans that controlled the sky and time. Ouro also gives reference to Ouroboros, symbolized by a snake eating its own tail. Ouroboros symbolizes eternity and repeating cycles, another factor in her time theme.
As with most other hololive talents, she has an animal representing her, the snake. In art, she is sometimes drawn with snakelike features such as slit eyes. If you look really carefully when she speaks, you can see that she has fangs in her mouth.
Kronii stood out from the rest of Hololive during her debut because of her noticeably beautiful voice.
However, what made me, and thousands of others stay for the long haul, was because of her very erratic personality. She is very competitive, and can go from zero to a hundred very quickly. This was most notably demonstrated when she was killed on accident in Minecraft while angrily chasing Fauna, this was also the first instance in which Kronii’s beautiful laughter was put on display.
This is also the first of many instances of Kronii breaking down when things don’t really go the way she expects them to go. This part of her personality usually comes out whenever she faces major setbacks in games, like dying too many times, though it sometimes comes out when competing against the other girls or her fans. It should be noted that it isn’t malicious, and she usually cools off pretty quickly.
Kronii is also known for her authoritarian nature. Among her fans, the kronies (a play on the word crony), she is known as “the warden of time” and “the boss,” and has adopted mafia and dictatorial aesthetics many times. She has also gone on many tangents where she rants about what a Kronii-ran nation would be like.
Her streams of the game Frostpunk gave birth to the concept of Kroniiland, a totalitarian society where Kronii is the supreme and unquestioned leader, with harsh punishments for dissenters. Kroniiland has been a running gag ever since. Yeah, only a gag.
There is also this cute thing she does where she will get really into a game. Minecraft is a big example of this. She started playing it after debut, and then ended up making an entire underground bunker system with farms and everything. She admitted that she was addicted and just couldn’t stop.
Initially, the Bunkeronii was built to isolate herself from the other holos, but it eventually acted as a rallying point for the other girls, as it had all the features of a main base. Mumei even took up residence there for a good while. This is another in a long list of examples where Kronii designates a purpose for something and then it becomes the exact opposite of what it was intended to be.
Kronii is also known as a girlfailure, because while she tries to act as the competent villain, she usually ends up in very comical and foolish situations, either due to her own actions or the actions of the other girls. This usually happens when playing horror games, because Kronii initially talked a big game of how she never gets scared, and then proceeds to get scared at the slightest things.
She has also proven to be very sweet to her coworkers and fans. The other girls have nothing but good things to say about her whenever they have to meet up for work purposes. Sometimes she has a lot of self-doubt and a feeling of undeserved success, but those of us who have been with her from the beginning know that she has deserved every ounce of it.
Kronii has come a long way since her debut. She has clearly become more confident in her decision making and as a streamer. There were times in the past where it looked like she was uncomfortable with her role, but those times have long since gone.
The only major problem she suffers from is the fact that people will watch clips of her and come to wrong conclusions. For example, her and the kronies love to banter with one another, sometimes to extremes, and outsiders take this as her being rude and uncaring to her fans. To those of us who are diehard kronies, we know better, but that issue still exists.
Ultimately, Kronii values having a tight knit dedicated group of people who enjoy her content and her personality rather than having the a massive fanbase that just grows into infinity. The opinions of outsiders really do not concern her unless it is something actually defamatory, which thankfully hasn’t happened.
That is what I like about her. She is loyal to her base and as a result her base is loyal to her. I would argue that she has the largest cult of personality of the entire English branch because of this despite not having the largest fanbase. There are more diehards among the kronies.
The reason I decided to write this today is because I am one of those diehards. I feel like my oshi (title in Japanese idol culture given to the idol you support the most) deserves recognition. It is her birthday, and I felt like I should share what I like about the clock woman. I hope you walk away from this feeling informed.
Happy Birthday Kronii.
