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The story
YouTuber Hikaru (5 million subscribers) announced during a livestream on October 11 that his YouTube membership program, the “Hikari no Kai” (Circle of Light), has surpassed 100,000 members. Having launched on August 9, it reached this milestone in just two months. At the ¥490 monthly tier, that works out to roughly ¥49 million a month — or about ¥588 million a year. Hikaru, who also performs rakugo under the stage name Tatekawa Sagishi and has declared his goal of headlining the Nippon Budokan, has framed the membership count as a way to visualize “the number of fans willing to seriously back me.” On 5ch forums, reactions ranged from shock at the sheer size of the figure to questions about what members are actually paying for, comparisons with other paid content, and assessments of Hikaru’s own content.
October 12, 2026
On October 11, Hikaru (5 million subscribers) held a livestream and announced that his YouTube membership, “Hikari no Kai” (Circle of Light), had passed 100,000 members — exactly two months after launch.
The membership launched on August 9. After declaring his goal of holding an event at the Nippon Budokan under his rakugo stage name Tatekawa Sagishi, he explained that the aim was to turn “the number of people who’d definitely pay money for Hikaru specifically” — a figure he said he couldn’t otherwise see — into a visible number representing his most serious supporters.
Source: yutura.net / Original article here
What people said
would totally dominate if he broke into TV
so I really want variety shows to book him a lot
His talk skills are actually backed by his subscriber base
I want to see Hikaru on shows like Sanma's Gotenchi
Everyone in the US and Europe kept saying that when inflation accelerates, subscriptions and monthly fees are the first thing ordinary people cut — yet here's this number.
The idea that Japanese people have no money is a total myth.
The only ones with no spare cash are the unemployed.
¥490
100,000 people
Downtown Plus
¥1,100
???
Somebody solve this equation for me
I haven't been back to Joyfull (a Japanese family-restaurant chain).
Are they racking up religious merit or something?
I only knew him from about 10 years ago, and now he's a full-on middle-aged guy.
I'm not interested in rich-guy Hikaru, but the dumb childhood-friends banter between Hikaru and Kyohei was fun to watch.
Still, I probably won't be watching Hikaru-the-YouTuber's videos going forward.
What's this guy's actual day job?
Why is he so popular though?
Same with Aum Shinrikyo — plenty of highly educated people joined that too (the cult behind the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack).
Guess there's always a certain percentage of people like that in the world.
This is infrastructure the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications provided, you know
I'm genuinely stunned that 100,000 fans are willing to pay a subscription for this.
What free trial period?
so by now it's probably close to 5 million. I don't get why Hikaru was looking down on it.
Whoever's best at fooling people wins.
Okay then, next time there's a big earthquake, donate ¥100 million.
If he's making that much, he could easily spare it, right?
All I ever see are web news articles going 'look how amazing he is' — is bragging actually his main content?
Now that you put it that way, lol, spot on.
Background and Points of Debate
YouTube memberships can be set up with multiple price tiers, and ¥490 is merely the cheapest plan — not every member is necessarily paying that exact amount. On top of that, YouTube takes its own cut of membership revenue (typically around 30%), so the “¥49 million a month” figure cited in the article is simply the per-member price multiplied by the member count, and likely doesn’t reflect Hikaru’s actual take-home income. Commenters raised concerns that many members might cancel during a free trial period, and also compared the numbers to “Downtown Plus,” a similarly priced paid content service. However, the two services differ in billing structure and in how their published subscriber figures are calculated, so a simple comparison of member counts doesn’t necessarily reflect the real picture.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Hikaru’s YouTube membership ‘Hikari no Kai’ tops 100,000 members — ¥490/month works out to about ¥49 million a month, roughly ¥588 million a year.”
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