Salaryman turned online star: This Japanese YouTuber has 2.3M subscribers

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Youtube recently unveiled its Youtube Rewind 2013, a look back at some of the most viewed videos and YouTubers on the site. In Japan, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu nabbed a bunch of top spots (first, third and fourth place) among all music videos.

Looking at the top ten Youtube channels overall in Japan, we can see huge entertainment entities like the agency Avex and idol supergroup AKB48. But surprisingly the fifth spot is occupied by the only individual performer to make the list, Hikakin TV. He is a 24-year-old human beatbox performer who has been active on YouTube since 2006.

His channel now has over 2.3 million subscribers with a whopping 400 million total views. Although he initially began performing just his human beatbox routine and techniques (which you can check out in the video below), Hikakin now broadcasts a variety of short performances on four different channels.

One YouTube channel is dedicated a live report of himself playing games called HikakinGames. Considering that the majority of his fans are young digital natives who also play games, this sort of content makes sense.

His online popularity eventually led to appearances on TV and other media. His published book, entitled My Job is Youtube, came out back in July. Hikakin has also released an Android app,HikakinBeat, which lets anyone become a creative and platful DJ.

His is the story of a salaryman turned into an online star. Hikakin is definitely a digital pioneer, whose online popularity gave him the chance to expand to traditional media.

Here he is making Super Mario beatbox sounds in the video below.