Livestream

EDIT January 2020: BUTAOTOME completely stopped doing their weekly livestream (the very last one was in June). If they will ever go back to doing them, they will probably move to Youtube (though this is just my supposition based on the fact that Nicovideo is dying and more circles are moving on Youtube). This page remains here for archival purposes.

The “ButaNama” (豚生) is a livestream usually held every Wednesday at 22:00 JST on Nicovideo. For watching it, it is necessary an account, so go ahead and make one if you don’t have one! You can also switch the language to English by going to the bottom of the page, so everything is simple. Also, be sure to set up your timezone, so Niconico can give you the exact time! (even when there is daylight saving if you have it)
You can keep track of when they’ll stream by checking their niconico community or Butaotome’s main Twitter. If you are unsure if you’ll watch it on time or if you want to rewatch it, there is the timeshift option: go to the streaming page and click the yellow button. It’s not possible to timeshift them during the half-hour before the beginning of the streaming.
A half-hour after the end of the streaming, you can watch the timeshift – it lasts one week. If you have a premium account, you can watch the streamings without needing to timeshift them (there is still the week limit), but you must pay for it.

A regular ButaNama lasts 1 hour. There are Comp and Paprika (+ Ranko no Ane behind the scenes, managing the green screen/video elements and writing important things), and they talk about the latest news, announce things if there are any, and have fun. Noteworthy moments are:

Comu Kasegi (コムかせぎ, earning comu)
Usually held during the beginning, Paprika plays the piano, “sings” and has some give-and-take moments with Comp. Meanwhile, everybody spams コム in the comments.
What is a Comu? When Butaotome changed their website at the beginning of 2014, they had the habit of announcing the URL in a split way between three members, with Paprika always ending with her “comu” (com) which sounded cute. It slowly evolved into a sort of catchphrase of Paprika, detaching from its original meaning of “com of a website URL”.

Compachi’s Trouble Counselling Room (コンパチ先生のお悩み相談室, Compachi-sensei no onayami soudanshitsu)
At a certain time, Comp wears a blonde wig and becomes Compachi-sensei. He replies to fans’ questions about their problems.
Compachi is a parody of “Kinpachi-sensei”, a TV drama really popular in Japan.

Kimi no (君の)
Usually held during the second half of the streaming, is a complete improvisation corner. Paprika plays the piano and Comp sings random things (he usually gets suggestions from fans’ comments). These improvisations are always called “Kimi no…” (君の…, your…). This corner is present ever since the first Utau Namahousou and gained a lot of success among fans, to the point Butaotome dedicated some livestreams entirely to the Kimi nos and distributed some homemade CDs at minor events/lives.

History

In the past Butaotome occasionally had some livestreams, where the four members talked about stuff etc. There were also livestreams where Ranko no Ane was working on the cover art/booklet for the upcoming albums, but that’s another story. Then, they decided to make them as a weekly stream, and the “Butaotome Utau Namahousou” (豚乙女歌う生放送, roughly translatable as “Butaotome singing broadcast”) was created in November 2013. All four members were there and, like today, they talked about the latest news, announced things if there were any, and had fun. They often also played 2 songs picked from their vast repertoire (usually a Touhou arrangement and an original) in a short and acoustic version. The livestream got its “renewal” around the end of May 2016, with just Comp, Paprika and the green screen. A new music-related corner was introduced: the “Paprika’s piano corner”. In this corner, a vocal album was picked and a quick poll was created. The most voted song would have been played by Paprika the week after in a piano instrumental version, along with another song chosen by the cat herself from the same album. All the main Touhou vocal albums up until Paradise Lost were covered in chronological order, plus the five original albums in between. This corner also served as the basis for Neko no Anmin DISC. After four years and 170 numbered livestreams, the Utau Namahousou format was abandoned in September 2017.