VI-VO

What VI-VO is

VI-VO (ビーボ) is a Japanese-language video call and live streaming site built for smartphones. The women on it are amateurs, and the site says more than 50,000 of them are registered. A visitor talks to them one-on-one by video call, voice call or message, buys their selfie photos and videos, and reads their blogs. The site describes itself as the largest smartphone-only video call and live streaming site in its industry, which is its own claim.

Men can register for free, and the site states that registration is needed to use it. It sells points, and each call, message or piece of posted content has a point price printed on the home page.

What you get and how the money works

Video calls. The video call is what the site calls its main content. It is a 2-way call: you see her and she sees you. The site says you need its free smartphone app to make the call, and that the app is updated regularly to keep call quality up. It also advertises the quality of the picture in general terms, without giving a resolution. Voice calls can be made from the same app.

Voice calls and messages. Besides video, there are voice calls and a message function, which the site calls mail. A message can carry text, and the site says women can send you their own selfie videos and photos, and that you can send yours to them. The site suggests checking a woman's profile and, if she suits you, writing to her.

Free live streams. The page title says you can watch amateur women's erotic broadcasts for free, and that is the basis for the free-cams membership. In practice the free side the pages describe is the blogs, some free videos and promotional videos posted by the women, which the site calls free content. The FAQ says some posted content can be viewed free of charge, and that registration is required to use any of it. The site lists its live erotic streams (エロ配信, erotic broadcasting) beside video calls, voice calls and mail as one of the ways to reach a woman, and its discount events are pitched at video calls and erotic streams alike.

Posted photos and videos. Registered women post selfie videos and photos, and the home page gives different daily numbers in different places: 350 or more updates a day in one passage, 200 or more photo and video posts a day in another, and 400 or more posts a day including blogs in a third. The site says a purchased photo or video can be watched again as often as you like at no extra cost, and keeps it in your My List, found under the menu after you log in. The site says women post more than 150 blogs a day. Blogs are free and the site presents them as the way to get to know a woman before writing to her.

Who is on it. The site says the roster includes students, office workers (OL), married women and mature women. The online list on the home page shows each woman's age, her region of Japan such as Kanagawa, Kagoshima, Fukuoka or Kyoto, and whether she is available for video, voice or both. That list is what the asian-cams membership rests on: the site describes its roster as amateur women from all over Japan, writing and calling in Japanese, and its women search lets you narrow the 50,000-plus by type before you pay for anything. The site suggests marking a woman as a favorite when you find her.

Rankings. Posted videos, photos and blogs are ranked by day, week and month. The site says a high rank means a woman has the support of male users, and suggests using the rankings if you do not know whom to pick.

Discount events. The site runs 3 kinds of events. A newcomer event discounts video and voice calls with women who are new to the site. A conversation event, held irregularly, discounts video and voice calls. A message event, also irregular, discounts the cost of sending a message.

The figures from the pages

Per-use point prices. The home page price list reads video call 230pt, voice call 180pt, message send 80pt, posted image view 30pt, and posted video view from 50pt. These are the figures as the price list prints them, a point price per action with no time unit attached, so they are not a per-minute rate. The only yen value for points on the pages comes from the prepaid cards below.

Free points. The home page says a limited-time offer gives 3,000 yen worth of free points on registration. A button labeled 無料ポイントGET方法 (how to get free points) leads to a guide to the different free point offers.

Prepaid cards. The FAQ describes a prepaid card made only for VI-VO, sold at bookstores and video shops across Japan, in 3 types. A 2,200 yen card gives 2,000 points, a 4,400 yen card gives 4,000 points and a 6,600 yen card gives 6,000 points. Cards cannot be returned or exchanged after purchase. The home page also shows a prepaid card option next to the Google and Yahoo account login buttons.

Expiry. The payment-law notice says points expire 180 days after purchase and that there is no upper limit on the balance. Points can be used anywhere inside the VI-VO site, and the balance is shown on the point display after login. The same notice says that, as a rule, points are not refunded, and that where a refund is made under Japan's Payment Services Act it goes only to an account at a bank in Japan.

Phone charges. The site says a call through the app costs only the site fee and no carrier call charge. Data usage is billed separately by your carrier, so the site recommends Wi-Fi.

Operator. The payment-law notice names 株式会社エムモバ as the business, with a complaints desk at an address in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and an email address on the vi-vo.link domain.

Who it suits and who it does not

VI-VO suits a Japanese-speaking man who wants direct, one-on-one contact with amateur women on his phone rather than a show with a crowd in the room. It fits someone who likes to build up a relationship through blogs and messages first, since the free blogs and the ranked posts are designed for that. Prepaid cards that sell in Japanese shops suit a buyer who would rather not use a card online. The listed prices are quoted per action, which makes it easy to see what a message or a photo costs.

It suits a bargain hunter only partly. The discount events and the signup points help, but the pages never say how long a video call runs for 230pt, so the real cost of a long conversation is hard to work out before you try one.

There are clear limits. The site is smartphone-only and its banner says it recommends Google Chrome, so a viewer who wants a desktop experience is out of luck. It is entirely in Japanese. Points expire 180 days after purchase, so a large first purchase only makes sense for someone who will use it within that window. There is no sign in the pages of couples, men's or group rooms; the roster is women only, and the site refuses users under 18. A viewer who wants to see public rooms without registering will not find that here either, since registration is needed for any use.