Meet the RaceDepartment Member With Over 100 Million YouTube Views in the Past 6 Months

Himura 01.jpg
RaceDepartment member Himura88 has a YouTube channel based mostly around Assetto Corsa that has amassed a staggering 125 million views.

When we think of the bigger YouTube personalities from the world of sim racing, most of us think of names like Jimmy Broadbent, Jardier, and Chris Haye. But there is another personality that has burst onto the sim racing scene in recent months that is poised to become the most popular sim racing content creator ever by the end of this year.

HimuraGaming started a YouTube channel 4 years ago and gained a solid following with his clips of car and motorbike sims. By the middle of December, 2020, the channel had over 100 subscribers and 70,000 channel views. Both figures are impressive, but insignificant next to what was about to happen to the channel in the next month.

By the second week of January, both the channel’s subscribers and viewer count had doubled, and by February both figures had increased 100-fold (~11,000 subscribers and ~8,000,000 channel views) versus December.

And the staggering progress and success of the channel hasn’t ceased in the months since. For those who may not be familiar with YouTube metrics and how these numbers compare to other popular channels, here are some points of reference:
  • Jimmy Broadbent is undoubtedly the biggest YouTube personality in sim racing, but in the last six months alone, HimuraGaming has gained 65% of Jimmy’s all-time video views
  • Many popular sim racing influencers gain 1,000 to 2,000 subscribers per month; HimuraGaming is meeting that mark each day
  • Over six million people watched videos from HimuraGaming on August 10th, which is equivalent to the viewership over many years for many of other top sim racing YouTubers
For those that aren’t familiar with Himura’s work, the newer videos are short clips of exotic sports cars, mostly recorded in Assetto Corsa. There are no voice overs or fancy edits, either. I reached out to Himura88, and here was the take on the success of the channel:

“So, my channel had like 1000 subscribers it was my second channel and one day I wanted to make a vid on Nordschleife with Nismo Boss Gt-R 1500Hp. I was a little fast and I jumped, and then the idea came to make a vid.”


Humble beginnings, to be sure. But things of course got even more intense for the channel after that.

“The video blew up everywhere... on Tik Tok I got like 50 mil views on that vid or something like that. On Facebook 30 mil and so on. And I gained a lot of subs and this is how it started”

The most popular comments on HimuraGaming’s videos share a theme of the videos looking realistic, and in some cases indistinguishable from real-life car footage. Thanks to some excellent graphics mods and 4k footage, the videos look extremely impressive.

So congratulations to Himura88 on the channel’s success, and we wish you all the best in the future of the channel. If you’re not yet subscribed, check out HimuraGaming on YouTube and check out his library of videos here on his RD profile page.

If you are a content creator yourself make sure to let the world know by adding your creations to /videos here.
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

Comments

Didn't know about him yet, but i guess he gets most of his views due to his clickbaity video titles like "Big Supercars Jumps And Crash Nordschleife" which lead many not simracing interested people to his videos.
You didn t add the full name of the vid, you forgot the name of the game, the title is "Big Supercars Jumps And Crash Nordschleife | Assetto Corsa"
That is in the title of every video, also in hashtags, description etc ! i never claim is real or something :-??
So other people that make vids like "Formula 1 Hot Lap At Spa Fernando Alonso etc" or "I did nurburgring in 5:xxx:xx" and no game in title or mention is a game is not "clickbait" but mine is, lol.
When i made that vid it was made for my little public, it was a gaming channel even the name is HimuraGAMING, the name of the game is everywhere and the channel name contain gaming etc i thought is obvious is a game and i never claimed is real lol
 
I've seen a bunch of these in my feed, but hadn't put 2+2 together that it was the same guy making all of them!

Good time to be a sim racing content creator, I think the market has really exploded over the last 1-1.5 yrs.
 
I miss "KenRacing" on YT, a dude in Japan who has gone silent. Made great comparisons (R3E vs AMS2 etc.) Passionate videos. Hope Ken is OK.
 
You didn t add the full name of the vid, you forgot the name of the game, the title is "Big Supercars Jumps And Crash Nordschleife | Assetto Corsa"
That is in the title of every video, also in hashtags, description etc ! i never claim is real or something :-??
So other people that make vids like "Formula 1 Hot Lap At Spa Fernando Alonso etc" or "I did nurburgring in 5:xxx:xx" and no game in title or mention is a game is not "clickbait" but mine is, lol.
When i made that vid it was made for my little public, it was a gaming channel even the name is HimuraGAMING, the name of the game is everywhere and the channel name contain gaming etc i thought is obvious is a game and i never claimed is real lol
I didn't say you would claim those videos are real and yes you wrote Assetto Corsa in the title, but i guess you agree that those many hits just came from people searching for "Supercar crash" saw the Cellphone like video in the thumbnail and clicked on it, or not? I don't blame you for doing that, i just wanted to express my opinion that your success is not caused by making simracing content, that's all, lol.
 
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While I’m happy he’s getting subscribers and views, a lot of the videos showcase ripped content… and where to get them.

Not sure a Race Department article for this can be considered ethical, IMO
an interesting point you make. Thanks for taking the time to highlight it.

I can’t speak for Mike but I personally don’t know by hand which mods are ripped or not. Also I can’t speak for Mike but it may be the case that he didn’t see the videos in question or the promotion of obtaining ripped mods.

I think we do everything we can to keep the modding scene ethical and do our best to remove stolen content from our site.

I’m not going to question mikes ethics in this case maybe it’s just an oversight? Possibly a question for himura88 to get his view on it. As I have discovered recently that there are thousands of new drivers in sim racing since covid and not everyone is aware of ethical modding practices, maybe himura is one of those? I don’t know just trying to see it from all sides
 
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While I’m happy he’s getting subscribers and views, a lot of the videos showcase ripped content… and where to get them.

Not sure a Race Department article for this can be considered ethical, IMO

an interesting point you make. Thanks for taking the time to highlight it.

I can’t speak for Mike but I personally don’t know by hand which mods are ripped or not. Also I can’t speak for Mike but it may be the case that he didn’t see the videos in question or the promotion of obtaining ripped mods.

I think we do everything we can to keep the modding scene ethical and do our best to remove stolen content from our site.

I’m not going to question mikes ethics in this case maybe just an oversight. Possibly a question for himura88 to get his view on it. As I have discovered recently that there are thousands of new drivers in sim racing since covid and not everyone is aware of ethical modding practices, maybe himura is one of those? I don’t know just trying to see it from all sides
What ripped bro ? I buy my mods from rss, vrc etc lol, what sites of ripped content ?personaly i reported when someone uploaded rss ! What sites and stuff ?
 
What ripped bro ? I buy my mods from rss, vrc etc lol, what sites of ripped content ?personaly i reported when someone uploaded rss ! What sites and stuff ?
That’s also a good point. I’ve no idea if any of this content is ripped.
 
And how did i ripped them please explain cause i don t know ? Cause i put links to mods or ?
No I don’t think anyone is accusing you of ripping anything. Again I’m not an expert on which mods are ripped etc but there are a lot of mods out there which have been ripped from other games or modders.
 

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