“ | Hello there, My name is Shima... | ” |
―Shima Luan's Intro |
Shima Luan is an American YouTuber, animator, artist, gamer, and narrator who is best known for working for Planet Dolan, an Australian YouTube channel notable for making countdown lists. Around 2016, she had disappeared from the internet with many speculating on her absence online. She is represented as a pink anthropomorphic cat.
Career[]
Shima created her channel on January 11, 2008 where she used to read short stories from the works of Edgar Allen Poe, Kurt Vonnegut, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Shima frequently appeared on the channel Super Planet Dolan, which is the animation channel of Planet Dolan. Shima was the most active character on the channel. Many videos on the Super Planet Dolan channel focused on educational topics and facts. In these videos Shima would point out true facts while Dolan would point out false facts.
From 2009 to 2010, Shima was an artist for the HTML Pet Collection Forum called Chicken Smoothie[1], wherein she created around 170 pets[2] before retiring from the site in December.
Shima would start posting bloopers and Q&A's on the channel relating to Super Planet Dolan. She would also occasionally post drawing time lapses and let's plays.
Disappearance[]
Later in 2016, Danger Dolan's channel announced in the video "The Future Of Planet Dolan?" that Shima had become distant from them, and that they had not been receiving any contact from her.
The crew believed that she was okay, given that the last time of their contact Shima was indeed safe. No information was given after that, leaving fans to come up with various theories as to her whereabouts. Some people started to believe that the crew was trying to cover up her disappearance, while others thought she had left due to other problems such as issues with her mental health.
ScareTheater Analysis[]
For nearly four years, there would be no new information regarding Shima's disappearance. On February 12, 2020, the YouTuber ScareTheater made a video analyzing Shima's disappearance. In the comments, Hellbent (a member of the Dolan crew) stated: "It's sort of an unsolvable mystery to those who don't know her. Because to solve it in a satisfying way publicly, we'd have to invade the actress who played Shima's personal life on a public level. No one who walks away from a job in entertainment wants to be dragged out in public and shown around. That would be ghoulish."
He continued with: "In respect to the privacy of others. All I can say is that this is one of the better videos on the topic. Everyone else fell into trappings of teasing ideas of conspiracy and horror. Truth is we always had trouble getting folks to separate the cartoons from the actors." Hellbent's comment confirms that Shima is indeed safe, but that the reason for her disappearance has and will remain private.
Profile Picture Change[]
On December 23, 2020, Shima's profile picture was changed to a black and white image of crushed up leaves. Many people came up with theories to explain the picture change. Some people theorized that this could be a sign of Shima's eventual return, while others have said that it means nothing. Others have said that her account could have been hacked, or that the picture change was Shima trying to give a sign telling people that she was okay.
2022 Update[]
In December 2022, it was teased in a YouTube community post that Shima Luan would return to Super Planet Dolan following a revival of Super Planet in 2022 that involved a plot of Dolan and a new character darlink finding out what happened to all the old members of the Planet Dolan cast after Dolan wakes up from a two year sleep.[1] On December 24, a video was uploaded on the Super Planet Dolan channel talking about what happened to Shima. While most of the video is comedic, Dolan explained that around November 2015, he suspected she disappeared after not sending in her lines for videos past the deadline.
Weeks later, he received an email from Shima where she explains that her family life got in the way of voicing her lines. She also explains that she isolates herself from other people when she's dealing with a stressful situation. Shima also says she wishes to still work with Planet Dolan, but has been taking therapy in order to fix her issues. Dolan does confirm she's okay due to her Steam profile being active. He also thinks Shima is still struggling with her personal life and won't return to the internet.
2023 Post[]
In November 2023, another community post teased at Shima's return.
In December 24 2023, in this video of Super Planet Dolan, he had introduced a new “Shima” dubbed “Shima Prime”. Even though the character is not voiced by Shima Luan, she is a tribute and in essence “Shima” as Dolan stated, he also had explained that he had contacted Shima but has not received any replies, leaving Shima Luan still missing.