Hololive founder YAGOO explains VTuber agency origins during fifth anniversary HololiveHololive is celebrating its fifth anniversary in September 2022, and it\u2019s been a long road for founder Motoaki \u2018YAGOO\u2019 Tanigo and his talents. The VTuber agency was never intended to be one according to him, Tokino Sora, and Shirakami Fubuki \u2014 but rather a happy coincidence. Hololive is the name synonymous with VTubing in 2022. The agency has become a global phenomenon, boasting the biggest talents in the world, booking out massive concerts, and filling convention halls as hundreds of thousands of people watch them daily. It\u2019s a far cry from the game developer COVER Corp used to be six years ago, and the 13 viewers Tokino Sora \u2014 who just broke 1 million YouTube subscribers \u2014 got on her debut stream on September 7, 2017. When Hololive was being conceptualized, VTubing wasn\u2019t even a thing. \u201cAt the time the term \u2018VTuber\u2019 didn\u2019t exist yet,\u201d YAGOO explained during Hololive\u2019s fifth-anniversary broadcast. \u201cInstead we wanted to try creating a service based on VR that would allow people across the world to come together. \u201cWe started with a VR table tennis game to do just that. We handed it out for free, so it really didn\u2019t earn us anything at all\u2026 but as a free VR table tennis game, it did have a large impact even outside Japan.\u201d However, while the VR table tennis game wasn\u2019t driving much revenue, there was a stark pivot when Kizuna AI came onto the scene in 2016. YAGOO and the few other employees at COVER Corp saw the potential to turn their VR games into something more interactive with characters. \u201cI\u2019d already worked on character promotion [marketing] at a different company before starting COVER and so we created a system for a VR character to provide live commentary even while developing the table tennis game. \u201cIt continued growing from there, and around the end of 2016 and Kizuna AI appeared and brought the term \u2018Virtual YouTuber\u2019 with her, we thought to ourselves that we could do the same. That\u2019s when we kind of changed direction.\u201d Tokino Sora\u2019s debut was a quiet affair with COVER Corp staff and 13 other people, commonly known as the \u201c13 Knights\u201d within VTuber circles, showing up. Sora herself said she was \u201csuper nervous\u2026 [but] I still remember being happy that a whole 13 people came to watch me.\u201d The once-a-week streams soon ramped in intensity, and Hololive finally started onboarding new members like Shirakami Fubuki. The new talents came from various different backgrounds. Some were aspiring idols, others were gamers who just wanted to stream using a different look. Fubuki reminisced on some of the funny stories of Generation 1 while starting up. \u201cWe had some members with zero streaming experience,\u201d she said. \u201cEspecially Aki Rosenthal. She didn\u2019t know how to stream at all back then, and she didn\u2019t even have the equipment for it. She had to use other methods like streaming from her smartphone. \u201cNowadays we\u2019re streaming on our PCs but we weren\u2019t sure what to do when we started out, so there was a lot of trial and error. In Aki\u2019s case, she didn\u2019t know how to use a PC. She had to ask us for advice and we taught her.\u201d Now though Hololive has more than 70 talents globally \u2014 most recently debuting holoTEMPUS, the first all-male English-speaking group \u2014 with millions of followers on social media. While five years is a long time, Fubuki said it felt like it passed in an instant. \u201cIt all feels really nostalgic, but when I look back on it, it all seems like it happened yesterday. But Hololive is going to keep on going, so I\u2019m really excited for all of the even greater things we\u2019ll do. I\u2019m looking forward to it all.\u201d As for what the future of Hololive looks like, YAGOO says there are big plans to expand internationally, but at the same time, COVER Corp is more than a VTuber agency. While they\u2019ve pushed the boundaries with technology, they want to keep pressing the issue. After all, what was once a VR table tennis game has turned into one of the internet\u2019s most lucrative industries. \u201cOur company also deals with software development so one of our selling points is how we can still develop these apps. Using technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, one of our goals is to develop such apps that can be enjoyed by everyone. \u201cEven as a VTuber agency, the company\u2019s developments in tech will continue to progress. \u201cNow that I look back on it all, it really was a jam-packed five years. At the same time, it reminded me of our early growing pains. It\u2019s all thanks to the tireless efforts of the talents, staff, and everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hololive founder YAGOO explains VTuber agency origins during fifth anniversary HololiveHololive is celebrating its fifth anniversary in September 2022, and it\u2019s been a long road for founder Motoaki \u2018YAGOO\u2019 Tanigo and his talents. The VTuber agency was never intended to be one according to him, Tokino Sora, and Shirakami Fubuki \u2014 but rather a happy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}