Brianna Fox-Priest
December 16, 2024 As a whole, VTubing has made great strides in the last year, especially outside of Japan. After announcing its overseas subsidiary COVER USA expansion, COVER has curated opportunities to engage North American audiences with its Hololive VTubers talent pool, including the popular Los Angeles Dodgers “hololive night” collaboration in July.
COVER CEO Motoaki Tanigo spoke with Otaku USA in an interview to discuss the company’s vision for expansion in the US and areas of future collaboration efforts fans can expect to see.
COVER’s mission is to “bridge the gap between niche fandoms and mainstream culture.” What are your plans to have success in the West? What unique challenges have you faced so far compared to the Japanese market? How do you plan to overcome such challenges?
Tanigo-san: In Japan, we have been bridging the gap between the niche fans and the mainstream culture with different collaborations with gaming brands, and convenience stores, and recently we had a collaboration with McDonalds. That’s how we have been able to expand our reach.
In the US our plan is also to have collaborations with local brands. To that end, we have launched a subsidiary in the US called COVER USA. Before we had this operation, we would communicate with companies in the US online to discuss different collaboration options, but I think it is a lot easier now to have face-to-face conversations.
VTubers have a resemblance to anime characters; do you think it has helped the image and rise in interest of Vtubers globally and in the West and how do you plan to differentiate VTubers from anime?
Tanigo-san: I think the resemblance between VTubers and anime characters helped the VTubers to be popular among anime fans. The Japanese anime market has expanded in the past ten years from 1.3 Trillion yen market to a 2.9 trillion yen market (approximately 8.4 billion to 18.8 billion in US dollars).
VTubers seem like anime characters, but they are more real. So I think that is what is grabbing the attention of anime fans. Anime is all fictional, right? Stories are very important in the case of anime, however in the case of VTubers it feels more realistic. It’s not as fictional as anime.
© 2016 COVER Corp
Are there any gaps in the market that you believe can bridge the world of VTubers and new audiences? Are there any unique opportunities that can help engage physical audiences to digital creators?
Tanigo-san: I do see that there is a gap we can fill, which is to approach and reach out to anime fans. To do so we are participating in anime events and tradeshows to raise the profiles of VTubers.
The next logical step is to expand our reach to game fans. VTubers stream games so there is a big synergy we can expect between VTubers and streaming.
Also, music is very critical for us. For example, YouTube Shorts and TikTok; a lot of viewers come to find our VTubers through this type of media. They listened to VTubers on their Spotify playlists so we were able to expand our fan base globally. Some fans may not watch VTubers on YouTube, but they listen to their music so that’s how some people prefer to consume VTuber content.
As it becomes more mainstream, where do you believe the medium of VTubing will go from here? Where do you hope it will go?
Tanigo-san: We want VTubing to be a profession. We want VTubing to be a way for young creators to express themselves. The beauty of VTubing is that it doesn’t matter what your race, appearance, age is, as long as you are motivated to participate in this creative space you tap into your potential. I would like to see VTubing as a space for young creators to showcase what they can do and create.
If a mainstream artist wanted to work with Hololive VTubers, what do they need to do and how can they work with your talent? Are there any people or brands you would love to work with?
Tanigo-san: There are no specific things they need to do. We have already collaborated with famous artists in Japan by using AR (augmented reality). By using technology, we can collaborate with artists to create videos. We have even appeared on TV with big names.
For the US market, I would like to see our VTubers collaborate with artists by creating YouTube Shorts or TikToks so they can dance together or even appear on a talk show to raise the brand’s awareness and profile.
The thing about Vtubers is that they are personalities, but they are talent as well. They can appear in games, I am hoping to work with more gaming companies to have in-game collaborations.
Do you think growing the English branch is necessary to become more known in English-speaking markets? If so, what plans do you have to gain more attention as you expand?
Tanigo-san: We believe it is necessary for us to grow the English branch. That’s exactly why we launched COVER USA.
In the VTuber business, YouTube accounts for only 25% of the total revenue and the remaining comes from licensing and merchandising. In order for us to expand, we need to expand our branch in the West and local collaborations.
Hololive has some of the most popular VTubers in their talent pool, including the number one VTuber, Gawr Gura, with over 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube. What does your team look for when signing new talent?
Tanigo-san: When we sign new talent we look at how motivated they are and their skills. When it comes to motivation we need to know what kind of goals they have. We look for someone who has gaming skills, is good at talking to an audience, or can sing.
If they have something unique that the current talent doesn’t, that would be great. For example, they could make art, talk about cars, or do something else they are skilled at.
Speaking of Gawr Gura, there was the extremely popular “hololive night” collaboration at the Los Angeles Dodgers game over the summer. After that success, how do you hope to integrate VTuber culture and experiences into popular events and media in the US?
Tanigo-san: Up until last year we would mainly appear at anime events, but this year we collaborated with the Dodgers and had a collaboration with Dream Hug USA, a gaming company. We will continue to appear at anime events, but we would like to have a wide range of collaborations and appear at other popular events.
Mori Calliope will hold her first live concert outside of Japan at the Hollywood Palladium in LA, and there’s a new collaborative project between Vite Ramen in California and Takanashi Kiara of Hololive English. What areas or niches would you like to expand into for the next year?
Tanigo-san: Expanding into music is very vital to us. Recently, the singer IRyS released the song TwiLight so we believe expanding our presence into the field of music is going to be very important for us next year.
We also release covers of Western music through Spotify to show how important music is to us.
In the US market, we are hoping to work on new merchandising projects with apparel and figure brands to create new collaborations.
Can you discuss how original content like the “holo no graffiti” web-based mini-series is important to your overall strategy to expand COVER USA? How is the show produced with talent across the globe? And in what ways can it grow as VTubers become more mainstream?
Tanigo-san: The “holo no graffiti” series is an Internet meme 3D anime, it is delivered in multiple languages so it is helping VTubers to be known across the globe.
Going forward, we have a 3D animation team that works on “holo no graffiti” and we’d like to work with other animation studios.
And for those new to VTubers, what would you say to them and what sort of collaborations can they look forward to?
Tanigo-san: What I would like to say to those who are new VTubers is that VTubers are nonfictional. Some people may not like the idea of Vtubers being nonfictional, but I would like to ask them to look at Hololive on YouTube and see if they like it or not.
As to what sort of collaborations they can look forward to, we can collaborate with the games that they play, collaborate with their favorite baseball team, and even a local cafe in their town. There are all sorts of possibilities we can explore.
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