Inside the cavernous Kings Theater in Brooklyn, New York, the crowd began to scream in anticipation of the concert about to begin, but a lone voice broke through the roar: “Yaaaaagooooooooooo!”
The event was Hololive’s Breaking Dimensions concert on August 24, a show where digital artists called Vtubers sing and dance live on stage as holograms. Yagoo is not a Vtuber, however, but a buttoned-up flesh-and-blood CEO named Motoaki Tanigo. Motoaki runs Cover Corporation, the company that owns and operates Hololive Production, one of the largest Vtuber agencies in the world.
In 2022, people flocked to Vtuber content, with streaming platform Twitch reporting that viewership Vtubing content increased by 350% compared to compared to the previous year. In autumn 2023, Covers Vtubers had more than 83 million subscribers in totalThis summer, the company held its second live concert in English on the same weekend as the Anime NYC convention.
However, all is not well. Controversies in the Vtuber world highlight the tension between talent and the giant agencies that manage them, and independent Vtubers criticize the agencies for their inflexibility. While other top Vtuber agencies are battling criticism and the reputations of some tech CEOs are faltering, Motoaki is loved by the fan community
To learn more about the future of Cover and Hololive, Polygon chatted with Motoaki and Max Sung Yoon Kim, Cover’s US sales and licensing director, at Anime NYC. We talked about anime, Motoaki’s dreams for Vtuber, the challenges of bringing Vtuber to the US, and the role of fans in increasing the reach of Vtuber content.
[Ed. note: The portions of this interview with Motoaki Tanigo were conducted through interpreters. The transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Polygon: Anime has long been popular in the U.S., but interest has increased significantly since the pandemic. Do you think American interest in anime creates opportunities for Vtubing to grow?
Motoaki Tanigo: In the last 10 years, Japanese anime activity has doubled, especially overseas. Vtubing is like having your favorite anime avatar live streaming with you. We can ride this wave and keep getting bigger.
Polygon: Vtubers’ designs are inspired by anime. Has Cover learned any other lessons from the anime industry more broadly?
Motoaki Tanigo: In anime, there’s not really just one important character, is there? You have their friends and their group, and from that we learned how to introduce our unique characters as a unit. So we have a sense of unity and community. And a season of animation could be like a generation, a unity.
Polygon: What do you think is the most important factor in successfully growing Vtubing in a new location? Is it choosing the right talent? Is it the right way to bring merchandise to new places? What has been successful for Cover in expanding to the US?
Motoaki Tanigo: All of it, [Motoaki chuckles]. What we’re doing in the American market right now isn’t as big as the Japanese market because we’re in the phase now where we have talent and merchandising. But in Japan, we have talent, merchandising and music. We have collaborations with convenience stores, whatever. We’d like to expand that in the future.
Polygon: Is there a dream collaboration for you in the US? Would it be to see Vtubers at McDonald’s or something like that?
Motoaki Tanigo: [We want] to do more collaborations on games, because in Japan we have worked with Sega and Nintendo. In the US we hope to have a chance to work with big names like Riot Games.
Polygon: What has been the biggest lesson Cover has learned in expanding its talent pool to include English speakers, and has that expansion presented any particular challenges?
Motoaki Tanigo: We offer a good working environment for Japanese talent, but we have not yet been able to do the same for our English talent.
Max Sung Yoon Kim: On the American side, the streaming environments are very different. The type of things that many of the usual streamers stream, as well as what the audience enjoys, are different. This, as well as obtaining permissions for the games, [can be different]. When streaming, there are many environments that are different from the Japanese side.
Polygon: I’ve heard independent Vtubers here in the US – who grew up in the American content creation ecosystem – say that Vtubing agencies can sometimes be a bit restrictive about the type of content they create. I was curious if Cover tried to think through that challenge.
Motoaki Tanigo: We have so many options, don’t we? If you like being independent and being free, that’s a really good option too. But being in an agency means you have more of a stage. You have access to a bigger stage. You can be part of a unit. You can be in concerts. You can probably act in movies. So if you want to have a bigger stage in the future, I think you’ll be in the [agency] is the better option for you.
Polygon: With Hololive Productions, you create characters, pop stars, gaming content creators, influencers, and more. Do you believe a successful Vtuber has to do it all? Or do you see opportunities for niche talent to still find their voice?
Motoaki Tanigo: In my opinion, viewers like people who do something really good, who do their best and try to convey that to their audience. We have gamers. We have entertainers, everything, right? In Japan, for example, we have a talent who is really good at art, and that is their trademark. But [the Vtuber industry is] really, really young. It’s been seven years. So there’s so much potential in the future and I think we should be excited about it.
Polygon: Growing your male Vtuber cohort has been a little slower. Why is it harder to sell male Vtubers?
Motoaki Tanigo: Our fans who like holostars or male Vtubers are mostly women in Asia. But if you translate it to the American market, the Western market, we have a lot more races, not just Asians. It’s really diverse. So how we appeal to many different races, many different ethnicities, is going to be our big challenge going forward.
Polygon: So the difference in diversity presents a bigger challenge in marketing the men of Holostars? Am I hearing this correctly?
Polygon: I remember scrolling through TikTok during the pandemic and seeing clips of Gawr Gura for the first time. What role do platforms like TikTok play in the development of covers?
Motoaki Tanigo: Since the pandemic, people tend to switch to user-generated content like short videos instead of streaming content or TikTok or other social media. It’s also very popular in Japan, so we’re trying to leverage that more in the future.
Max Sung Yoon Kim: It’s not just about the importance of TikTok, but also about our fans being able to support our brand in a more convenient way with their high engagement levels. I think that’s a very important aspect of the fan base we’ve built so far and hopefully it will help drive awareness.
Polygon: As we end the interview, I wonder if there is anything else you would like to share with our readers?
Motoaki Tanigo: The Vtubing industry is new, but just like anime in recent years, there are so many great IPs from the anime space, right? So as anime collaborates with games and industries, we are also looking forward to collaborating with many industries in the future.