This feature focuses on holoKatsu, or fan activity in support of hololive. Last time, we introduced the trends behind holoKatsu and just how varied it can be, drawing upon a survey conducted via holoplus. This time, we sat down for one-on-one interviews with three of those who took part in that survey, for a closer look at what holoKatsu means to each of them.
Meet our interviewees
G.K.
First, we spoke with G.K. (20s / female), who is currently a university student. Ever since being captivated by an Isaki Riona song that happened to come up in her YouTube feed, she has thrown herself into her own holoKatsu while dreaming of a Riona solo live. Last summer, a stream sparked her interest in Kochi Prefecture, which prompted her to make a whirlwind trip there. She tells us about that trip and about her wholehearted feelings for Riona.
Chun
Second is Chun (30s / male), who takes on the challenge of making outfits for plushies. Won over by the key visual for the third generation’s live show Kyururun Daisakusen, he told us about how he spent about a month building a replica of Shirogane Noel’s live outfit despite having no prior experience.
Omatchi
Third is Omatchi (30s / male), whose whole family loves hololive. He and his child in particular attend hololive fes. and AZKi’s solo lives together as Pioneers. We heard about how the holoKatsu he once enjoyed alone grew to now involve his family and his friends.
*All photos in this article were provided by the respective interviewees.
[The Previous Article]
“holoKatsu is what made me fall in love with Kochi”
From a recommended song to her first-ever VTuber obsession
G.K. has long been at home in a wide range of cultures, from games to “three-dimensional” (real-life) idols. What made her fall in love with a VTuber for the very first time was Riona’s cover of “FG ROADSTER” (SOLO ver.), which happened to surface in her YouTube feed.
“I was floored by her outstanding vocals and rap skills, and by a style of outfit design you rarely see on a VTuber. Just like that, I had my first-ever VTuber oshi. At first I only followed Riona’s solo streams, but because she’s active across so many formats, from collab streams to team events in outside tournaments, before I knew it I’d memorized the names of every talent on the roster.”
On days with no university classes, she saysshe sometimes devotes the entire day to her oshi; watching archives and clips, or losing herself in making fan art. She also brings her own skills into her holoKatsu, such as creating her own piano arrangement of Riona’s song “Ring my name” and setting it as her alarm.
holoKatsu brought about a positive change to how she enjoys fashion, too. Between the fashion talk on Riona’s streams and the fun of putting together gainen kōde*, she now wears styles she had never tried before.
*Gainen kōde (“concept coordination”): an outfit built around the image colors or aesthetic of a favorite person, character, or work.
“I’d always liked Y2K fashion (the 2000s-inspired look), but I started branching out into softer styles and so-called suna-kei* as well. Having the things I love multiply because of a talent is the biggest thrill and the greatest joy I get out of holoKatsu.”
*Suna-kei: the fashion brand SNIDEL and similar styles.
A whirlwind summer trip to Kochi, and a love deepened through the stomach
G.K. looks back on discovering Riona as “opening a door to content, places, and cultures I’d never encountered before.” A prime example: a pilgrimage to Kochi Prefecture, a place Riona speaks about with great affection. Her interest was piqued by a talk on the recurring stream “Lunch with Riona” and two days later she was on her way to Kochi.
Once there, she visited Jinzan Park, which Riona had introduced as a place of fond memories during a “GeoGuessr” geography-game stream with AZKi. She also bought the kind of bento Riona used to eat in high school, boarded a boat, and savored it while gazing out at the Kochi sea. Won over by the local food – seared bonito, deep-fried moray eel, local sake – and by the Yosakoi tradition, she came away a thoroughly converted Kochi fan.
So why does a fan want to visit places connected to their oshi, or places their oshi has recommended? Here is how G.K. sees it:
“When you’re talking with friends or family, you read their reactions and recommend things you think they’ll be into, right? But because an oshi is speaking to a huge audience of fans, they get to talk about what they genuinely love to their heart’s content. That’s exactly why the appeal comes through so directly.”
The joy of walking alongside an artist as they grow
Asked why she supports Riona, G.K. says it goes beyond her being the first VTuber she has ever adored. She is captivated by Riona as an artist in her own right.
“When I was bathed in Riona’s voice at my first hololive fes., it felt like the song had taken over my body, and it felt incredible. It really hit me that it takes a venue of that size to contain my oshi’s voice.”
With a major life milestone ahead, as she starts work next spring, she smiled as she said she wants to keep cheering Riona on at her own pace.
“I really hope she holds a solo live at a big venue someday. I want her to be discovered by more and more people and to push as far as she possibly can as an artist.”
“I wanted to be at the live show, on that big stage, together with a plushie in an outfit I made myself”
Every day spent with hololive
What drew Chun to hololive was a single clip video he happened to come across on YouTube in 2023. Clip videos cut out the highlights from streams that can otherwise run for hours, and because they help broaden an oshi’s reach, they have become a staple form of user-generated content in the streamer and VTuber space.
“I watched a clip from a karaoke stream with Noel and Marine. The surreal shot composition of Marine absolutely losing it, laughing, while Noel just calmly kept singing was so funny that I got curious about what kind of person Noel was.”
The first stream he watched live was a Super Mario Bros. playthrough.
“I’d always loved watching Chief Arino and his never-say-die attitude playing games on the TV show GameCenter CX. Noel’s Mario playthrough had something of that same spirit, and the stream was just fun. After that, unless I had other plans, I started following every single stream live.”
And so hololive became part of Chun’s daily life. Weekday afternoons are for the talents’ regular streams; evenings are for checking holodule* for any stream that catches his eye. He also actively attends corporate collaboration events and live shows, adjusting his work schedule in advance when one falls on a weekday so he can be there in person. holoKatsu gives his daily life both rhythm and energy.
*holodule: the official site for checking the stream schedules of hololive talents.
“If it doesn’t exist, I’ll make it” — Making plushie outfits from scratch
The moment Chun took on the challenge of making a plushie outfit was when the third generation’s live show Kyururun Daisakusen was announced.
“I saw the key visual, and the live outfits were so cute that I wanted one for my plushie. So I thought, ‘If it doesn’t exist, I’ll just make it myself.’ I’d always seen other people’s handmade merch come across my social feeds and thought to myself that I’d like to try it someday.”
That said, Chun had no craft knowledge or skills at the time. He hadn’t held a needle since home economics class. He started by buying a book on the basics of plushie clothing and read up on the fundamentals, from how to manage raw fabric edges onward.
“I had no idea whether they would come out looking clean, but I decided that at the very least I’d take my time and make them properly. The friend I was going to the live show with taught me all sorts of things, too. To start with, I was renting a workspace and had them there with me, and from then on it was just trial and error on my own.”
Chun repeated the process of transferring the pattern from thin paper to cardstock and then onto fabric, over and over. What he spent the most time and energy on was how to translate a 2D illustration into a 3D outfit. For the “3rd Gen” hair ornament, for instance, he layered three sheets of felt to give it depth, remaking pieces four or five times until he was satisfied.
“I worked on it after my weekday job, of course, but also while watching the New Year’s #Shinshun 3rd Gen 24-Hour Stream, and finished it in about a month. More than anything, what motivated me was the thought: ‘I want to be at the live show, on that big stage, together with a plushie wearing an outfit I made myself.'”
Pilgrimages, and sharing memories with your oshi
Attending the live show alongside a plushie in his handmade outfit became an unforgettable experience for Chun.
“Looking forward to a live show is great in itself, but working on the outfit in the meantime made the excitement build even more. At the venue I had fun photographing the plushie next to Noel’s banner. And when the members talked about the details of the outfits during the MC segment, I was sitting there going, ‘I know! I know!’ (laughs). I’d spent months staring at that design while I made it.”
He has kept making plushie outfits since. When Noel, well known for her love of beef bowls, collaborated with Yoshinoya, he went and made a staff uniform.
“Taking a plushie dressed as a Yoshinoya staff member into an actual Yoshinoya made that whole world feel so much more real. Posting photos from real locations on social media and using the hashtag to let my oshi know that ‘I went there!’ is another part of the fun. Right now I’m working on school uniforms for the hololive Wacha-Wacha High School Festival.”
“The holoKatsu I started on my own is something I now enjoy with my whole family”
holoKatsu as parent-and-child Pioneers
What first drew Omatchi to hololive was Houshou Marine’s original song “Ahoy!! We are Houshou Pirates☆.” The catchy, nostalgic sound, reminiscent of the old Niconico days, and the sight of Marine clearly having a blast singing it had him hooked straight away. He had also been listening to AZKi’s music for some time, and from there his interest in hololive kept widening.
“These days, 80 to 90% of the music I listen to is hololive songs. On my commute, obviously, but I also put it on in the car when the family goes out, so we all listen together.”
His child, now in elementary school, has been listening to AZKi’s songs since before they can remember and is already a fully-fledged Pioneer.* They naturally picked up the songs and started singing along, and the two of them now enjoy holoKatsu together as “parent-and-child Pioneers,” going to solo lives and hololive fes. side by side.
*Pioneer: the fan name for AZKi’s fans.
Meanwhile, because Omatchi watched “AzuIro” collab streams on the living room TV, his wife became a Kazama Iroha fan. She is especially fond of Iroha’s mascot character Pokobee, enough to have bought the plushie.
“I think a lot of people find it hard to get their family to understand their hobby, but I’m fortunate: we have time to watch streams together as a family, and my wife humors me when I want to talk about hololive. The holoKatsu I started on my own became something the whole family enjoys before I even realized it, and I feel like it’s made our home happier.”
Live shows are not just for seeing your oshi, but also meeting your friends
For Omatchi, AZKi is also a huge presence who supported him through a hard stretch of his life. When he was deeply troubled by relationships at work, it was AZKi’s voice that rescued him.
“There was a period when I was really down because of work troubles, and listening to AZKi’s ‘If There Was a Night That Wouldn’t End’ genuinely saved me. It reassured me that I didn’t have to force myself to be positive, that it was okay to be who I was in that moment. There were even times when it made me cry. The streams gave me energy too. I would think, ‘If I can laugh this naturally just from watching a stream, maybe I can keep going a little longer.'”
Then in 2024, taking his child to a live show for the first time opened up his circle of fellow Pioneers all at once. When he sent a Super Chat during one of AZKi’s streams, saying how much fun it had been to attend a live show with his child, other viewers responded warmly.
This was the start of a growing set of connections through his holoKatsu account on X, and today, he actively enjoys spending time with other hololive fans, greeting each other at event venues, and sometimes organizing meetups.
“With the friends I’ve met through holoKatsu, I can talk about the same things with the same intensity. That’s a different kind of bond from the one you have with friends in your everyday life.”
Events and live shows are really important for fan-to-fan interactions, Omatchi says.
“Going to see your oshi and hearing the songs is the main event, of course, but getting to see my holoKatsu friends makes me happy too. Lately, so many talents have been holding live shows, so I’m grateful there are more and more occasions to meet up.”
hololive is a place that enriches your world and your life
The holoKatsu he started alone has now spread to his family and brought him together with a great many kindred spirits. Here is how Omatchi describes hololive:
“It’s a place to find an oshi, and at the same time, a place where your own world and your own life become a little more enriched as you cheer on their dreams and their challenges. It’s so important to me that I can’t even imagine what my life would have been like without hololive.”
Lastly
There are as many ways of discovering hololive, and as many forms of holoKatsu, as there are fans ― something that was really evident when speaking with these three users. What resonated with us most was how earnestly, and how happily, every one of them articulated their memories with their oshi and their feelings of support. Listening to them left us feeling buoyant as well.
Across parts 1 & 2 of this special feature, we have followed holoKatsu from the perspective of our wonderful fans. But, how do the talents and COVER staff feel about holoKatsu? In our next article, we interview COVER’s Premium Talent Merchandise Team to show how the merchandise at the very heart of holoKatsu is made, and the thought processes behind getting it into fans’ hands.
