Hololive debuts hololive Indonesia Gen 3

The third generation of hololive talents for the Japanese VTuber agency’s Indonesia branch debuts over the weekend, from March 25 to March 27. This comes a week after the hololive SUPER EXPO and 3rd fes. entitled “Link Your Wish”, which was conducted on March 19 and March 20.

The newest members of hololive Indonesia are as follows:

• Vestia Zeta, the mysterious 7th recruit of The Secret Archive Unit that has a full license to collect virtual data
• Kaela Kovalskia, a blacksmith who decided to be free and depart on a journey to find rare smithing materials
• Kobo Kanaeru, a carefree girl who is actually a rain shaman

Hololive Indonesia introduced its first generation of talents in April 2020. Of the six members preceding Gen 3, endearingly called “senpai” by newer talents, Moona Hoshinova (Generation 1) and Kureiji Ollie (Generation 2) have surpassed 1 million subscribers in YouTube.

The week prior, the hololive SUPER EXPO and 3rd fes. was held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. With Makuhari Messe having a capacity of around 9,000, it is arguably one of the largest live events yet for the hololive franchise. To recall, the previous festivals were conducted in Toyosu Pit (hololive 1st fes. Nonstop Story) and in Tachikawa Stage Garden (hololive 2nd fes. Beyond the Stage), respectively.

Meanwhile, the online audience reportedly reached a live viewership peak at any one time of over 83,000. Parts of the event were streamed via YouTube for free.

The hololive 3rd fes. featured the 3D debut of hololive English Generation 1 on stage. Stylized as hololive English -Myth- or simply holoMyth, this generation which debuted in September 2020 is composed of the following:

• Mori Calliope, the Grim Reaper’s first apprentice who decided to become a VTuber to harvest more souls
• Takanashi Kiara, a phoenix whose dream is to become the owner of a fast food chain
• Ninomae Ina’nis, a priestess of the Ancient Ones who delivers sanity checks on humanity
• Gawr Gura, a descendant of the Lost City of Atlantis who swam to Earth out of boredom
• Watson Amelia, a detective who began her idol journey investigating strange rumors surrounding hololive

Notably, Gawr Gura and Mori Calliope leads the entire hololive franchise in terms of total subscriber count in YouTube. As of publication time, Gura has registered over 3.8 million subscribers, while Calli has more than 2 million subscribers. Meanwhile, total super chat income for the duration of 2021 saw Calli leading over Gura with USD 854,000PHP 50,117,417INR 72,376,329EUR 813,264CNY 6,215,668 against USD 610,000PHP 35,798,155INR 51,697,378EUR 580,903CNY 4,439,763 according to ranking website Playboard.

Gawr Gura’s life-size and 1/7 scale figures, placed on display during the SUPER EXPO, were put on sale after the event. Proceeds would reportedly be going to charity.

There are two generations of hololive English talents to date, the other one being hololive English -Council- or stylized as holoCouncil.

A VTuber or virtual YouTuber refers to an online talent using a 2D or 3D avatar as alter ego in creating content. It was believed that Japanese VTuber Kizuna AI was the one who popularized the term, calling herself as one in her introduction video on December 1, 2016. Nonetheless, virtual idols who utilize similar technologies such as Hatsune Miku and Ling Yuan yousa, among others, have been around prior to her debut.

As motion capture rig and streaming technology became more affordable and easier to manage, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in the VTuber industry. Data technology company UserLocal has reported the existence of over 16,000 VTubers as of 2021. Meanwhile, Playboard saw that 9 of the ten most super chatted YouTube channels in the world last year were by VTubers, all of which were Hololive talents.