Rough summary: > In startup circles, Yagoo is known as an "interesting CEO". Interviewer calls him "stoic" and "goal-oriented". Asks him if he is actually stoic. A. Yagoo says he's worried about his age (remaining time), so chasing goals is his focus. > Profile intro : Yagoo did some research about self driving car design back in the day it seems. > Asks Yagoo if he's a "serial entrepreneur" (i.e. continuously buying and selling interesting shit). Yagoo doesn't identify himself that way, just wants to make an impact in the world with his business. > Bunch of corpospeak about what type of company Hololive is. > Talks about his own huge # of twitter followers (74k), Yagoo clarifies that it's inflated by his global fans. Questions - > Q. What is VTuber? : He basically explains hololive. A. Yagoo's definition of VTuber : Entertainers/Artists/Streamers/Creators who use an avatar with an anime-look. > Q. Is the voice actually coming from that person? A. Yes, for corporate VTubers that's true for the most part, but indies may use voice changers. > Q. Why did VTubers become so popular? A. Anime related stuff became popular this decade. COVID and lockdowns helped. Yagoo feels that Anime is breaking out from purely being an otaku driven business and moving towards the mainstream. Watching VTubers feels like watching anime characters come to life. Those are the reasons VTubing got so popular. Also talks about VR game days and how Hololive got formed from that. > Q. From a casual person's perspective, it would be understandable if a famous anime character started talking and got famous, like if Doraemon came to life obviously he'd get famous famous. But why would non-famous "anime characters" get so popular like this? A. Yagoo states "Contact frequency" as the reason. Talks about how each VTuber has "goals" that they're chasing, and how fans enjoy the bantz with the chuuba or with other fans in the comments. "Doraemon streaming is just one category, we can have 3-5 different types categories even with a single VTuber". Also explains the "box" and the power of collabs in an ELI5 way. Like how Doraemon the show is made whole thanks to all the different characters, Nobita etc. Hololive is also made whole by every talent. > Guy asks about foreign popularity, Yagoo states 30% of their viewers are from abroad. > Q. Do you translate all the content? A. During livestreams fans do translations. Also talks about clips and how they translate for fans. Compares the fandom to the KPOP fans in terms of passion. > Q. Is it easier to "scale" business-wise due to lack of irl scandals? (interviewer probably read Anycolor's here material lmao, it's word for word) A. Yagoo diverts talk to digital collabs and shit, how the "IP" is "leveraged", corpo talk. > Q. Would this not work with AI? A. Fans and viewers are in the business of supporting the talents and their goals, e.g. in the Vocaloid space you'd support the Vocaloid P, and if it's an AI VTuber, you'd support the AI "producer". Yagoo feels like "cheering an AI VTuber" by itself is a bit different from what they do. > talk tangents into AI for a while > Q. Would it be wrong to state that Japan is overwhelmingly strong in this industry, thanks to us having anime culture? A. Agrees that there's a huge talent pool in Japan due to seiyuu and anime culture, but says they're not the only place innovating, talks about "webtoon VTubers" from Korea. > Q. So if we're talking about rivals, it would be Korea? A. Yagoo says there would probably be a lot of people who want to become KPop stars but can't, he thinks it's possible for them to become VTubers and find success that way. Clarifies that he's just stating that a different genre of VTubers exists in Korea, not that they're rivals. > Talks about Holo subs and concerts. > Q. Do you have any strategy for succeeding abroad? A. We can only work harder and harder. Talks about how there's an "uber culture" or "airbnb culture" etc. abroad (later also talks about "webtoon culture" and "KPop culture" and how that's helping to sell abroad), and so they want to create a "VTuber culture" as a new thing. They feel they need to do more effort in localization, or else it will end up as just "another weird service/trend from Japan". > Talks about origin of the term "VTuber" (guy asks Yagoo if he coined it lmao), and how much it's spread. > Q. How much VTubers have become "normalized" in Japan. Talks about how most of their fans are from 25-35 range, but teenage audience is also slowly increasing thanks to their music activities. > Talks about GIANTS collab and Tokyo Dome City collab as benchmarks to say "we're popular enough for this type of collabs". > Q. For now it's popular with ages 10 to 30, so how long do you think it will take to reach a level of "everyone knows about this", in Japan? A. If it's just Japan, a few more years. Talks about how Ado sung her One Piece character's song in Kohaku, and how he considers it as similar to VTuber tech. Talks about Holo appearances in big singing events, so he feels in a few more years they will become normie level popular in Japan. > Q. What about the world? A. He feels like Japan has a "VTuber industry" now thanks to the work of a lot of companies. But he feels like the west has not reached the level of an "industry" yet. He feels like there's an overwhelming number of indies and very few companies, so he feels like developing it into an "industry" would need to be the first step. > Talks about RU-vid's history a little, and how Videos, MVs and Shorts are what get them the most "new" fans and how some of them convert to live viewers and then full on fans. Brand recognition.txt. > Q. Instead of creating your own infrastructure, it's better to use RU-vid's pre-existing audience and ecosystem for easier growth right? A. Awkward question, Cover had plans to develop their own livestreaming platform, but since VTubers have not reached household name recognition level in the world yet, a streaming service just for VTubers 2D and 3D CG streams woudl not be well received. So they felt they had no choice but to continue on their current track. > Talks about HoloPlus a bit, again KPop comparison. > Talks Streams vs VODs and the appeal of watching a moment Live with the chuuba and the audience. > Q. How does the audience enjoys the streams? Do they just watch on phone while eating? How do most fans consume the content? A. Difficult question, people could be watching during their commutes, on PC, with multiple windows, as BGM during their wfh as a replacement for radio, to not feel lonely etc. > looks at graphs for a while > Guy asks how they're so profitable for the 3rd time. Yagoo explains some of their monetization, SC, memberships, live tickets, merch, collabs etc. VTubers are "inflencers" but are also "character IPs" so their avenues for monetization are much wider. > talk about how twitter helps with fan interaction > Yagoo says voice packs are what sell the most for them, followed by dolls. Digital goods sell more because a lot of their fans may not have space for physical goods in their homes. > Yagoo awkwardly explains what "situation voice" is kek. > Q. I've never bought such things so I don't understand the feeling behind it, but why do people buy it? A. Yagoo once again awkwardly explains "simulated experience" and it's appeal. > talks about how this stuff also sells abroad, how it's easier to buy digital merch because of shipping etc. > Yagoo reveals that they got paid license fees for the Giants collab (holy shit) and the collab cafes, konbini collabs etc. explains how collab merch work. > talks about Live 3D concerts, explains idol culture ELI5 again, and talks about how it's more convenient for viewers to pay for watching concerts online compared to venue concerts. > Interviewer compares it to Disney kek, Yagoo partially agrees. Yagoo references and takes tips from how Disney spreads their IP in Japan. > more small talk about companies they refer from. Pokemon is a big one to Yagoo. tl;dr > Most of the important stuff is just Yagoo's thoughts on expansion in both Japan and abroad. > Tons of ELI5 explanations and corpo related shit > Yagoo thinks the Hololive fandom is similar to KPop fandom in terms of passion, constantly compares the two. > Also in the Hololive X Giants collab, it was HOLOLIVE that got paid for their license, that's big news.
He is generally very sensible that his time is very limited in this world. Something that we all know, but I notice that huge smile and it is truly a pleasure to see him so happy talking about his dream and the desire to be a company that prevails, leaving his legacy in his wake.
14:10 Yagoo really nailed this part about supporting the person creating the AITuber. I don't know if he knew but this is pretty much the case for Vedal987 (creator of Neuro-sama).
