Saturday was the birthday for Shohei Ohtani, the star player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Cover Corp. returned with its second annual “Hololive night” production at the game.
This year, Cover showed off some of its popular VTuber talent — performers who are human singers with virtual anime-style bodies on a big screen.
Popular in Japan, VTubers are new to the U.S. and Cover is testing to see whether VTubers — where humans give voice to 3D avatars in concert performances — can catch fire on the global stage. And just as American baseball fans are becoming big fans of Japanese players, Tokyo-based Cover, a big talent agency with a focus on Asia, hopes that those fans will start loving VTuber talent as well.
With VTubers, human entertainers deliver the voice and motion performance behind the scenes while 2D or 3D animated avatars appear on stage.
Second annual Hololive Night
This year’s collaboration will featured the first-ever VTuber livestream both to and from Dodger Stadium.
To furthermore commemorate this unique evening, co-branded Dodgers x Hololive production merchandise were available to purchase in the gift shops across the stadium. Motoaki Tanigo, CEO of Cover, threw out the first pitch to start the game.
Fans witnessed exclusive in-stadium appearances from three hololive English VTubers, Ninomae Ina’nis, IRyS and Koseki Bijou in real time. The hololive VTubers cheered for the Dodgers and provided their sing-along version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch of the baseball game.
At the end of the game, fans were invited to join the VTubers on the field, where they hosted special programming such as interactive activities, and a new “Who’s got the Moves?!” segment where fans danced and jammed together to popular hololive tunes.
In addition, the special event was broadcast live to Hololive English’s official YouTube channel, marking the first time ever in history for a VTuber company to stream both to and from Dodger Stadium.
Fans enjoyed onsite hololive-themed activities, such as taking pictures with the featured talent’s cutouts, helping themselves to delicious stadium food and drinks with event-only hololive themed packaging, and more to be announced via hololive English’s official social media channels later.
The hololive night ticket package includes a ticket to baseball game as well as event-exclusive Dodger x Hololive production trading cards (pack of three) that featured the three main cast members of this year’s event in Dodgers uniforms. Lucky fans could draw a special version of the cards that included the VTuber’s printed autograph.
At Dodger Stadium, special beer, soda, and popcorn cups were offered in hololive collaboration packaging.
Hololive production has over 80 affiliated talents active in Japan, Indonesia, and English-speaking countries, and it has over 80 million YouTube subscribers across the channels.
With Cover’s technology, hololive production talents provide various experiences ranging from game streams to offline concerts. They form a stable community that connects fans, creators, and talents all around the world via social networks.
Cover itself is a next-generation IT entertainment company with one of the world’s leading VTuber IPs and a large and passionate fan community. Its mission is “Together, Let’s Create Culture Loved by All.”
Hatsune Miku started taking off in Japan as early as 2007. And so, the VTuber tradition in Japan has been going strong for a good 15 to 17 years.
Cover USA has started doing Hololive concerts in the U.S. In July 2023, Cover previously held a hololive English concert at YouTube Theater in Los Angeles. Six thousand seats sold out in just 30 minutes, with 25 thousand online viewing tickets sold. And in August 2024, hololive English concert at Kings Theater in New York, six thousand seats sold out in just ten minutes.
Sadly, the Dodgers lost 4-6 against the Houston Astros on Ohtani’s birtday.
