COVER Corporation's Motoaki Tanigo Talks With Anime Herald

• Interview With: Motoaki Tanigo

• Interview Date: 12/3/2024

• Interview Location: Zoom

• Interviewer: Samantha Ferreira

• Editor: Samantha Ferreira

In the world of Virtual YouTubers, colloquially known as “VTubers,” few organizations are as well-known as hololive. The agency, which operates as an office, part of the COVER Corporation, manages nearly one hundred talents worldwide between its flagship “hololive” imprint and the all-male holostars label. And while many know the names Gawr Gura or Inugami Korone, the greater VTuber community also holds a soft spot in their hearts for COVER founder and CEO Motoaki Tanigo, who is affectionately called “Yagoo” by fans and talents alike.

Tanigo launched COVER in 2016, with ambitions to explore augmented reality and virtual reality technologies. The company’s goals changed in March 2017, though, after they showed off new technology for enabling live streaming of a virtual avatar at the Tokyo VR Startups Demo Day. Six months later, on September 7, 2017, COVER debuted their first-ever virtual talent, Tokino Sora. Since then, under Tanigo’s leadership, the company has grown into a global leader in the space, with a market cap of 154.07 billion yen ($1.02 billion USD) as of December 5 2024.

I had the pleasure of talking with Tanigo-san in a Zoom interview about hololive, the evolving VTuber landscape, plans for the company’s continued global expansion, and the challenges in achieving these goals.

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Samantha Ferreira: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I'd like to congratulate you for the launch of the new generation [of talents], hololive DEV_IS FLOW GLOW, and the recent permanent store in Tokyo station.

Motoaki Tanigo: Thank you.

Samantha Ferreira: Not at all. How has the reception been to the new talents?

Motoaki Tanigo: That’s kind of a difficult question for me to answer. (laughs) Nobody has ever asked me that question, so I’m trying to figure out what would be the right way to answer.

The new talents that we are launching in Japan are supposed to acquire new fans; they were launched in an effort to gain new fans. I think it's going to take a little bit more time before we start to see the results, and we would like to be patient and then make sure that those talents will grow the new fandom.

Samantha Ferreira: Understandable. And how has the reception been to the permanent store? 

Motoaki Tanigo: The shop that we opened at the Tokyo Station, I've been told that the sales, or business at the shop, are going very well.

We actually have, in the past, we have opened a shop for a limited time or temporarily, and I've been told that the performance of this permanent shop is better than the one that we had in the past.

I think the reason that sales are going strong at this regular shop is that we have more product lineups than before, and we also have gained more fans than when we had at that temporary shop.

Samantha Ferreira: And, shifting gears a bit, regarding COVER USA’s operations, also the way that COVER as a whole works within the greater VTuber market, what do you feel that the organization brings that couldn't be done prior?

Motoaki Tanigo: You're asking about our performance in the overall market, not specifically in the US market?

Samantha Ferreira  Correct. Basically, COVER’s launch of the COVER USA subsidiary. I'm just wondering how that affected how you operate within North America.

Motoaki Tanigo: We launched that US subsidiary in order to facilitate B2B (“Business to Business”) business in the States. And before we had that operation, our sales team in Japan would pitch to US clients online. So, we didn't have a face-to-face channel before. But with this face-to-face channel, now we are able to talk to US clients in person, which helps us communicate with them better. 

And so, it's still a small team, but now that we have a physical team in the States, we can talk to our clients about licensing and gaming companies, and sales pitches and whatnot. So with that operation being opened in the US, I think the sales are progressing as we planned,

Samantha Ferreira  Fantastic. And on that note, over the past year, especially, we've seen VTubers appearing in more traditional media. For example, Calliope Mori performing the ending theme to Suicide Squad: ISEKAI, Inugami Korone appearing in Yo-kai Watch, and members of hololive JP and EN appearing in various partnerships. Where would you like to see VTubers move next? And how do you see COVER Corporation working to make that a reality?

(Editor’s note: hololive IN also maintains partnerships in traditional media, including a collaboration with Honda BeAt and the Honda DBL basketball tournament)

Motoaki Tanigo: In Japan, we have been creating partnerships with the traditional media, such as, we have been working with gaming companies. And recently, we had a collaboration with a baseball team and baseball franchise. We also have a partnership with convenience stores, and recently, we signed a partnership with McDonald's. So those are the things that we are doing in Japan, but we’d like to roll this out into other markets such as US, Indonesia, and in different markets. And we are hoping to expand this practice to partner with local brands,

Samantha Ferreira: And in a recent interview with Anime Corner, you mentioned that COVER aims to normalize the acceptance of VTubers as a standard practice. What avenues do you see as possible in making that a reality?

Motoaki Tanigo: I'm hoping that “VTuber” will be a profession in the future, because it doesn't matter how you look or how old you are, and then it doesn't matter what gender you are. So, regardless of all those attributes, as long as you have the aspiration or ambition to be a VTuber, anyone can be a VTuber. And so, it's a tool anyone can use, as long as they want to do it. And also, it doesn't matter where you are, which country you are in, so it has a quite wide freedom that anyone can tap. Anyone can make their wishes or dreams come true, so I think that's how I would like to see VTubers to be into the future.

Samantha Ferreira: As [Houshou] Marine-san said in a recent stream, she's going to be an idol for as long as she's able.

Motoaki Tanigo: (chuckles) I think it’s because VTubers are ageless. I think that's one of the appeals of VTubers.

Samantha Ferreira: We've recently seen talents Watson Amelia and Sakamata Chloe graduate in a different capacity. Though they ceased, or are ceasing streaming activities, they're still being listed as “affiliates.” Within the fan community, there is a bit of uncertainty as to what this actually means, though. Would it be possible to explain what an affiliate is, as opposed to standard graduation?

Motoaki Tanigo: This is the very first time for us to have this kind of format, like affiliates. And so, it's too early for us to say, or we don't have anything defined yet. 

So, the idea here is that those characters or talents can continue to exist. And if time is right, or any opportunity presents itself, even though they have graduated, we can do something together. So it's very vague, but that's the kind of idea that we have.

Samantha Ferreira: Thank you. I’ll admit that I've been following the community, and this has just been something that kind of came up a lot recently.

Motoaki Tanigo: I think that VTuber characters are nurtured by talents, fans, and the company. So I think it's it benefits everyone, all of them if we can continue to keep those characters in existence

Samantha Ferreira: Absolutely. Shifting gears a bit, in addition to working with VTubers, COVER is also working on the Holoearth platform. How do you envision that final experience? What would you like to accomplish through Holoearth that can’t be done in the current space? And how do you envision Holoearth and hololive working together in the long term?

Motoaki Tanigo: About Holoearth, I'm afraid I am not at liberty to disclose much detail at this point in time. But I would like to have something like a Metaverse and VR space where creators can create their 3D avatars, and they can sell the avatars that they create. And COVER, as a company, would like to support not only those people who stream live, but also creators. 

And we also have holo Indie game developers, where we support the game developers. So, Holoearth is something like, kind of a space where I would like to give more support to creators.

Samantha Ferreira: Which region do you see as the next vital place to expand to continue achieving your goals in making VTubers a worldwide phenomenon, after Japan, North America, and Indonesia?

Motoaki Tanigo: There are a few critical markets for us. Among them are the EU, Korea, and the countries in East Asia, but we have a group called Justice. They stream in English, and that group is targeting the EU market. And we also have a [Japanese group that’s popular] in Korea called ReGLOSS.

Samantha Ferreira: And what would you say is the greatest challenge facing COVER as your organization grows? What obstacles do you feel are vital to overcome to reach your goal of 50 million fans by 2030?

Motoaki Tanigo: (laughs) It's kind of a difficult question to answer. But then, because business customs are different from country to country, and outside of Japan, the way we do business and the way you do business is different. 

And also, the needs of Japanese talents and the needs of overseas talents, what they want is different, and at this point, we are not able to provide enough support to overseas talents in the same way we support Japanese talents. We need to improve the way we support overseas talents.

And the second point is that the B2B business can be tricky, depending on which market you are in. I think Japan is in a very unique situation, because we have convenience stores everywhere, and we have so many stores and shops on, like, almost every corner. But on the other hand, the United States is much larger. It's much bigger than Japan, landmass-wise. And I think people shop online more often than the Japanese people do, and that makes it a little difficult for us to find companies to collaborate with and to raise awareness or raise the profile of hololive VTubers in the States.

I think we need to change the way we approach potential fans or potential consumers. And for the anime fans, we have participated in different exhibitions or trade shows, so I think VTubers or hololive have penetrated quite enough across the anime fans. But when it comes to the general public, we are finding it a little bit difficult to penetrate into that space. 

Samantha Ferreira: Thank you. And I have just one more question for you. Do you have any questions for me?

Motoaki Tanigo: My question to you is, what should we do to raise the profile or the awareness of hololive and VTubers in the States? To, you know, have those characters be familiarized with the US fans. What do we need to do?

Samantha Ferreira: That's a very good question. A very good question, because, as you mentioned, you've made a lot of inroads within the greater anime community. However, there does seem to be some reluctance within the anime world, I've noticed. For example, we recently published an article, “Why Do VTubers Use Anime Avatars?”, which a lot of people seemed to find a genuine interest with [, going by our analytics].

I’d probably say your best bet would probably be to start with [your established] anime and gaming communities, as you've been doing. Work with figures and publications to kind of build upon the base that you've already built, and expand outward to create the inroads, especially once you start working with say, Crunchyroll, or organizations of that ilk to really kind of synergize with the existing market demands and expectations. From there, you can build up and outward as you take advantage of the existing pipelines that go out into the greater mainstream population.

Motoaki Tanigo: That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Samantha Ferreira: Not all, thank you.

Thank you to Tanigo-san for talking with us. Also, thanks to RLM Public Relations​ for helping to set everything up.