Interview: Cover USA and hololive with CEO Motoaki Tanigo

This week, we had the chance to have a conversation with Motoaki Tanigo, affectionately known as Yagoo by fans of hololive about Cover USA, and the company’s plans for its international fanbases.

Tanigo is the CEO of Cover Corporation and the real-life face of the business behind the popular Virtual YouTubers (VTubers) of hololive. Thanks to collaborations with the Los Angeles Dodgers and arcade company Round One, hololive is reaching out to a broader US fanbase; and with Cover USA launching earlier this year it seems big things are in the works. Thankfully he was eager to share with us his thoughts on hololive’s success in North America, and answered a few questions we had.

Full disclosure: Tanigo-san spoke through interpreter Miki Kayaoka, words attributed to Tanigo-san below were spoken by his interpreter on his behalf.

Niche Gamer (Brandon Lyttle)

All right, well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Brandon, I’m with Niche Gamer, and to get started right away, I wanted to ask about Cover USA, which is the newer project that I’ve been hearing about, and I was wondering how will it differ from Cover Corporation and hololive and how it’s been run up until now.

Motoaki Tanigo (Yagoo)

So basically, in terms of Cover USA, is basically a hub to conduct a B2B business. In other words, at the Cover Japan headquarter, we do various business such as the production of the content as well as the B2B business, but in terms of the cover USA, we first want to focus on the B2B business.

Niche Gamer

I see. Could you explain more about the B2B business, what that means exactly for our readers?

Motoaki Tanigo

So for B2B we have two types, is the promotion business and the other is the licensed tie-up business. In terms of the promotion business, this means that supporting the game companies in terms of their promotion and when it comes to the licensed tie-up, licensing out hololive t-shirts as well as figures.

But we already are doing hybrid types, combining promotion business as well as the licensing tie-up business. So for example, I can name you at least two, one is the tie-up we had with Dodgers and the other is the ramen shop that we worked with a company called Tsujita. I’m not talking about the whole woman’s side. don’t it’s only whole woman’s side. What kind of vision is it?

[Tanigo-san paused to discuss something with his interpreter.]

I want to correct because in terms of Dodgers it’s not a business where we receive the money.

But at least for Tsujita, the raman store, we have a hybrid where we combine the promotion business, as well as the licensed tie-up business.

The reason why we launched Cover USA is that, of course, we had been conducting business for the Japanese game companies in terms of promotion to do things in North America, but of course from a time difference It’s better to do business in face-to-face. That is why one of the reasons that we launched Cover USA

Niche Gamer

I see thank you very much for the answer. Speaking of collaborations, Dodgers and Round One have been largely successful in the US, or at least I’ve been hearing a lot about it. Are there plans for future collaborations with the businesses based in the US similar to Dodgers?

Motoaki Tanigo

Absolutely. That is the reason why we established Cover USA.

In other words, for Round One obviously that is a company operating here in Japan so you might not have anything to do with Cover USA. But in the Japan business we are collaborating with various companies such as McDonald’s so this is one of the things that we want to do in Cover USA. In other words doing the same thing in North America.

And the reason is because we believe that these collaborations are also one of the experiences for the VTubers.

Niche Gamer

Speaking of USA and Cover’s business in USA, I’m curious if Tanigo-san was surprised by the English-speaking audience adapting to hololive’s idol culture.

Motoaki Tanigo

Not really, and the reason is being that when you look in the past, there were things such as Love-Live, which is basically a Japanese originated idol animation content that received publicity, especially in North America.

Having said that, I do understand that this idol culture is not something of a mainstream in North America, so I do believe that currently the fans are enjoying much more than what we had anticipated.

And I do think what the reason is because when you think about the whole hololive in terms of the hololive Japanese animation, this was basically bringing in the Japanese context to North America, but in the case of Vtubers, of course we have Japanese speaking talents, but we also have English speakers, so I think the North Americans or the Americans are able to resonate more that it is the content for them.

So I just want to be clear. in terms of I think the difference between hololive and the conventional Japanese animation that we don’t do is that Japanese animation was basically bringing the Japanese content into North America. But in terms of hololive, as I said, it’s not just Japanese talents, but we have Vtubers who are English speakers so they are able to resonate more with their culture.

Niche Gamer

Moving forward about how hololive has been reaching the international community. I’ve heard that some talents have begun streaming on BiliBili.

Is hololive planning on revisiting the Chinese market?

Motoaki Tanigo

I think there’s two points. One is that there are a lot of new games that have been originated out of China. There are players who want to play those games.

At the same time, we do understand there are fans in China who support hololive.

What we want to realize is an environment where the talents are able to play the games that they want to play, and the fans feel kind of faith and peace.

This is what we want to deploy regardless of the country and regions.

Niche Gamer

I wanted to ask about Amelia Watson and her departure from hololive where she still has a role in the company. Is this setting a trend for future departures from hololive?

Motoaki Tanigo

First of all, I want to be very clear in terms of what the business called VTuber is. Basically, the business for VTuber is where the talent and the company work together to create the IP.

In other words, it takes a couple of years for the company and the talent to collaborate or to create these contents as well as experience this until they receive these until it becomes very popular.

And I believe it is a good thing for all the talents as well as the fans and the company to keep the IP they’ve been able to create.

We also provide and sell card games, but as long as we have the IP, we can also deploy the IP on those card games.

What we believe would be good is to be able to keep these character IPs that we’ve been able to develop with the talent and that have received great support from the fans.

Niche Gamer

I did have a question about hololive English; hololive Advent and Justice have a very connected story.

Was this decision made in mind considering possible media projects?

Motoaki Tanigo

This is a very difficult question because I wasn’t involved in this, but what I can say is that we always try to have some kind of a backstory so that we can deploy this into various areas, not just the character, but also its kind of atmosphere.

Niche Gamer

Ending off the interview, I would like to ask if you have anything you’d like to share with our readers.

Motoaki Tanigo

So yes, thank you very much for the interview today and I do want to underscore to your Japanese company, and it’s not that we are sufficiently educated with the custom in USA. So it may not be that we are providing all of this efficient support for talents in North America.

In order to resolve that, we established Cover USA so we are able to collaborate, provide promotions as well as licensing with these channels in North America.

I think for the readers and the fans, if they can stay tuned and wait for these collaborations.