Recently, a few talents from hololive concluded their streaming activities pretty close to each other, and this caused some people worried about COVER Corp.'s future direction for hololive. All this got me wondering pretty deep into something that has always been in the back of my head: COVER Corp. and ANYCOLOR (née Ichikara) were actually tech companies that pivoted to entertainment! Why was that the case? In this post, I will explore into the beginnings of both COVER Corp. (hololive) and Ichikara (NIJISANJI), because the pivot they both did were interesting to me.
COVER Corp. : A virtual reality company
In the beginning, COVER was not founded as a VTuber company like it is today. The background of COVER's CEO Motoaki Tanigo (YAGOO), is in the entertainment industry, having worked with companies like Sanrio and Imagineer before. When YAGOO first started the business, the field he chose is Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality, and during this era, COVER focused on VR software, which yielded things like Ping Pong League.
As YAGOO was familiar working with character content with his time in Sanrio, the popularity of virtual icons like Hatsune Miku, and coinciding with the rise of Kizuna AI, the team pivoted towards virtual characters, utilizing their VR/AR know-how to develop an avatar tracking software! This effort eventually resulted in the debut of COVER's first virtual idol, Tokino Sora in September 2017. Then, in December 2017, we finally see hololive... as an VR/AR mobile application. Utilizing COVER's technology, viewers are able to watch streams either in virtual reality, or project them in 3D space with augmented reality.
After that, on April 2018, COVER reworked "hololive" to enable the capability to actually stream as a VTuber. For iPhone X and later, its new capabilities allowed detection of the user's facial expressions, resulting in more realistic expressions in the model (although more basic expressions are available for Android and older iPhones). It was also possible to live stream with the virtual model through streaming platforms like Mirrativ (the year really shows in this one). Alongside the reworked hololive app, they opened auditions for exclusive VTubers on the app (the character who would go on to become Aki Rosenthal was shown in the press release of the reworked hololive app!). Those exclusive VTubers would go on to debut in June 2018... and the rest is history. The app, meanwhile, would later be delisted, and I guess is now the technology used by hololive VTubers.
Of course, even with COVER becoming a successful VTuber company, they did not forget about VR/AR, with ventures like hololy, and now Holoearth!
Ichikara Inc. : A streaming software company
Compared to the beginnings of COVER, Ichikara were a bit more pointed in their goal, with the original mission of "providing dreams and happiness through magical technology". Nevertheless, technology is a vital part of NIJISANJI's beginnings!
Ichikara Inc. was registered in May 2017, and opened their first auditions in January 2018. However, their press release of the audition is weirdly worded if you think of Ichikara as an entertainment company. First, they referred to NIJISANJI as a "virtual live application". Second, the press release talks about the features of NIJISANJI. Finding official voice actors for a live application? This certainly does not sound like the call for audition we're used to nowadays, does it?
As it turns out, NIJISANJI is the name of the VTuber app used by Ichikara! In the original press release, Ichikara describes the capabilities of the NIJISANJI app. Utilizing the new TrueDepth camera shipping with iPhone X and later, alongside with the ARKit framework, the NIJISANJI app could detect facial expressions of the user and mirror them in their models. The application would include five starter Live2D models (you can actually see Tsukino Mito and Higuchi Kaede's models being featured!). The NIJISANJI app has integrations to streaming apps like YouTube, Periscope, and Mirrativ (again, the year really shows in this one). After describing the features, Ichikara finally drops the audition announcement for "official virtual Livers", iPhone X not required. Also fun fact, the audition below says something about "Nijisanji official virtual idol"!
The NIJISANJI VTuber app was restricted to the official Livers (as Ichikara calls them), but the original press release also mentioned about a projected public release on the App Store for viewers of the Livers, adding the capability to watch the official Livers from the app.
A few months later, when Ichikara opened the second wave of auditions, they started referring to a certain NIJISANJI project and virtual Liver group, and the app disappeared from public mention. I guess the app is now the technology used by NIJISANJI Livers. I remember when NIJISANJI ID was still a thing, about something related to iPhones in their auditions. The technology is likely the reason!
Tech that somehow becomes entertainment
I am a fan of a certain idol franchise called THE iDOLM@STER. This particular franchise started as an arcade game, then slowly but surely transformed into a multimedia franchise it is now. A line from a Gakumas interview, where KominoP recalled hearing a conversation with GamiP in it, and it sounding more like something from the showbiz business, highlighted the occurence of "tech companies somehow pivoting to entertainment". Namco is involved with tech as a video game company, and ventures towards entertainment as the result of THE iDOLM@STER.
Both COVER and ANYCOLOR have their own share of troubles since then, and pivots are always a possibility in companies, as those tech-turned-entertainment companies show. Who knows how those two companies will turn out in the future, and I wonder if things would have turned differently if those two companies continued on the path they took.
You know what? I think I'll be very interested in interviewing both COVER and ANYCOLOR for the technical aspects, especially the way they utilize technology for running the entire show.
Sources:
- https://www.moguravr.com/tokyo-xr-startups-interview/
- https://panora.tokyo/28438/
- https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000002.000030268.html
- https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000004.000030268.html
- https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000005.000030268.html
- https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000001.000030865.html
- https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000010.000030865.html
Recently, a few talents from hololive concluded their streaming activities pretty close to each other, and this caused some people worried about COVER Corp.'s future direction for hololive. All this got me wondering pretty deep into something that has always been in the back of my head: COVER Corp. and ANYCOLOR (née Ichikara) were actually tech companies that pivoted to entertainment! Why was that the case? In this post, I will explore into the beginnings of both COVER Corp. (hololive) and Ichikara (NIJISANJI), because the pivot they both did were interesting to me.
COVER Corp. : A virtual reality company
In the beginning, COVER was not founded as a VTuber company like it is today. The background of COVER's CEO Motoaki Tanigo (YAGOO), is in the entertainment industry, having worked with companies like Sanrio and Imagineer before. When YAGOO first started the business, the field he chose is Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality, and during this era, COVER focused on VR software, which yielded things like Ping Pong League.
As YAGOO was familiar working with character content with his time in Sanrio, the popularity of virtual icons like Hatsune Miku, and coinciding with the rise of Kizuna AI, the team pivoted towards virtual characters, utilizing their VR/AR know-how to develop an avatar tracking software! This effort eventually resulted in the debut of COVER's first virtual idol, Tokino Sora in September 2017. Then, in December 2017, we finally see hololive... as an VR/AR mobile application. Utilizing COVER's technology, viewers are able to watch streams either in virtual reality, or project them in 3D space with augmented reality.
After that, on April 2018, COVER reworked "hololive" to enable the capability to actually stream as a VTuber. For iPhone X and later, its new capabilities allowed detection of the user's facial expressions, resulting in more realistic expressions in the model (although more basic expressions are available for Android and older iPhones). It was also possible to live stream with the virtual model through streaming platforms like Mirrativ (the year really shows in this one). Alongside the reworked hololive app, they opened auditions for exclusive VTubers on the app (the character who would go on to become Aki Rosenthal was shown in the press release of the reworked hololive app!). Those exclusive VTubers would go on to debut in June 2018... and the rest is history. The app, meanwhile, would later be delisted, and I guess is now the technology used by hololive VTubers.
Of course, even with COVER becoming a successful VTuber company, they did not forget about VR/AR, with ventures like hololy, and now Holoearth!
Ichikara Inc. : A streaming software company
Compared to the beginnings of COVER, Ichikara were a bit more pointed in their goal, with the original mission of "providing dreams and happiness through magical technology". Nevertheless, technology is a vital part of NIJISANJI's beginnings!
Ichikara Inc. was registered in May 2017, and opened their first auditions in January 2018. However, their press release of the audition is weirdly worded if you think of Ichikara as an entertainment company. First, they referred to NIJISANJI as a "virtual live application". Second, the press release talks about the features of NIJISANJI. Finding official voice actors for a live application? This certainly does not sound like the call for audition we're used to nowadays, does it?
As it turns out, NIJISANJI is the name of the VTuber app used by Ichikara! In the original press release, Ichikara describes the capabilities of the NIJISANJI app. Utilizing the new TrueDepth camera shipping with iPhone X and later, alongside with the ARKit framework, the NIJISANJI app could detect facial expressions of the user and mirror them in their models. The application would include five starter Live2D models (you can actually see Tsukino Mito and Higuchi Kaede's models being featured!). The NIJISANJI app has integrations to streaming apps like YouTube, Periscope, and Mirrativ (again, the year really shows in this one). After describing the features, Ichikara finally drops the audition announcement for "official virtual Livers", iPhone X not required. Also fun fact, the audition below says something about "Nijisanji official virtual idol"!
The NIJISANJI VTuber app was restricted to the official Livers (as Ichikara calls them), but the original press release also mentioned about a projected public release on the App Store for viewers of the Livers, adding the capability to watch the official Livers from the app.
A few months later, when Ichikara opened the second wave of auditions, they started referring to a certain NIJISANJI project and virtual Liver group, and the app disappeared from public mention. I guess the app is now the technology used by NIJISANJI Livers. I remember when NIJISANJI ID was still a thing, about something related to iPhones in their auditions. The technology is likely the reason!
Tech that somehow becomes entertainment
I am a fan of a certain idol franchise called THE iDOLM@STER. This particular franchise started as an arcade game, then slowly but surely transformed into a multimedia franchise it is now. A line from a Gakumas interview, where KominoP recalled hearing a conversation with GamiP in it, and it sounding more like something from the showbiz business, highlighted the occurence of "tech companies somehow pivoting to entertainment". Namco is involved with tech as a video game company, and ventures towards entertainment as the result of THE iDOLM@STER.
Both COVER and ANYCOLOR have their own share of troubles since then, and pivots are always a possibility in companies, as those tech-turned-entertainment companies show. Who knows how those two companies will turn out in the future, and I wonder if things would have turned differently if those two companies continued on the path they took.
You know what? I think I'll be very interested in interviewing both COVER and ANYCOLOR for the technical aspects, especially the way they utilize technology for running the entire show.
Sources: