If you're in Manila on June 7th, the PH starmin have taken over a billboard to promote the boys! This runs concurrently with the Constellations cupsleeve event, so consider stopping by to take pictures and tag them!
why am i gaining followers when i plan on abandoning this sideblogafter june 8 💀
edit: just remembered that i can't clip hanakishi's 3d live performance of yuusha yet (due to my laptop being Old), so i'm not abandoning this sideblog yet
To celebrate Holostars 7th anniversary, several locations across the world will be hosting cupsleeve events! Individual locations and details will be reposted here leading up to the date.
You can follow the main account on twitter here! Please consider attending if one is in your area!
i found an old hanakishi art i drew in 2021. it was a feathers across the seasons (the vocaloid song by hitoyama) as hanakishi. does anyone want to see it because it's OLD and there's a million anatomy mistakes
.. what exactly is holostars .. ive seen you posting about it i have noo idea what it is in the slightest
Oh you just tripped my yap trigger *rubs hands together evilly*
Note: I will not be talking about former members or the recent events. I am already covering a lot.
So! Holostars is a vtuber corporation and branch of Cover Corp, which is the largest international vtuber corporation, an agency that hires vtubers to stream and perform and (should) provide managerial support that an independent vtuber cannot get.
Terminology:
Vtubers under Cover's branches (Hololive JP/ID/EN, Holostars JP/EN, and Dev_Is) debut in generations (groups of 3 to 5) with 2D models. Over their career, they typically receive additional 2D models with different outfits. All talents receive 3D outfits rigged with motion capture technology (mocap).
Holostars is specifically the male branch of Cover Corp, and has two branches: Holostars JP, formed in 2019 and with 12 active members, and Holostars EN, formed in 2022 and with 10 active members.
Holostars JP is the second oldest branch of Cover Corp, two years younger than Hololive JP.
All members of it are both fluent in Japanese and live in Japan (it's implied they all live in Tokyo for the access to studio resources, though one is contemplating moving back to the countryside).
Back before 2020, vtubing was incredibly slapdash as the entire industry was currently being formed. I reiterate: There was an entirely new industry not even at the point of finding its footing, but just starting to grow its own ambulatory limbs. Most conventions seen as near-ubiquitous these days for corpos (generations, group debuts, gen names, gen cohesion, 2D models, even the more-recent gen debut songs) were in their infancy, so the early gens were grandfathered in.
Specifically, Holostars JP Gen 1 and possibly 2 have these slapdash qualities, and Gen 3 is just a little younger than 2. Technically, UPROAR! is *not* Holostars Gen 4, according language I have seen, or maybe they aren't a *Holostars* gen? For all intents and purposes they're Holostars JP gen 4 and under the JP branch umbrella.
Their "lore", the term for backstories and identity, is a lot less fleshed out due to their earlier debuts (excluding UPROAR!!, who is more detailed but not EN-level detailed). For example, Izuru (gen 1) is a human who... plays the guitar, which another first generation can also do. However, some Stars in both JP and EN gain lore over time that creates a more complex story. Arurandeisu debuted as an Italian, became a "detective, cat burglar, teacher, samurai, sniper, and demon hunter [who travels worlds]" and was then replaced by his younger self(?)
Holostars EN is the second-youngest branch of Cover Corp, formed during the big vtuber boom of 2020-2022 as the male counterpart to sister English branch Hololive EN.
All members of Holostars EN are fluent in English with varying Japanese capabilities (one is fluent, one can roughly understand it spoken, and the rest aren't as skilled), but hail from a much wider variety of places:
Bettel and Ruze are distinctively American. Of Altare, Flayon, Shinri, and Goldbullet, I believe all are also from America too; Goldbullet is additionally indigenous Puerto Rican. Hakka hails from Latin America (he chooses not to specify the country), and Jurard and Octavio live in the Philippines. Axel is very Australian, saying cunt a lot and mentioning the pokies with high frequency.
In addition to being less monocultural and more racially diverse, a few members speak multiple languages: Altare has more Korean than 0, Axel is fluent in Japanese, Hakka's first language is Spanish and he's decent at understanding Japanese, and Jurard and Octavio's first language is Tagalog.
The entire branch has the lore of being set in a digital world, Elysium, running on RPG mechanics currently besieged by dangerous 'Corruption Beasts'. Elysium was created "so humans would have a place to escape to if the real world deteriorated too much", and two members are NPCs who gained sentience (Hakka and Shinri).
In addition! Most members have further lore beyond the "bounty hunter who lost his previous team" or "ace mecha pilot with bad communication skills" defined at debut (Shinri, the one with the arguably least lore, set his 3D in an alternate universe resembling a Homestuck doomed timeline). Through music, on-stream comments, lore videos, lore audio dramas/voice packs, outfit reveals etc, most members have expanded their lore, leading to intense speculation by fans as to the truth. For example, the first additions to the first two lords mentioned are "axe has multiple souls in it that can possess the body, one is a demon" and "the one we see made a deal with the devil (a chibi mecha) to steal his genius-level talent with vehicles for himself". Everyone's lore has strong angst potential, which is a definite draw to me.
Originally, Holostars EN was one generation, TEMPUS, with four members (two have since left). Six months later, four more members joined TEMPUS, with the original debuts turning into TEMPUS HQ and the newer ones being part of TEMPUS Vanguard (VG). At Vanguard's debut, it was stated that there is no hierarchy of seniority between the two groups, and that Vanguard is not the second generation. Instead, ARMIS is the official second generation, debuting nearly a year later as a four-man unit with their own distinct grouping.
(TEMPUS was originally a 6-man unit predebut, but two members' debuts were postponed while management looked for two more to debut with them. This was for size reasons - no Cover Corp generation has been above five members, except for possibly Stars JP Gen 1 pre-graduations)
Holostars EN Members and Generations
Name that they go by is in their color + italicized for people who turned that off. Nicknames of equal or greater frequency are in parentheses.
TEMPUS HQ (mid-late 2022): Regis Altare, Axel Syrios
TEMPUS VG (early 2023): Gavis Bettel, Machina X Flayon, Banzoin Hakka, Josuiji Shinri
ARMIS (late 2023): Jurard T Rexford, Goldbullet (Gibby or Goldie), Octavio (Tavi), Crimzon Ruze
The Japanese idol industry has had a very strong influence on vtubing, best seen in graduation, music, and behavior:
Firstly, vtuber retirement is called "graduation". While graduating without warning was common in the past, nowadays vtubers post graduation notices on Twitter, have a few more streams before they leave, and then have a long graduation stream with either call-ins from friends (called totsumachi, though the term is not graduation-exclusive) or idol performances with singing and dancing
As a part of the influence of idol culture, many vtubers, especially those who stream on YouTube as opposed to Twitch, learn how to sing - creating original songs, holding karaoke streams, releasing music covers - and some with 3D models perform, doing both song and dance simultaneously. As vtubers are virtual, more sophisticated visual effects and camera angles are possible.
Lastly, idol-like vtubers are expected to conform to good behavior and idol-like purity, though this depends on the individual and is often subverted humorously. For example, one Holostar was joked his penis was surgically removed when he joined the company. Some Holostars prefer not to speak on sexual topics, while others speak freely (though the YouTube guidelines are a constant pressure)
Partially related, Hololive and Holostars talents do not speak on politics, and are restricted from speaking negatively on companies and brands. They also have a variety of restrictions based around copyright that most relevantly mean they cannot perform Western songs and have an archived video of that, making non-Japanese karaokes streams you must catch live or find on the black market
How this affects you:
Blorbo from my show
Sometimes I reblog fan art of them & tag it properly. Because it is art, the likelihood that I'm tagging goobus from not my shows is low because that would be weird
More often I blorbo tag them in stuff, typically Flayon or Octavio for the angst/whump shit, Ruze for random other stuff, and Bettel for being a boyfailure. I do not always say 'blorbo tag' but it is implied.
Because of their age, all members of Holostars JP are well established in the industry. All of them have at least one original song and 2+ cover songs on their channels, along with multiple 2D and 3D models and connections in the industry.
Every member of Holostars JP is senior to Holostars EN, as there have not been Holostars JP debuts since 2022.
All JP Holostars have their names in Japanese name order, except for Astel Leda, whose name is generally quirky.
Holostars JP Trivia (Video Games)
Many of the JP Stars are have games that they excel in
From what I can tell, Stars JP has better FPS players than EN, with Astel notably achieving Master rank in Apex solo and generally being quite skilled (under The Ace). Izuru is also excellent, being the second to achieve Master rank in Apex, and has a complimentary style to Astel's.
Additionally, a lightning round:
Arurandeisu: Top-tier Street Fighter 6 player who has gone to professional tournaments
Rikka: Good at platformers, especially those where you die often
Temma: Stellar Dead by Daylight Killer
Roberu: Best Mario Kart JP Holostar
Shien: Fighting game enthusiast, Fall Guys, impressive Super Mario Maker performances
Fuma: Splatoon 2, Apex, competitive Pokemon SwSh
Holostars EN Trivia
Holostars EN has a higher percentage of non-native English speakers than Hololive EN due to the higher number of Hololive mems (25-30% vs 15-21%). Another interesting point that means little is that all the ESL talent in Holostars come from countries colonized by Spain (and thus have Spanish[-derived] native languages), whereas the ESL Hololive mems all come from European countries: Takanashi Kiara is Austrian, Cecilia Immergreen is German, and Raora Panthera is Italian.
There are four Holostars living in Japan: Axel, Flayon, Hakka, and Shinri. All moved to Japan at similar times, 6 months ago iirc. This means the only Tempus members not in Japan are all in America. Those two, Altare and Bettel, are very unlikely to move to Japan, Altare due to a $30,000~ 3D motion capture studio in a rented place and Bettel due to strong ties to existing friendships in America and being the most normie Holostar.
Holostars EN is less established in the industry due to being younger, but they are not completely adrift because 2+ years is a lot of time to establish connections. Multiple members have released original songs (Magni, graduated: 1. Bettel: 1. Hakka: 3. Octavio: 2?), and most have multiple released covers. All have multiple 2D outfits and an official 3D outfit (they all possess a 3D idol outfit, but I'm not 100% on if they can use it themselves). Additionally, Holostars EN has connections among fellow English vtubers of a variety of affiliations and personalites, accumulated over time.
#mentioning most jp are good at gaming but leaving out the fact that myb is like a jack of all trades in gaming 😔 #even his latest original song is about how he's a sweaty toxic gamer and that's a side we have to accept about him 😔 #ANYWAY here's my gamer miyabi propaganda #miyabi LOVES FF14 quote “FF14 is my life” iirc he was the highest rank/level possible since 2020 with mastering most skills #miyabi is good at almost all types of games racing platformers RPGs shooters etc #like in a really old jp mario kart tournament he and roberu were consistently beating everyone else. #he won all medals in the also really old ID x stars mario kart tournament #he's good at cuphead and similar platformers. he and temma did a cuphead endurance stream together #miyabi is also good at DbD as both survivor and killer (it depends which killer though) #miyabi is also good at fall guys he won against a cheater once #also. for fall guys miyabi shien aruran and oga all participated in a fall guys tournament and won the entire thing
I'm so sorry @blooming-declaration I was relying on the tv tropes page (which is out of date) (because I didn't know where else to look and wanted to shill them)
please don't apologize! i would also like to add this fact that i completely forgot...
miyabi is a huge fan of the call of duty franchise, and he and altare had a few COD collabs together! first collab and second collab (1v1 sniper match, 1v1 assault rifle match)
What's your favorite Hanakishi moment? Please don't respond if you don't want to
there's so many it would be difficult to just narrow it down! maybe i'll just put everything i can remember since theyre graduating. a hanakishi special if you will (under the cut because i got carried away, but i love my kamioshi and his aibou dearly)
funny moments
during the old holoID x holostars mario kart tournament, when iofi and moona got into a "divorce" during the stream and iofi was apologizing to moona (nothing serious tho). temma said something like, "being married is hard huh? it's a good thing i'm not married" and miyabi heard all of that and went quiet. later near the end of the match, where hanakishi were on the same team, miyabi being 2nd place and temma being 1st, miyabi shot a red shell at temma and took first place. temma ended up being 4th place and nearly costed the red team at that time to almost lose (there's no clip for this sadly)
the origin of hanakishi channel ♡
this is cheating since it's yurustars, but hanakishi fooling around in aruran's bed
hanakishi become besties with a stranger in apex
kyomu curse - curse of the emptiness
hanakishi get haunted by aruran and astel
miyabi shoots temma and pretends to be machina to get away with it
temma tries to prove that miyabi is a girl
hanakishi losing their minds over temma's schrodinger's teeth
hanakishi 60 years in the future (no translation just vibes)
the classic, most (in)famous hanakishi of all time, hanakishi is now canon
serious/emotional moments
hanakishi talks about views - whenever i feel down i always come back to this clip...
hanakishi "drama"
hanakishi and asuizu talk about their units - this is also cheating but honestly... watching this again got me really emotional
miyabi doubting himself and temma cheering him up
hanakishi music
romeo cover - this is the cover that made me oshi them!
yume fanfare 3D live performance
yuusha 3D live performance - i plan on clipping this and adding subs i hope i have time before they graduate :')
kono yoru ni kanpai cover
yappa saikyou cover!
their original song together, mismatched flowery knight. link to the translation because the lyrics are really clever and capture their dynamic beautifully! also check out their live performance of this song on the holostars 5th anniversary live movin' on! if you can, it's sooo good!
i swear i could make a whole separate post for recommending hanakishi music and idol performances (both as individuals and as a duo) and still run out of space. i yapped so much, but i hope someone can check them out before they graduate ^_^
