Hololive is Cover Corp's virtual YouTuber agency, featuring animated 2D and 3D avatars who livestream games, music, and variety content, described by Urban Dictionary as "a rabbit hole into an alternate world filled with 2D anime girls".

Where did Hololive come from?

The agency debuted with Tokino Sora on September 7, 2017, launched by Cover Corp under CEO Motoaki Tanigo, whom fans call YAGOO; Cover Corp later IPO'd and grew into a nearly billion-dollar company.

What does Hololive mean?

Hololive is the brand name Cover Corp uses for its VTuber talent group, which streams mainly on YouTube using Live2D-rigged avatars during broadcasts.

How do you use Hololive?

Fans typically clip stream highlights, subtitle Japanese broadcasts for English viewers, and share "Japanglish" chat catchphrases; talents themselves use Live2D software to animate their characters live on stream.

Is Hololive still popular?

Hololive's international profile took off in 2020 with Hololive English, and mainstream crossovers included a DOOM Eternal Ancient Gods easter egg referencing Inugami Korone's "DOOG" Doom playthroughs before id Software later removed it.

Hololive

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Published August 6, 2026

Hololive is Cover Corp's Japanese virtual YouTuber agency, home to dozens of talents who livestream as animated 2D and 3D avatars. Founded in 2017 with Tokino Sora, the group broke out internationally in summer 2020 when four of its members ranked among YouTube's top Super Chat earners.

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Overview

Hololive is Cover Corp's virtual YouTuber (VTuber) agency, home to dozens of anime-styled women who livestream individually as animated avatars. Most talents rig their character art with Live2D software so expressions and mouth movement track live during broadcasts, while full-body motion capture is swapped in for concerts and 3D showcases2. The talents cover gaming, singing, cooking, variety chats, and idol-style live performances, with Cover Corp positioning the whole roster as a Japanese idol agency in animated form3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube

Creator

Cover Corp

Date

2017

Hololive was founded by Cover Corp CEO Motoaki Tanigo, known to talents and fans as "YAGOO," and the agency debuted with first-generation member Tokino Sora on September 7, 20173. Growth came from a mix of freshly scouted talent and existing VTubers who wanted a bigger platform, including Sakura Miko and Hoshimachi Suisei. A dedicated Hololive skit channel launched its first episode on May 9, 2019, pulling more than 380,000 views before the video was later made private.

How It Spread

Through 2019 and 2020 Cover Corp built out specialized branches: Hololive Gamers, the male-focused Holostars, Inonaka Music, Hololive China, Hololive Indonesia, and Hololive English3. A November 2019 Azur Lane mobile-game crossover widened the main channel's audience, and by February 2020 the flagship channel sat at 195,000 subscribers while the combined roster crossed 1.5 million.

Summer 2020 was the international breakout. By August, four of the top five YouTube Super Chat earners were Hololive members, with Kiryu Coco reportedly pulling more than $800,000 for the year. The subreddit r/Hololive was picked as the group's official English-language forum, and Coco's "Meme Review" segments turned the sub's top posts into recurring stream content.

Mainstream crossover followed the Hololive English debut. Shark-girl Gawr Gura became the first Hololive talent to reach 1 million subscribers on October 22, 2020, roughly a month after her channel launched. That same week, players discovered a hidden "DOOG" logo in DOOM Eternal's Ancient Gods DLC, referencing Inugami Korone's dog-themed Doom playthroughs; id Software patched it out in a later update1. Urban Dictionary summed up the appeal as "a rabbit hole into an alternate world filled with 2D anime girls"4.

How to Use This Meme

Hololive isn't a fixed image template but a fandom style built on stream clipping and cross-cultural chat lingo. Fans typically edit stream moments into short highlight videos, subtitle Japanese broadcasts for English viewers, and remix "Japanglish" phrases like "Big Kusa" (used in place of LMAO) and "Yamete Kudastop" that grew out of Hololive comment sections.