Hololive Rocks Anime Boston with Humor and Music

Hololive made waves at this year's Anime Boston with their hilarious trivia panel on Friday and an enormous karaoke concert held on Saturday. With so many fans lining up to see their favorite VTubers up close, it was hard to ignore these virtual entities' dominating aura. Despite not being too terribly into big-time VTubers, I couldn't help but surrender to hololive's charms. They might make a convert out of me yet, and this weekend was a religious experience for all hololive fans.

The Friday panel was hosted by the members of hololive's Justice group: Gigi Murin, Raora Panthera, Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame, and Cecilia Immergreen. After playing their song “ABOVE BELOW,” the Justice gang kicked off their Bean Town debuts via attempts at Boston accents and many references to Dunkin Donuts. The round of Boston accents had Elizabeth sounding so much like a VTuber Mark Wahlberg that it's a shock she didn't try to quote a line from The Departed.

From there, the Justice gang decided to play a trivia batsu (punishment) game for the majority of the panel. Audience members were quizzed on their hololive knowledge, and the range of questions was very entertaining. A lot of the questions were vanilla in nature: “What are Justice's arm wrestling powers, from weakest to strongest?” “How tall are otomos?” “How many covers have I uploaded to my YouTube channel?” Yet there was still a handful of questions that erred towards the less wholesome but just as delightful side of things, like “Do you like yaoi?” and my personal favorite, “What is Gigi's Omegaverse?” Needless to say, this perfect blend of trivia questions kept the audience constantly engaged.

Even better than the questions themselves was the batsu element. If the audience got any of the questions wrong, they were subjected to spinning a wheel and forced to perform silly antics for their hololive overlords. “We're gonna punish the crowd!” Gigi Murin mischievously cackled.

And punish the crowd they did. Audience members were forced to (among other things) bark like a dog and chase their tail, say their best ara ara, and name their most cringeworthy phrases. Of course, the Justice gang was subjected to the batsu wheel on occasion, too. Cecilia was forced to do her most toxic gamer impression, which got huge laughs from the crowd. “Uninstall! Uninstall!” Cecilia screamed. “Get rekt! SKILL ISSUE!”

The best moment? When Elizabeth was forced to imitate another hololive member: “Hi! I'm Mori Calliope, and I LOVE League of Legends!” Obvious joke, sure, but the obvious joke is oftentimes the correct one, and this one got the biggest laugh out of me.

The finale was completely fitting. The question asked of the crowd was, “What's better, Advent or Justice?” With the crowd practically shouting “JUSTICE!!”, how could these four VTubers disagree? The batsu then landed on the members of Justice. They were forced to say their most tsundere phrase: “I-i-it's not like this is the best panel ever, baka!” Well said, Justice. Well said.

As for the hololive karaoke concert? It was nothing short of electrifying. For a good hour and a half, cat girls Fuwamoco and the Australian rat bae supreme Hakos Baelz dominated the convention ballroom with their brand of anime OP and hololive song covers. There were no fancy frills in the performances themselves. Both Fuwamoco and Hakos Baelz were performing inside a cozy-looking karaoke room, transmitted on a giant projector for all the adoring fans to see and sing along.

Fuwamoco performed the first half, followed by Hakos Baelz for the other half. Fuwamoco stuck with tradition, singing classic J-pop, anime OPs, and their original song “Born to be "BAU"DOL.” However, the moment the two busted out Card Captor Sakura's “Platinum” was the moment I completely lost it. Cute cat girl VTubers doing a duet of one of the most iconic magical girl OPs ever? We have no choice but to simp, folks.

Hakos Baelz put her trademark Australian sass into her own set. After a brief warm-up number, the ratty VTuber decided to put her spin on Evangelion's own “Cruel Angel's Thesis,” which sent the entire auditorium into a frenzy. She kept the momentum going from there with her takes on “I'm Your Treasure Box” by Housho Marine, "Crossing Fields" by LiSA, and, of all things, "Breaking Dimensions." The cherry on top, however, was Baelz's encore performance of JAM Project's “THE HERO,” which sent the audience into a deafening roar once the first few notes rang out. All of this resulted in a musical extravaganza that had all of the hyperactive energy of a rock concert. I haven't had as much fun at a concert since I saw Opeth and Mastodon in 2023.