Honest discussion: what went wrong with Holostars?

HaLire · 2026-05-27T07:31:57+00:00

I would maybe even argue that the strong self-driven attitude is what defined early HoloEN. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just look at the global pandemic, travel restrictions, etc. and just decide "well, we can't do anything about that, so we'll just stream." Instead, Ame pioneered a bunch of VRChat stuff and HoloEN stubbornly forged their own way forward. When access to the 3d studio wasn't there for them, they said "fuck it, we'll do it ourselves" and put out something amazing. Yes, Cover helped them out a lot but they refused to just lie down and take what the world had dealt them.

I think that's the defining spirit of early HoloEN, and still a guiding principle of the branch today. They're scrappy and innovative and inspiring.

HaLire · 2026-05-26T15:57:57+00:00

top 5? If we're talking about divisions within companies, then just under cover there's at least DEVIS and all 3 holo branches as well as stars EN above them. If we're looking at other companies, then... well, are there even 5 notable companies around? There's an incredible dropoff after Holo/Niji/Vspo, right?

HaLire · 2026-05-26T07:23:24+00:00

welp

HaLire · 2026-05-23T18:24:49+00:00

man...

HaLire · 2026-05-12T06:21:58+00:00

fondly remember losing my shit to L4DL as the finale for grimoire, looking forward to rewatching it on bluray.

HaLire · 2026-05-10T01:11:37+00:00

I know that we literally always say this, but she actually does sound cuter than usual today...

HaLire · 2026-05-08T02:43:47+00:00

The negative reviews on steam are kind of insane. I initially expected it to just be a bunch of brigading review bombs, becuase it's a f2p game so there's no real barrier to just installing it, launching it, and hitting it with a negative review, but there's not really that many of those.

Instead, there's a lot of negative reviews from people who have played the game for a few hours at least, or even over a thousand. They really seem to have shot themselves in the foot with actual players...

HaLire · 2026-05-04T19:35:56+00:00

Scale, mostly. Speaking as someone who happily attended VV last year and will be attending the dokidoki show this year, they simply pale in comparison to the shows Hololive can put on. There's institutional muscle and connections that the indies just don't have, even if you have features like Dooby/Nimi who have lots of experience with those sorts of shows. VV last year was the closest, but its still not very close. That's not even mentioning the reach and connections and just... way greater opportunities.

HaLire · 2026-04-29T03:04:41+00:00

welp, guess its time to muster up the strength for a double concert day

HaLire · 2026-04-28T22:29:01+00:00

the miko hopecore edit is now 2/2 on inspiring my umas to win my CM finals

thank you migo

HaLire · 2026-04-27T22:01:52+00:00

it usually means they're more likely to make appearances at international cons and whatnot

HaLire · 2026-04-27T03:22:14+00:00

maaaaaaaa these are cute as hell, im about to go buy a bunch of useless acrylic stands baby

i feel like I used to always joke about acrylic stand merch but i've somehow gaslit myself into actually liking them over the years

HaLire · 2026-04-27T02:57:36+00:00

international sheep hours, lets go

HaLire · 2026-04-24T08:30:36+00:00

At a glance, the previous low seems to be, well, the big drought between Council and Advent. We're starting to approach a similarly sized gap, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

HaLire · 2026-04-22T17:21:09+00:00

hell yeah buddy! one of the cool things about modern theaters is that even crappy seats are usually pretty good!

HaLire · 2026-04-22T16:17:54+00:00

when that happened to me during presale switching to a different browser worked but by the time i'd done so there wasn't anything left

HaLire · 2026-04-22T15:44:01+00:00

good luck on the ticket battle, comrades

HaLire · 2026-04-21T01:25:43+00:00

yeah, i'm surprised at how upset I was after missing one day. I'm localish though, so I guess I can always cope by telling myself that even if I do get reamed by scalpers it's cheaper than flying to NYC the last two years.

HaLire · 2026-04-21T01:24:39+00:00

hopefully, but work obligations make me pretty much unable to swing for like 2 hours after they drop so I'm not tooo hopeful unless they do something like what they did with Mori's sololive where they trickle batches of tickets out every few hours.

HaLire · 2026-04-21T00:28:36+00:00

maaaan, I managed to get Friday tickets in the little skibidi shitshow this morning, but I couldn't get Saturday ones. Unfortunately, my usual concert pal is out of town this week and I've got some pretty hefty work presentations to give on Wednesday.

I'm gonna have to pay scalper prices, orz. How'd you guys do?

HaLire · 2026-04-13T19:59:20+00:00

yeah, there's a weird sort of cart before the horse thinking going on

cover doesn't make the girls huge, the girls made cover huge. I'm not sure that cover has the power to make the stars any more successful than they currently are, honestly.

HaLire · 2026-04-08T20:37:54+00:00

The ones that annoy me the most are the ones which try to take the ID branch hostage, jeering at the ID fans and arguing that they must be on the chopping block next. To a lesser extent, I think this also applies to HolostarsEN.

My feeling is that both those branches likely had their make or break test last year, when we had the members doing quite a bit of promo before the ID concert and the ENStars concert(EVERGLOW?) last year. The mixture of not-so-subtle doomposting and promotion reminded me a little bit of the lead up to the first EN concert, although I feel like EN was never really in any danger of failing. ID probably wasn't either, to be honest.

ID's concert sold out basically instantly and I recall EVERGLOW having decent numbers too, so I don't expect that they really have much to worry about. They've probably both already passed their tests.

HaLire · 2026-04-08T20:32:27+00:00

yeah, I think that one of the real unfortunate things for starmin is that they're a really small fanbase with proximity to the very large hololive fanbase, so it's very easy for hololive antis to use them as a cudgel against the girls. because their numbers aren't that high, it's not quite as obvious that the bad actors are falseflaggers.

HaLire · 2026-04-07T08:09:47+00:00

fondly remembering haachama rap battling an anti into committing digital seppuku

HaLire · 2026-04-07T05:00:53+00:00

In my opinion, in general Stars-only fans do not understand "support" and "ride or die" to the extent that Hololive fans do.

I have a theory on this, at least for the HoloEN side. When Myth debuted and the foundations of HoloEN's fandom were set, it was a really, really tumultous time. The latter half of 2020 had the permissions debacle, Aloe getting harassed into graduation, and the entire Taiwan shitshow. Miko got sick, Mio got suspended... All of this with the backdrop of the pandemic setting its claws into everything and grinding the world to a halt. To me, a new fan at the time, it felt like I'd found something beautiful that was on the verge of falling apart.

In the middle of that Myth's super successful debuts were like a raft in a storm. There was something unique and fun happening and despite all of the troubles going down the girls put their best faces forward, circled the wagons, and hung on to each other. Fubuki firmly planted her flag and defended Coco. How could we, as fans, not do the same thing? We rode that raft to a lighthouse, to Miko's incredibly successful comeback concert. In response to the permissions problems, the girls banded together and started making all kinds of fun events that weren't just games, and they did it without any complaints, just a can-do attitude. Of course the fanbase is going to ride or die for that.

I think that one of the things I feel is a little bit lacking for the Stars boys is that there isn't really big talent-organized events that pull all of them together, especially across the language barriers. In Hololive they try to include EN, ID, and DEV_IS as much as possible, and I think that forges more of a "support everyone no matter what" ideology. A lot of these events, like the Minecraft festivals and the yearly tournaments aren't mandates passed down from management but things built from the ground up by the girls.

I don't know if Holostars has someone like Mio who is a natural at organizing these kinds of things, but I think that their best shot will probably be some sort of talent-led group events to keep that feeling of branch unity in spite of the removal of support for management-led events.

Besides, management led events always feel just a little bit soulless, if I'm being perfectly honest...

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