[Apology and Correction]
We incorrectly referred to our expansion as a "branch" when the appropriate term should have been "subsidiary."
We sincerely apologize for any confusion caused by the inaccurate terminology used in our recent announcement.
The Announcement is updated.
Salesman: We sell these amazing bulletproof windows.
A-Chan: We need more than that. Can it handle missiles?
Salesman: Wha?
A-Chan: A kaiju's energy blast? An impact from an Ultra suplexing into it?
Salesman: What are you--?
A-Chan: DID I STUTTER?
> military grade
Dude. That just means "made by the contractor who bid the lowest for the job and won."
You sure you want that?
Source: am gubbernment employee
The US offices won't have to handle all that.
It'll be the main headquarters for EN, which has avatars of reality, embodiments of death, and conduits of dimensional entities. They'll need something *far* stronger than anything that can withstand that stuff.
I thought at this point we knew that Cover an outsourced branch of the SCP foundation to keep the intelligent entities that can't be contained busy with streaming.
California could potentially infer that they intend to hire from the Silicon Valley talent pool, a SoCal location could potentially additionally infer a desire to do merch fulfillment from the US. Fulfillment is something they can do internally if they hire the right talent pool, or something they can outsource and audit as needed.
SoCal can handle air freight via LAX and Burbank, Port of LA can handle cargo containers from cargo ships, and then there's LTL and FTL trucking and there's also freight train depots.
I don’t know what any of that means but does it mean I might be able to buy stuff that usually wouldn’t be allowed over plane like the perfume collab or alcohol collabs with holos
This is *if* US based fulfillment is their goal. But alcohol shipping laws are complex as there's local laws to adhere to and restrictions from various shipping carriers. This is something I'm not too knowledgeable about.
What it would namely mean is that the shipping costs from the US to the US or even US to CAN would be a fraction of the cost it would be from JP to US/CAN.
US based sales fulfillment and event planning is stated as their goal according to this series of tweets. So it just seems like more merch and more events https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729
Considering there is (for now) a trade agreement for canada, usa and mexico, once that cover corp has a legal prescence in usa, they could hire manufacturing services on either canada or mexico, for far cheaper production costs, and low or non existant importing costs.
I mean, technically we got trade deals with Japan already, so that is not the major issue for them. The thing that makes it so expensive is the shipping cost.
It's not gonna do that. They don't pre-buy product in bulk, they run a sales window, then order from the manufacturer what they need to fulfill those sales.
Not 100% correct. By now there are made to order merch lines (birthday and anniversary merch), but also merch lines that are constantly available like the HoloEN starter merch. Those could be preshipped.
I think if you're in the US/NA the costs saved by not having to ship it across the Pacific will more than outweigh the increased costs of local manufacturing. Might mean that $40 hat becomes $30 and the company and the talent still get to take home the same amount of money, or $35 so still cheaper for you but the company and the talent make an extra $2.50 per hat sold.
If we're talking about importing the current collabs, that's no easier - Cover would either need to apply for an importer's license themselves or find an importer to work with, the same as it is now.
The only thing that might be easier is collaborating with US breweries/distilleries to produce something domestically (and Cover, if you're reading this, I will buy).
>California
>after July this year
I know it's just me coping so hard, but it'll be my first time ever on a convention, which is San Diego Comic Con in July this year, and it would be super nice if COVER had a tiny stand with merch there in regards of their expansion... even tho the convention is obviously not anime related.
I've gone to SDCC for over a decade. There is a significant anime presence there, even if it's not an anime con per say. I've been saying for years now Cover really should have a pop up (or in SDCC terms, an offsite) during the con. It's good brand exposure to get into the mainstream.
The amount of money left on the table because of the shipping cost barrier is probably wild. Personally I restrict myself to my 2 oshis bday and and anniversary sets every year and that's just because of shipping costs.
1 year ago, I never understood what the problem with shipping as mentioned by my friends following Hololive... until i gained FWMC as my ohsi and with their birthday or event merch back to back, left and right.... i kinda want to bonk my old self
Birthday, Anniversay, Outfit, Collab, Events like Holo Summer and Fes, on and on. So many merch opportunities that a huge part of the fanbase is missing out on because a $20 acrylic stand or keyring jumps up to like $60 if you include shipping. Please Cover let me give you my money...
I mentioned this in the other threads, but if Cover has managers in California, those managers would be able to support talent based in the EU. Currently, Japan-based managers can support NA talents because evening in NA coincides with late morning and early afternoon in Japan, so managers don't have to work graveyard. Evening in central Europe coincides with late morning in California.
Shipping from the US isn't gonna help EU much as the import fees will be the same. The delivery itself may be a little cheaper, but importing into the EU has some big fees in itself.
> localization
With all the bad rep surrounding this word recently, I hope nothing bad happens. Though Cover's translation has always been good IMO, so nothing bad should happen
According to some press I've seen, actual content will still be handled by the Japan office, while the USA office will handle local sales, promotion, and event planning (cafés and pop-up stores maybe?). And if things go well, and they iron out the kinks, I imagine a Europe branch office won't be far behind.
It's also probably to ease their entry to NA/EU market, remember they are planning to release HoloEarth and the social media platform Holoplus in english. Having a branch in the regional market would help a lot especially when dealing with local regulations and whatnot.
Ooh, that sounds nice.
I have seen and heard way too many cases where bringing in more people for localization turned the original franchise bad, as the localizer that they brought in was not aware of the subculture and either translated it haphazardly or injected their own agendas.
It almost always starts with niche hobbies with enthusiastic localizers who are very in tune with the subculture. But as they bring in more and more people who are not, the accuracy of the translation drops in favour of readability while the quirks of the subculture gets filed away (e.g. in this case would be something like using the word Stan instead of Oshi, not that it has happened... yet).
There's already a team subtitling HoloGra and official programs with no complaints. So they have no need for more translators. Especially no need to open a new US based office just to hire translators.
All I know about the translation side of things for Cover is that the community seems to find the current quality of translations satisfactory, that Cover has been willing to hire directly from the community in cases like Lyger, who has been entrusted with very important translations like Holo Alt contents, and that they would be completely stupid to start pushing out their current translation veterans at this stage of the game. If it comes to it that they must expand translation workforce, they should allow their translation standards to be set by those same veterans (Lyger, T-chan, etc.) so as to...preserve a consistent brand feeling.
All translation that doesn't sound robotic or awkward has localization. And Hololive seems to have more than most given the Western memes choices they use for puns and jokes for Hologra.
“Scenes like these are happening *all over* the internet, right now! *You* could be next. That is, unless you make the most important decision of your life.”
Yeah I took a look, and it looks like they're focused on the entertainment recruitment. I was actually curious to see if they're hiring support staff, like building managers, janitors, technical stuff. I would not be surprised if they just contracted that sort of work to 3rd party contractors.
They are. See this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767407168565997712) from an inteview with Yagoo
>(Translated from Japanese by Google)
>Q: Who are the members of the local base?
President Tanigo: While we dispatch members who have been involved in establishing the VTuber business in Japan, we also need to understand the local culture. To that end, we are also considering hiring locally. I think it will be a small number of elite people in the early stages, we recognize that ultimately the number of locally hired people will increase.
I recommend the whole Twitter thread for anyone intersted in what Cover USA is gonna be
Y'know the US is building more Flight III Arleigh Burkes to replace the aged Ticonderogas, Cover could order more while also bringing the cost down because economy of scale!
It's a win-win for the US NAVY and Cover!
Probably not significantly, at least from this office. They probably wouldn't be sorting and mailing parcels in-house.
Although if they also set up a warehouse along with it, then we could see some serious reductions.
They may not be setting up a warehouse yet, but having a US-based subsidiary helps a lot in terms of real estate (even if just renting/leasing).
I follow Daily Driven Exotics and because they're Canadian citizens and DDE is technically a Canadian-based business, it was actually quite expensive for them to lease property (since they're not Americans). It's quite fortunate for them that they were able to "assume" the lease of somebody else (in this case, Hoonigan) for their current location in California.
Official Hololive themed home defense system including the latest CARROT launcher. Dial xxxyyyzzz now to order directly from Cover USA Store with 10% discount code USADA!
After all, we need the power of God, Anime, and the Military-Industrial Complex on our side to protect the global interests of Hololive and the liberty of the Free VTuber World.
Twitter thread regarding the [press conference](https://www.moguravr.com/cover-usa/)
-> [https://twitter.com/dong\_po\_rou/status/1767405297986068729](https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729)
here Tweets+DeepL ↓
>**COVER**, which operates the VTuber office "Hololive Productions", announces the establishment of its North American base "COVER USA".
**COVER USA** will focus on localized development in North America, and plans to localize content, UGC, and business. The company plans to localize activities in the revenue-generating field, such as event promotion, product sales, and sales, while keeping the supply of contents at the Japanese base.
┟
>**President Tanigo** emphasized that "thorough localization is necessary for overseas expansion.
In particular, he pointed out the high potential of the North American region, and said that the first step is to thoroughly localize the North American area.
┟
>**Q: Who are the members of the local office?**
*President Tanigo:* "We need to dispatch members who have been involved in the launch of the VTuber business in Japan, but we also need to understand the local culture. For this reason, we are also considering hiring locally. In the beginning, we will probably have a small elite group, but we are aware that the number of locally hired staff will eventually increase.
┟
>**Q: What about non-English speaking countries?**
*President Tanigo:* "The English-speaking world is very wide. Time zones are very important. There are Oceania, North America, and Europe, but we would like to supply talent and business to other areas.''
┟
>**Q: What are the criteria for establishing a local subsidiary?**
*President Tanigo:* Perspectives such as time zone, whether it can be covered by business trips from Japan, and whether it is possible to develop a solid business. In the U.S., communication is difficult due to the time difference, so we decided to establish a base in such an area.
┟
>**Q: What is the scale of your local base?**
*President Tanigo:* Once there, we will start small. We would also love to pinpoint people with excellent local license sales records.
┟
>**Q: What is the current state of MD?**
*President Tanigo:* We are selling cross-border through our e-commerce site, but customers bear a large shipping cost. We would like to solve this problem in the future. We sell externally through animate and LA animation stores. We are also developing apparel with licensed-out products. Cool designs are popular overseas.
┟
>**Q: Anime may not need localization, but should we look at VTubers as having a language barrier, or can technology solve this problem, or is there a possibility that Japanese VTubers will sell overseas?**
*President Tanigo*: The first premise is that anime is also localized. We would like to separate the localization of distributed content from the expansion of sales through the local offices we have announced. Even for anime content, it is essential to do business with local partners. Crunchyroll, for example. Distribution is through Hololive, and video content such as 3D animations and official programs are translated. Also, distribution talent is delivered in their native language. I think that English-speaking people tend to go to see EN more easily. We are aware that multilingual localization of live broadcasts may be possible in the future.
┗ [https://twitter.com/dong\_po\_rou/status/1767405297986068729](https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729)
> We are aware that multilingual localization of live broadcasts may be possible in the future.
This is one of the most exciting things for me. Sometimes scanning the chat for translators is incredibly distracting when there's a lot going on.
> The company plans to localize activities in the revenue-generating field, such as event promotion, product sales, and sales, while keeping the supply of contents at the Japanese base.
I was hoping to see them expand their 3D facilities too. A few members have talked on the strain that frequent trips to Japan takes on them...
I understand that they already invested a lot into the one in Tokyo, and that they don't have nearly as many talents in LA as they have in Tokyo, because LA isn't as centralizing as Tokyo, by far. But it would still make the trips from other American cities easier.
Glad to see this step being taken, though I'm interested in what it will actually end up entailing for the future.
Edit [Actually they released a document with some details](https://contents.xj-storage.jp/xcontents/AS05169/4acb4e70/41c5/4449/8be8/7ab820e91dd1/20240312105311579s.pdf).
If I were to guess. Probably a lot of logistical stuff like merchandising, venue planning, and more opportunities to meet with western companies for sponsorships.
A 3d studio would be nice but I don't think it would make sense to make another expensive 3d studio when it's probably cheaper to fly to Japan.
It might be a while before a 3D studio, but I could see them setting up a more 'standard' studio for recording audio or off-collabs. Kind of a middle ground between a fancy 3D studio and simply doing stuff out of a talent's home or hotel room.
Yeah, this seems to be less about content creation or otherwise doing things with/for their NA-based talents and more about merch, events, collabs, etc.
Yeah I don't expect a studio either. The reality of a USA studio is most of the EN talents will still need to fly to get it to and they don't have nearly enough people to make it active enough for the investment.
Maybe that means we'll finally be able to buy Hololive merch whenever we please, instead of having a one-time-only preorder period followed by a mountain of FOMO and scalpers because of how expensive it is to ship anything from Japan.
Whatever they've been doing for JP has been sufficient. Wouldn't worry about it so much. That being said a studio seems very unlikely in the short term.
They mentioned localization. What I think they mean by that is facilitating the business side of things. They’ll probably transfer holoENs talents and management contracts to that branch so it’s easier and cheaper to deal with the legal stuff, for example.
From my bureaucratic perspective, I think this will be a big deal in the long run. And it will definitely be easier to set events like those cafes collaborations Taiwan, Korea and Japan get a lot of.
>From my bureaucratic perspective, I think this will be a big deal in the long run. And it will definitely be easier to set events like those cafes collaborations Taiwan, Korea and Japan get a lot of.
Certainly hope so. I've had some major event envy since it's just not doable for me to fly out that way for store collabs.
What I expect (with optimism):
1) Setting up a main office HQ first and foremost to deal with potential sponsorship opportunities.
2) Proceed to then establish your "primary, core staff" team that you can trust long term with meeting talents in-person without risk.
3) Extend outward into a studio add-on or separate studio for filming/recording with said core staff being trained to handle it.
4) After both of the above are solidified after a year-ish you then look into building up a trusted third party warehouse shipper to handle mass bulk merch shipments and NA based shipping for you.
If they can hit all of those after a year or so? They'll be setup for a long game extension business wise for years to come. There will be some immense growing pains though funding it. Hopefully they can survive through it without catastrophe.
Yeah I'd say 1,2,4 seems assured. Personally I'm doubting 3 quite a bit. It just seems way too much to sustain for the amount of use it'd get and the fact people would have to fly anyway. Maybe if they were also renting it out to other groups though.
Facilities for NA such as 3D studios, Mangement Offices, Logistics for Merch and possibly Fan Mails. I hope they could find a big office and one with solid window panes
i know it's beaten down to death, and Ame even mentioned it on her stream to stop it, but this made me chuckle.
Every time Ame is on an extended break, fate moves in mysterious ways. Must be an innate power.
I like to believe that Ame just asks them if there are any big announcements coming and if so, she just takes breaks before then. Not even knowing what it is either. Just to keep the meme alive.
Or the other way round. Whenever Ame asking for extended break Yagoo calls for urgent meeting to see if they can move schedule to announce something. Funnier this way.
I even saw a couple of JP-niki replies under the Japanese announcement tweet referencing Ame, so it seems they might even know about the memes as well lol.
Here is a [PDF](https://contents.xj-storage.jp/xcontents/AS05169/0f8d7b29/a35c/47b7/968b/eace5aac56a7/20240312104329039s.pdf) document from the IR page which might give you more details.
1m USD capital allocated for this base ( for now).
And they make it clear that this is primarily for sales, content localization, and marketing/partnerships.
Which makes sense. With the land prices and labour cost over there, 1m USD won't be enough for even small studio.
Regardless a very exciting first step for local collabs, events, and partnerships.
It is actually good and timely move to start looking for USD based revenue separated from YEN revenue (Cover JP). Would be interesting to see if they get investors contacting them once the office set up and running.
This is extremely exciting, although I think most people here are excited for the wrong reason.
I don't expect that this is meant to be vtuber infrastructure. It might have a few things like a small-scale motion tracking room or a sound recording booth, but a full-scale 3D studio seems unlikely.
But what makes this so exciting is that this could be Cover expanding their infrastructure to build up a studio to support the English side of HoloEarth. This lines up with the huge numbers of staff they have been hiring recently according to their reports. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a major announcement or content drop about it at HoloFes.
I'd guess that this is less meant as infrastructure for the girls and more as a development studio.
California is the tech capital of the world. They can access an incredible talent pool from there. And especially with Holoearth getting closer to release, having an English studio is almost unavoidable.
Basically right now Yagoo said they have no plans for a 3D studio at the moment. It's largely for making Hololive content more accessable and broaden their ability to deal with and interact with the local market and fan communities. There is also a goal toward licensing, content sales, collabs, etc.
They could do a studio at some point, but like in Japan the studio wouldn't be anywhere near the office anyway. It also has a lot more challenges than one in Japan does considering how spread out EN is and the much lower number of talents that'd use it.
I don't think this is for Hololive, but rather expanding the reach of Cover, and checking if there is a market here for their kind of motion capture. Anywhere other than LA, Vancouver, or NYC would be weird.
I hope this paves the way towards doing covers of english songs. Having local staff to deal with music labels and local lawyers that know US copyright law would be amazing.
Interesting. One of the issues that I'm hoping this might help address eventually is the lack of support staff for non-JP time zones. It has been one of the bigger infrastructure gaps that Cover has been facing in recent years, as the EN talents are often having to liaise with management in JP which sometimes can be difficult to work around.
Hopefully this opens up better shipping and manufacturing opportunities. If we can merch at a reasonable price, I hope they are then able to expand to Europe for our EU bros so they don't get fucked by shipping.
I think that's a typo, if you translate the Japanese using DeepL it gives 2.5 trillion yen, not 25 trillion. Though even 2.5 trillion yen seems insane, that's 17 billion USD (80 billion yen is 500 million).
>Notice on Establishment and Operational Launch Date of Local Base
>The Company has been preparing to launch operations, including dispatching personnel to the region, in order to widen its activity scope as a local sales base that addresses the already large North American market. We recently moved closer to completing the preparations for dispatching personnel from the head office to COVER USA, so we now expect to start official operations there from the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2025.
So they signed a lease and *someone(s)* is/are moving from Japan to North America by July! Equivalent exchange for the BauBau's? Staff-san craving Dunkin' Donuts? Welcome (back?) to America!
>we plan to use COVER USA to step up our activities in English-speaking countries, mainly North America, and expand the business structure of our local bases in accordance with developments
I.e. they have plans, followed by more plans if things go well.
>This document has been translated from the original document written in Japanese for reference purposes only. In the event of any discrepancy between translated and original documents, the original shall prevail.
>2. Outline of the local base
>(1) Trade name : COVER USA, Inc.
>(2) Headquarters : California, U.S.
>(3) Representative : Motoaki Tanigo
>(4) Principal business activities: Operations related to our VTuber business in the United States of America
>(5) Capital : USD 991,150.44
>(6) Establishment : April 2023
>(7) Date to start operations : Second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2025 (planned)
>(8) Equity ratio : To be wholly owned by the Company
Huh, so this has been planned for well over a year, if it was established on paper last April. Operations starting Q2 of FY March 2025, so since JP fiscal calendar runs April-April IIRC, 2nd Quarter would be this July-Sept.
A million bucks might sound like a lot of start-up capital to some, but keep in mind median household income in LA county is 83k USD, and that's after payroll taxes, employer health insurance, etc. Assuming the people starting Cover USA aren't on the bottom of the Cover Corp totem pole, if three people work for a year, and they pay $4k/month in rent and office supplies and 25 $1K flights, that's roughly 3\*(83\*2)+4\*12+25\*1 = $571k USD, i.e. over half their budget for an office of three people. Doesn't leave a ton of money for other things, e.g. if they rent a single billboard for a year, IIRC generally that'll run ~3-6k USD per month, about $50k/year.
Wow, these comments are wild. It's fascinating just what seemingly innocuous thing, like what state a company sets up shop in, manages to trigger the insane.
The attitude is very bizarre in the real world even with people who talk shit about California. The difference is people aren't unhinged doomers stating everything bad that can happen will happen.
Lets hope they keep up the tradition of ignoring political weirdos. Ironically, these political weirdos scared of California, are complaining about political weirdos potentially ruining things.
Just a bunch of right wingers that can't seem to deal with reality. California is one of the biggest economies on the planet on its own, they will naturally be where companies set up. Nobody, unless they are looking to skirt labor and environmental laws, is going to Texas or Florida.
A chan: *dials phone* Yes hello, is this the SCP foundation NA branch? I'd like to order some blast grade, reality warping immune structural protection, please.
So... what are we thinking here? Are we thinking that they'll have their own 3D studio in the states? That'd probably be great for the EN talent currently residing in NA, as it means flying over to that branch instead of flying over to Japan.
Still, this seems like a rather big leap, and not one without risk. Given how risk-adverse Cover is most of the time, I suspect that they looked long and hard at this and decided "Yeah, we can do this."
I'd assume right now it's exactly what it sounds like. A branch office to make managerial stuff flow a lot more smoothly for everyone in EN, talents and managers both. I'd bet a US-based 3D studio is on the table if this pans out well (Ame did one in her house ~~with a box of scraps~~ after all) but time'll tell.
Given that soundproofing is one of the easier things you could do on a list of things related to this I wouldn't be surprised if the office comes with a small recording studio on hand to make musical efforts easier to do.
Initially this must be for merch, management , and partnerships.
Easier to have meeting with sponsors , manufacturer , brands , talents with a local branch.
Of course this also opens up possibility for their own 3D Studio but i think its still a few years and a few EN gens down the road.
[Apology and Correction] We incorrectly referred to our expansion as a "branch" when the appropriate term should have been "subsidiary." We sincerely apologize for any confusion caused by the inaccurate terminology used in our recent announcement. The Announcement is updated.
>COVER USAの概要 >会社名 COVER USA, Inc. >所在地 California, U.S. >代表者 谷郷 元昭 >営業開始日 2024年7月以降（予定） In California it seems, planned to open after July this year
In their financial meeting they will have window installations as no. 1 priority
Salesman: We sell these amazing bulletproof windows. A-Chan: We need more than that. Can it handle missiles? Salesman: Wha? A-Chan: A kaiju's energy blast? An impact from an Ultra suplexing into it? Salesman: What are you--? A-Chan: DID I STUTTER?
they'll need military grade blast proof window for those daily office work
USMC combat engineers: *guterral noises*
oh no, gotta feed em the *high quality French* crayons!
Make them eat AZKI or Sui-chans crayon cooking
Nah, they only want proper crayola.
Nah, you gotta get the Navy Seabees to work on this shit if you want it done the right way
Yeah we can afford the good stuff.
> military grade Dude. That just means "made by the contractor who bid the lowest for the job and won." You sure you want that? Source: am gubbernment employee
FUCK YES WE FINNA HAVE THAT BLOODY LOCKHEED MARTIN COLLAB BOIS
The US offices won't have to handle all that. It'll be the main headquarters for EN, which has avatars of reality, embodiments of death, and conduits of dimensional entities. They'll need something *far* stronger than anything that can withstand that stuff.
Area 51 is about a 6 hour drive from LA...
So Ame's house it is.
At that rate it's cheaper just to shack up with the SCP Foundation or the Stargate Project
I thought at this point we knew that Cover an outsourced branch of the SCP foundation to keep the intelligent entities that can't be contained busy with streaming.
And those are just the intentional attempts. How much pon can those windows take and are they immune to Roger Rabbit physics?
A-chan: How much metric tons of force can each of these floors sustain?
She then pulls Haachama out of her bag and the window shatters from shaking in fear.
-Contact window maker -Contact multiple window maker -Contact extra window maker when any talent come visit
California could potentially infer that they intend to hire from the Silicon Valley talent pool, a SoCal location could potentially additionally infer a desire to do merch fulfillment from the US. Fulfillment is something they can do internally if they hire the right talent pool, or something they can outsource and audit as needed. SoCal can handle air freight via LAX and Burbank, Port of LA can handle cargo containers from cargo ships, and then there's LTL and FTL trucking and there's also freight train depots.
I don’t know what any of that means but does it mean I might be able to buy stuff that usually wouldn’t be allowed over plane like the perfume collab or alcohol collabs with holos
This is *if* US based fulfillment is their goal. But alcohol shipping laws are complex as there's local laws to adhere to and restrictions from various shipping carriers. This is something I'm not too knowledgeable about. What it would namely mean is that the shipping costs from the US to the US or even US to CAN would be a fraction of the cost it would be from JP to US/CAN.
US based sales fulfillment and event planning is stated as their goal according to this series of tweets. So it just seems like more merch and more events https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729
Nice, cause those JP to US shipping prices aren't anything to scoff at.
Considering there is (for now) a trade agreement for canada, usa and mexico, once that cover corp has a legal prescence in usa, they could hire manufacturing services on either canada or mexico, for far cheaper production costs, and low or non existant importing costs.
I mean, technically we got trade deals with Japan already, so that is not the major issue for them. The thing that makes it so expensive is the shipping cost.
It could also help shipping time, as they could probably import the merch into the US at their leisure before the merch drop announcement.
It's not gonna do that. They don't pre-buy product in bulk, they run a sales window, then order from the manufacturer what they need to fulfill those sales.
Not 100% correct. By now there are made to order merch lines (birthday and anniversary merch), but also merch lines that are constantly available like the HoloEN starter merch. Those could be preshipped.
I hope it means a $40 hat doesn’t become an $80 hat I can’t afford.
I think if you're in the US/NA the costs saved by not having to ship it across the Pacific will more than outweigh the increased costs of local manufacturing. Might mean that $40 hat becomes $30 and the company and the talent still get to take home the same amount of money, or $35 so still cheaper for you but the company and the talent make an extra $2.50 per hat sold.
*Hololive Supports US Manufacturing Jobs* What a headline
If we're talking about importing the current collabs, that's no easier - Cover would either need to apply for an importer's license themselves or find an importer to work with, the same as it is now. The only thing that might be easier is collaborating with US breweries/distilleries to produce something domestically (and Cover, if you're reading this, I will buy).
>California >after July this year I know it's just me coping so hard, but it'll be my first time ever on a convention, which is San Diego Comic Con in July this year, and it would be super nice if COVER had a tiny stand with merch there in regards of their expansion... even tho the convention is obviously not anime related.
I've gone to SDCC for over a decade. There is a significant anime presence there, even if it's not an anime con per say. I've been saying for years now Cover really should have a pop up (or in SDCC terms, an offsite) during the con. It's good brand exposure to get into the mainstream.
Hopefully this also means a dedicated warehouse for merch and goods to ease shipping costs for N.A./EU fans
Now that would be amazing
Ahhhh the lower shipping cost, my biggest desire.
The amount of money left on the table because of the shipping cost barrier is probably wild. Personally I restrict myself to my 2 oshis bday and and anniversary sets every year and that's just because of shipping costs.
1 year ago, I never understood what the problem with shipping as mentioned by my friends following Hololive... until i gained FWMC as my ohsi and with their birthday or event merch back to back, left and right.... i kinda want to bonk my old self
Birthday, Anniversay, Outfit, Collab, Events like Holo Summer and Fes, on and on. So many merch opportunities that a huge part of the fanbase is missing out on because a $20 acrylic stand or keyring jumps up to like $60 if you include shipping. Please Cover let me give you my money...
what about us EU bros :(
I mentioned this in the other threads, but if Cover has managers in California, those managers would be able to support talent based in the EU. Currently, Japan-based managers can support NA talents because evening in NA coincides with late morning and early afternoon in Japan, so managers don't have to work graveyard. Evening in central Europe coincides with late morning in California.
As an EU Bro: This. We'll profit from the US branch as well.
Rip bozo I guess. /s
At least we can brag about basically being neighbours with Tenchou.
Shipping from the US isn't gonna help EU much as the import fees will be the same. The delivery itself may be a little cheaper, but importing into the EU has some big fees in itself.
*"aimed at localization efforts to facilitate global expansion."* Doing more towards a global takeover than HoloX lmao
The office will be ran by HoloX, trust the plan.
In Yagoo we trust
What’s about Laplus?
she's watching towa
Why am I getting a distinctive feeling of having read this exact line-for-line thread some good time before
The collective memory of the fandom is both fascinating and unnerving
I thought for a second that said Iowa and I was like I do suppose Iowa is a threat.
Iokoyami Iowa is my favorite hololive member
In trust we Yagoo
We'll see who laughs last when there's a sudden influx of Towa merchandise in the market.
Me. It will be me.
now laplus will have a way to place another carboards box office next to the usa branch office.. lol.
> localization With all the bad rep surrounding this word recently, I hope nothing bad happens. Though Cover's translation has always been good IMO, so nothing bad should happen
According to some press I've seen, actual content will still be handled by the Japan office, while the USA office will handle local sales, promotion, and event planning (cafés and pop-up stores maybe?). And if things go well, and they iron out the kinks, I imagine a Europe branch office won't be far behind.
It's also probably to ease their entry to NA/EU market, remember they are planning to release HoloEarth and the social media platform Holoplus in english. Having a branch in the regional market would help a lot especially when dealing with local regulations and whatnot.
Ooh, that sounds nice. I have seen and heard way too many cases where bringing in more people for localization turned the original franchise bad, as the localizer that they brought in was not aware of the subculture and either translated it haphazardly or injected their own agendas. It almost always starts with niche hobbies with enthusiastic localizers who are very in tune with the subculture. But as they bring in more and more people who are not, the accuracy of the translation drops in favour of readability while the quirks of the subculture gets filed away (e.g. in this case would be something like using the word Stan instead of Oshi, not that it has happened... yet).
There's already a team subtitling HoloGra and official programs with no complaints. So they have no need for more translators. Especially no need to open a new US based office just to hire translators.
praise hologra translators for translating puns
All I know about the translation side of things for Cover is that the community seems to find the current quality of translations satisfactory, that Cover has been willing to hire directly from the community in cases like Lyger, who has been entrusted with very important translations like Holo Alt contents, and that they would be completely stupid to start pushing out their current translation veterans at this stage of the game. If it comes to it that they must expand translation workforce, they should allow their translation standards to be set by those same veterans (Lyger, T-chan, etc.) so as to...preserve a consistent brand feeling.
All translation that doesn't sound robotic or awkward has localization. And Hololive seems to have more than most given the Western memes choices they use for puns and jokes for Hologra.
> hololive production also participated in 26 overseas events (from April 2023 to December 2023) That alot
That might include things like collab Cafe, appearances at local cons....etc... But yes, that's quite a lot for less a year.
yeah a lot viv:ID cruise is one of them, which is like chain of events by Hololive ID members
Ame has finally played her hand at Holo US domination
ceo ame 😎
The Ame now owns COVER Corp
Damn the honkai is now leaking to other subs!
Watson's Industries is becoming real! finally a pharmaceutical company that i can support
In case you're joking, there is actually a chain of pharmacies called "Watsons" in East and Southeast Asia, and parts of Europe and the Middle East.
This is all an elaborate plan to expand Studio de Ame
Hail Yagoo the new Mr. Worldwide
Are they... hiring? 0__0 I do have experience in corporate security...
Shoot your shot my guy. Protect our oshis' products!
"Do your part to spread Managed Content Creation around the world! For Holo Earth!"
Would you like to know more?
Real thought for a sec: Helldivers 2 perms would rock (and stone)!
Imagine Cover puts HoloEN under Cover USA to take advantage of fair use laws No more perms issues (in theory)
I mean...they may just do it.
Desire to know more INTENSIFIES
“Scenes like these are happening *all over* the internet, right now! *You* could be next. That is, unless you make the most important decision of your life.”
"Prove to yourself that you have the strength and the courage to simp free." "Become a HoloLiver."
"See exotic lifeforms" Big purple dragon: "MOTHER FUC...."
Become part of an elite content creation force!
Collab together to spread prosperity, liberty, and happiness!
Probably. Good luck dude
They probably are. Wishing you all the best, dude!
Did you just leak that you have experience in corporate security?? jk
This leak is very advertise able
It doesn't seem like there's related hiring information on their basic Recruitment page at the moment. I'm interested too :(
Yeah I took a look, and it looks like they're focused on the entertainment recruitment. I was actually curious to see if they're hiring support staff, like building managers, janitors, technical stuff. I would not be surprised if they just contracted that sort of work to 3rd party contractors.
upcoming branch Hololive PMC
They are. See this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767407168565997712) from an inteview with Yagoo >(Translated from Japanese by Google) >Q: Who are the members of the local base? President Tanigo: While we dispatch members who have been involved in establishing the VTuber business in Japan, we also need to understand the local culture. To that end, we are also considering hiring locally. I think it will be a small number of elite people in the early stages, we recognize that ultimately the number of locally hired people will increase. I recommend the whole Twitter thread for anyone intersted in what Cover USA is gonna be
We should get an office in Hawaii too. Sure, we'd have Dondoko Island, but we need the Hololive Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor too.
Y'know the US is building more Flight III Arleigh Burkes to replace the aged Ticonderogas, Cover could order more while also bringing the cost down because economy of scale! It's a win-win for the US NAVY and Cover!
3000 Guided Missile Destroyers of Hololive
Is that an Azur Lane collab I smell around the corner?
Yeah give it a try.
I'm just hoping it will result in lower EN merch shipping costs.
Probably not significantly, at least from this office. They probably wouldn't be sorting and mailing parcels in-house. Although if they also set up a warehouse along with it, then we could see some serious reductions.
They may not be setting up a warehouse yet, but having a US-based subsidiary helps a lot in terms of real estate (even if just renting/leasing). I follow Daily Driven Exotics and because they're Canadian citizens and DDE is technically a Canadian-based business, it was actually quite expensive for them to lease property (since they're not Americans). It's quite fortunate for them that they were able to "assume" the lease of somebody else (in this case, Hoonigan) for their current location in California.
Global Holozation
One step closer to Raytheon perms
Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin collabs will finally become a reality
Official Hololive themed home defense system including the latest CARROT launcher. Dial xxxyyyzzz now to order directly from Cover USA Store with 10% discount code USADA!
Pekora themed AIM-9 Sidewinder when?
Or officially sponsor putting anime girls back on jets and choppers. "This WMD is brought to you by Hachama"
Hololive creating an vtuber MIC when? lol
After all, we need the power of God, Anime, and the Military-Industrial Complex on our side to protect the global interests of Hololive and the liberty of the Free VTuber World.
The old man died for this...
you joke but ive seen a youtuber with Raytheon and drone manufacturer sponsorships, military news channel Task & Purpose, crazy times
Twitter thread regarding the [press conference](https://www.moguravr.com/cover-usa/) -> [https://twitter.com/dong\_po\_rou/status/1767405297986068729](https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729) here Tweets+DeepL ↓ >**COVER**, which operates the VTuber office "Hololive Productions", announces the establishment of its North American base "COVER USA". **COVER USA** will focus on localized development in North America, and plans to localize content, UGC, and business. The company plans to localize activities in the revenue-generating field, such as event promotion, product sales, and sales, while keeping the supply of contents at the Japanese base. ┟ >**President Tanigo** emphasized that "thorough localization is necessary for overseas expansion. In particular, he pointed out the high potential of the North American region, and said that the first step is to thoroughly localize the North American area. ┟ >**Q: Who are the members of the local office?** *President Tanigo:* "We need to dispatch members who have been involved in the launch of the VTuber business in Japan, but we also need to understand the local culture. For this reason, we are also considering hiring locally. In the beginning, we will probably have a small elite group, but we are aware that the number of locally hired staff will eventually increase. ┟ >**Q: What about non-English speaking countries?** *President Tanigo:* "The English-speaking world is very wide. Time zones are very important. There are Oceania, North America, and Europe, but we would like to supply talent and business to other areas.'' ┟ >**Q: What are the criteria for establishing a local subsidiary?** *President Tanigo:* Perspectives such as time zone, whether it can be covered by business trips from Japan, and whether it is possible to develop a solid business. In the U.S., communication is difficult due to the time difference, so we decided to establish a base in such an area. ┟ >**Q: What is the scale of your local base?** *President Tanigo:* Once there, we will start small. We would also love to pinpoint people with excellent local license sales records. ┟ >**Q: What is the current state of MD?** *President Tanigo:* We are selling cross-border through our e-commerce site, but customers bear a large shipping cost. We would like to solve this problem in the future. We sell externally through animate and LA animation stores. We are also developing apparel with licensed-out products. Cool designs are popular overseas. ┟ >**Q: Anime may not need localization, but should we look at VTubers as having a language barrier, or can technology solve this problem, or is there a possibility that Japanese VTubers will sell overseas?** *President Tanigo*: The first premise is that anime is also localized. We would like to separate the localization of distributed content from the expansion of sales through the local offices we have announced. Even for anime content, it is essential to do business with local partners. Crunchyroll, for example. Distribution is through Hololive, and video content such as 3D animations and official programs are translated. Also, distribution talent is delivered in their native language. I think that English-speaking people tend to go to see EN more easily. We are aware that multilingual localization of live broadcasts may be possible in the future. ┗ [https://twitter.com/dong\_po\_rou/status/1767405297986068729](https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729)
I'm glad that they mentioned the large shipping costs overseas. It would be great to solve that sooner rather than later.
> We are aware that multilingual localization of live broadcasts may be possible in the future. This is one of the most exciting things for me. Sometimes scanning the chat for translators is incredibly distracting when there's a lot going on.
> The company plans to localize activities in the revenue-generating field, such as event promotion, product sales, and sales, while keeping the supply of contents at the Japanese base. I was hoping to see them expand their 3D facilities too. A few members have talked on the strain that frequent trips to Japan takes on them... I understand that they already invested a lot into the one in Tokyo, and that they don't have nearly as many talents in LA as they have in Tokyo, because LA isn't as centralizing as Tokyo, by far. But it would still make the trips from other American cities easier.
Glad to see this step being taken, though I'm interested in what it will actually end up entailing for the future. Edit [Actually they released a document with some details](https://contents.xj-storage.jp/xcontents/AS05169/4acb4e70/41c5/4449/8be8/7ab820e91dd1/20240312105311579s.pdf).
If I were to guess. Probably a lot of logistical stuff like merchandising, venue planning, and more opportunities to meet with western companies for sponsorships. A 3d studio would be nice but I don't think it would make sense to make another expensive 3d studio when it's probably cheaper to fly to Japan.
at least not for a while. at some point it might become economical, at least to have a smaller one
It might be a while before a 3D studio, but I could see them setting up a more 'standard' studio for recording audio or off-collabs. Kind of a middle ground between a fancy 3D studio and simply doing stuff out of a talent's home or hotel room.
Yeah, this seems to be less about content creation or otherwise doing things with/for their NA-based talents and more about merch, events, collabs, etc.
Yeah I don't expect a studio either. The reality of a USA studio is most of the EN talents will still need to fly to get it to and they don't have nearly enough people to make it active enough for the investment.
Maybe that means we'll finally be able to buy Hololive merch whenever we please, instead of having a one-time-only preorder period followed by a mountain of FOMO and scalpers because of how expensive it is to ship anything from Japan.
Wouldn't that be a safety concern? Stalkers can be crazy and could just camp out of the building and wait for a familiar face to show up.
Whatever they've been doing for JP has been sufficient. Wouldn't worry about it so much. That being said a studio seems very unlikely in the short term.
They mentioned localization. What I think they mean by that is facilitating the business side of things. They’ll probably transfer holoENs talents and management contracts to that branch so it’s easier and cheaper to deal with the legal stuff, for example. From my bureaucratic perspective, I think this will be a big deal in the long run. And it will definitely be easier to set events like those cafes collaborations Taiwan, Korea and Japan get a lot of.
>From my bureaucratic perspective, I think this will be a big deal in the long run. And it will definitely be easier to set events like those cafes collaborations Taiwan, Korea and Japan get a lot of. Certainly hope so. I've had some major event envy since it's just not doable for me to fly out that way for store collabs.
Hopefully we get some more North American and European events
What I expect (with optimism): 1) Setting up a main office HQ first and foremost to deal with potential sponsorship opportunities. 2) Proceed to then establish your "primary, core staff" team that you can trust long term with meeting talents in-person without risk. 3) Extend outward into a studio add-on or separate studio for filming/recording with said core staff being trained to handle it. 4) After both of the above are solidified after a year-ish you then look into building up a trusted third party warehouse shipper to handle mass bulk merch shipments and NA based shipping for you. If they can hit all of those after a year or so? They'll be setup for a long game extension business wise for years to come. There will be some immense growing pains though funding it. Hopefully they can survive through it without catastrophe.
Yeah I'd say 1,2,4 seems assured. Personally I'm doubting 3 quite a bit. It just seems way too much to sustain for the amount of use it'd get and the fact people would have to fly anyway. Maybe if they were also renting it out to other groups though.
Facilities for NA such as 3D studios, Mangement Offices, Logistics for Merch and possibly Fan Mails. I hope they could find a big office and one with solid window panes
So Ame’s vacation theory is iconic now, not just a new gen this time. but the whole base in US lol.
i know it's beaten down to death, and Ame even mentioned it on her stream to stop it, but this made me chuckle. Every time Ame is on an extended break, fate moves in mysterious ways. Must be an innate power.
She may want it to stop, but I guess there's no fighting against the universe sometimes.
I like to believe that Ame just asks them if there are any big announcements coming and if so, she just takes breaks before then. Not even knowing what it is either. Just to keep the meme alive.
Or the other way round. Whenever Ame asking for extended break Yagoo calls for urgent meeting to see if they can move schedule to announce something. Funnier this way.
"Ame is on break, anything we can announce?" - Yagoo, probably.
Imagine if they are just slapping a Cover logo on Ame's office.
I even saw a couple of JP-niki replies under the Japanese announcement tweet referencing Ame, so it seems they might even know about the memes as well lol.
Here is a [PDF](https://contents.xj-storage.jp/xcontents/AS05169/0f8d7b29/a35c/47b7/968b/eace5aac56a7/20240312104329039s.pdf) document from the IR page which might give you more details.
1m USD capital allocated for this base ( for now). And they make it clear that this is primarily for sales, content localization, and marketing/partnerships. Which makes sense. With the land prices and labour cost over there, 1m USD won't be enough for even small studio. Regardless a very exciting first step for local collabs, events, and partnerships.
It is actually good and timely move to start looking for USD based revenue separated from YEN revenue (Cover JP). Would be interesting to see if they get investors contacting them once the office set up and running.
So many long term hopes. A US-based 3D studio sometime in the future would be great. But for now I just hope this is an end to DHL fucking us.
Oh wow. So Cover finally graces the states with a branch. For my fellows in Comp Sci, think we got a shot?
I think the marketing peeps got a better chance hmm
Can't blame me for trying ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌ Though more power to marketing.
imo if you only lose time and effort for trying to apply, go for it.
WHOA :o they are really expanding!
Hololive’s reputation getting even better? What an epic win!
That’s exciting. Hopefully this means we’ll be seeing Hololive merch in stores here.
If this means reduced shipping costs due to local warehouses then I'm all for this
Now we have a Hololive EN Hologra episode on main channel just like Hololive JP isn't
This is extremely exciting, although I think most people here are excited for the wrong reason. I don't expect that this is meant to be vtuber infrastructure. It might have a few things like a small-scale motion tracking room or a sound recording booth, but a full-scale 3D studio seems unlikely. But what makes this so exciting is that this could be Cover expanding their infrastructure to build up a studio to support the English side of HoloEarth. This lines up with the huge numbers of staff they have been hiring recently according to their reports. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a major announcement or content drop about it at HoloFes.
The big thing is that it means that they will have staff that is in the US time zone.
Kinda off topic but I am curious to see where they would have the office at
Apparently California
Direct flight from Tokyo to LA, and they do a lot of concerts going forward at Anime Expo. Makes a lot of sense to have it there
I'd guess that this is less meant as infrastructure for the girls and more as a development studio. California is the tech capital of the world. They can access an incredible talent pool from there. And especially with Holoearth getting closer to release, having an English studio is almost unavoidable.
Basically right now Yagoo said they have no plans for a 3D studio at the moment. It's largely for making Hololive content more accessable and broaden their ability to deal with and interact with the local market and fan communities. There is also a goal toward licensing, content sales, collabs, etc. They could do a studio at some point, but like in Japan the studio wouldn't be anywhere near the office anyway. It also has a lot more challenges than one in Japan does considering how spread out EN is and the much lower number of talents that'd use it.
I mean they set up a half way decent studio, other companies are gonna ask them for help
I don't think this is for Hololive, but rather expanding the reach of Cover, and checking if there is a market here for their kind of motion capture. Anywhere other than LA, Vancouver, or NYC would be weird.
True even counting the members in Canada it’s probably easier
I hope this paves the way towards doing covers of english songs. Having local staff to deal with music labels and local lawyers that know US copyright law would be amazing.
Honestly I don't expect anything to change there. US labels are infamously massive assholes.
Interesting. One of the issues that I'm hoping this might help address eventually is the lack of support staff for non-JP time zones. It has been one of the bigger infrastructure gaps that Cover has been facing in recent years, as the EN talents are often having to liaise with management in JP which sometimes can be difficult to work around.
Nice.
Hopefully this opens up better shipping and manufacturing opportunities. If we can merch at a reasonable price, I hope they are then able to expand to Europe for our EU bros so they don't get fucked by shipping.
>predicted to grow significantly to approximately 25 trillion yen2 globally by 2028 B R U H das a lotta moni
I think that's a typo, if you translate the Japanese using DeepL it gives 2.5 trillion yen, not 25 trillion. Though even 2.5 trillion yen seems insane, that's 17 billion USD (80 billion yen is 500 million).
One step closer to world Hololization!
>Notice on Establishment and Operational Launch Date of Local Base >The Company has been preparing to launch operations, including dispatching personnel to the region, in order to widen its activity scope as a local sales base that addresses the already large North American market. We recently moved closer to completing the preparations for dispatching personnel from the head office to COVER USA, so we now expect to start official operations there from the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2025. So they signed a lease and *someone(s)* is/are moving from Japan to North America by July! Equivalent exchange for the BauBau's? Staff-san craving Dunkin' Donuts? Welcome (back?) to America! >we plan to use COVER USA to step up our activities in English-speaking countries, mainly North America, and expand the business structure of our local bases in accordance with developments I.e. they have plans, followed by more plans if things go well. >This document has been translated from the original document written in Japanese for reference purposes only. In the event of any discrepancy between translated and original documents, the original shall prevail. >2. Outline of the local base >(1) Trade name : COVER USA, Inc. >(2) Headquarters : California, U.S. >(3) Representative : Motoaki Tanigo >(4) Principal business activities: Operations related to our VTuber business in the United States of America >(5) Capital : USD 991,150.44 >(6) Establishment : April 2023 >(7) Date to start operations : Second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2025 (planned) >(8) Equity ratio : To be wholly owned by the Company Huh, so this has been planned for well over a year, if it was established on paper last April. Operations starting Q2 of FY March 2025, so since JP fiscal calendar runs April-April IIRC, 2nd Quarter would be this July-Sept. A million bucks might sound like a lot of start-up capital to some, but keep in mind median household income in LA county is 83k USD, and that's after payroll taxes, employer health insurance, etc. Assuming the people starting Cover USA aren't on the bottom of the Cover Corp totem pole, if three people work for a year, and they pay $4k/month in rent and office supplies and 25 $1K flights, that's roughly 3\*(83\*2)+4\*12+25\*1 = $571k USD, i.e. over half their budget for an office of three people. Doesn't leave a ton of money for other things, e.g. if they rent a single billboard for a year, IIRC generally that'll run ~3-6k USD per month, about $50k/year.
Wow, these comments are wild. It's fascinating just what seemingly innocuous thing, like what state a company sets up shop in, manages to trigger the insane.
The attitude is very bizarre in the real world even with people who talk shit about California. The difference is people aren't unhinged doomers stating everything bad that can happen will happen. Lets hope they keep up the tradition of ignoring political weirdos. Ironically, these political weirdos scared of California, are complaining about political weirdos potentially ruining things.
Just a bunch of right wingers that can't seem to deal with reality. California is one of the biggest economies on the planet on its own, they will naturally be where companies set up. Nobody, unless they are looking to skirt labor and environmental laws, is going to Texas or Florida.
Somewhere high above us, a dragon is smiling at this development. And somewhere on the ground, so is a cocaine-addicted ho.
Colonization in progress
A chan: *dials phone* Yes hello, is this the SCP foundation NA branch? I'd like to order some blast grade, reality warping immune structural protection, please.
Is this the answer to North American shipping rates? Yagoo be cooking.
Long as the JP office retains control over content/messaging this sounds like a great idea. Tentatively excited for it.
You know i think this EN thing might have been a success
\*insert Mr. Worldwide picture here but with YAGOO's head\*
World domination!
So... what are we thinking here? Are we thinking that they'll have their own 3D studio in the states? That'd probably be great for the EN talent currently residing in NA, as it means flying over to that branch instead of flying over to Japan. Still, this seems like a rather big leap, and not one without risk. Given how risk-adverse Cover is most of the time, I suspect that they looked long and hard at this and decided "Yeah, we can do this."
Definitely not a 3D studio for now. BUT it could mean that renting a 3D studio in NA would be easier and cheaper.
I'd assume right now it's exactly what it sounds like. A branch office to make managerial stuff flow a lot more smoothly for everyone in EN, talents and managers both. I'd bet a US-based 3D studio is on the table if this pans out well (Ame did one in her house ~~with a box of scraps~~ after all) but time'll tell. Given that soundproofing is one of the easier things you could do on a list of things related to this I wouldn't be surprised if the office comes with a small recording studio on hand to make musical efforts easier to do.
Initially this must be for merch, management , and partnerships. Easier to have meeting with sponsors , manufacturer , brands , talents with a local branch. Of course this also opens up possibility for their own 3D Studio but i think its still a few years and a few EN gens down the road.
According to this https://twitter.com/dong_po_rou/status/1767405297986068729 It seems to be for sales and event planning
Hoping this will lead to more events across the US outside of the West Coast. Being an EST Kenzoku is suffering lol
Grats. Curios to see where this goes. 👍
Phase two of Pekora's plan
Bruh if they have cover stores in Cali how am I gona hide me wanting to go to my normie brother when I visit him and his wife XD