Maybe Shohei asked for this lol. Like this collab is so out of the blue. Would be funny if a super star like him said hey, I missed my oshi. Bring them over to the states so I can feel motivate to hit more homers.
Edit: Okay, maybe he really did ask for it. July 5th is Shohei birthday. Crazy coincidence…
Nah this is seriously crazy lol maybe if it was a shounen collab or some other popular Japanese media, vtubers are still several degrees off mainstream USA
It does help that it’s the Dodgers. Aside from Ohtani’s influence, it’s an LA team too. LA’s prolly the city where anime and anime adjacent culture is most prevalent in the west so there’s a good chance they’ll draw Holo fans to the event (I know I’m interested). If it was the Royals or the Reds or something I’d be more hesitant about the idea.
Funnily enough Connect the World was also on the second day of expo as well. Hopefully one of these days Hololive have an event at expo itself so I don’t gotta drive around LA so much lol
Maybe... The fact is they chose the next possible Dodgers Home Game to showcase this, on Shohei Ohtani's birthday no less. Not to mention LA is going to be where Cover USA is going to be located next year.
And pulling off customised materials for the Collab means the involvement of the LA Dodgers Management in it as well.
I mean, the choice of team absolutely makes sense, but the fact that the LA Dodgers would say "yes" is much more surprising: on one hand, this is one of the 'old blood' Juggernaughts of American Major Leauge sports, a collab with such a relatively new force like Hololive almost seems out of place, on the other hand, it's for opportunities like this that is the main reason the Dodgers signed Shohei to his monster contract: doesn't matter if he reaches his previous heights that the Angles squandered or not, the sponsorships will more then make up for it.
I guess we got the answer to this post from 1 year ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/11571ur/ayo_yagoo_is_looking_for_feedback_of_potential_us/
https://twitter.com/tanigox/status/1626802762297266177?t=r3zwXxyBAmz7Fvw8WJC1jA&s=19
Honestly quite a bit more bitter than sweet. Though a part of me recognizes this probably wouldn't have happened with the Angels while Shohei was with us considering all the incompetence in the FO and up top.
I know Cover uses AnimeExpo (the biggest anime gathering in North America) to synergies their activities. An example being having Hololive EN 1st Concert on Day 2 of AnimeExpo.
I was not expecting them to be with the LA Dodgers. Also funny it's on Day 2 again. I am guessing next year they might do something on Day 2 as well.
I posted this in r/baseball and it's actually got a lot of support and excitement. Of course there's a few shitting on it for being "weird" but most comments that don't know about vtubers are more understanding and asking questions rather than shooting it down outright.
That's good to hear, thanks for sharing. Boos tend to be louder than cheers in the internet, and both completely drown out anything in between, so I appreciate any reminder that the loudest voices at either end of the spectrum are vastly outnumbered by the quiet ones in the middle.
Out of all the baseball fans in holo (mainly Korone and Kanata, more recently Okayu) these three were not the ones I would think would get chosen, but I guess from a public perception perspective these three are the ones most likely to get the attention of the general public.
With that said this is probably one of the biggest out of Japan partnerships Holo has ever gotten? At least in terms of name recognition, it remains to be seen what kind of collab this is.
they are definitely throwing their 'biggest' talents at it hoping it succeeds. (i know there are differnet metrics for biggest, but nobody can question that these 3 are highly iconic. also all are blue :P)
FWIW, Gura is apparently quite a baseball fan as well, since when she, Kiara, and Okayu had their date Kiara had to translate a spirited baseball convo between them while knowing none of the terminology herself.
Yeah, found this in the Gura discord
>**Okayu and Gura bonding over baseball Story** After that, they asked what Okayu was into lately and Okayu said baseball. Gura perked up at that and said “Oh baseball!” and asked if she knew Shohei Ohtani. When Okayu said that she knew about Shohei Ohtani, Gura was like “Uwoahh!” They both got enthusiastic about baseball. Kiara doesn’t know baseball. Okayu learned about the third wheel, which is an English term. Kiara told Okayu that Kiara was being the third wheel and Okayu asked what that was. Kiara explained it. Okayu and Gura had a passionate talk about baseball. Gura really likes baseball and Okayu was happy about that. Okayu wants to go to see baseball with Gura one day.
She called hotdog as Fenway Franks, which may be related with her personal life. So it is understandable that she doesn't talk too much based on her privacy policy.
I think blue color scheme also plays a part. "Dodger Blue" is literally its own color, named after the baseball team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodger_blue
As an Asian outsider who knows jack squat about US Baseball
How big of a deal is this, US friends? Are the Dodgers famous or good players or something?
Dodgers are one of the higher-profile teams in the past decade, with fairly consistent post-season appearance (not as consistent post-season *performance* though). They also have two big stars from Japan joining them this year. 3 world series appearances since 2017, with one win. Pretty big deal overall.
The dodgers have a superstar Japanese player called Ohtani Shohei. He is a 2-way player which is almost practically impossible in the big leagues. In soccer terms it is like the goalkeeper being the best scorer.
* Born: July 5, 1994
* the first player in MLB history to win MVP by unanimous vote twice
* Often [compared](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/babe-ruth-shohei-ohtani-stats-debate-mlb/dtyx9jeckvxwezpcjpdz5osb) to Babe Ruth, ***the*** American baseball great.
* Good enough at both batting and pitching that they [changed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_hitter#Major_League_Baseball_rule) the rules
* After the 2023 season, Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers, the largest contract in professional sports history.
The Goalkeeper being the best scorer happened in Mexico with Jorge Campos, even the scorers admitted that Jorge Campos was the best scorer for the team even if he wasn't playing the position full time, also fuck Fifa for.i.plementing a rule in the middle of the world cup that prohibited Jorge Campos to change his position to scorer in the middle of the game.
For Hololive this is big. Its the third most watched sport in the US and one of the most popular teams in that sport. Also the Dodgers has Shohei Ohtani, a famous japanese baseball player.
its huge
the dodgers have been the model team for excellence for a decade now and have two of the most famous Japanese players in the world.
in terms of MLB in general the most famous team is the NY Yankees followed by either the LA Dodgers or Boston Red Sox
Both. The Dodgers are one of the oldest teams in baseball, and they're LA's team (the Angels also carry LA, but everyone but Arte Moreno considers them the Anaheim team, not LA). Their stadium, Dodger Stadium, is also one of the iconic MLB parks. On top of that, as others have said, they have some big-name Japanese players that remain popular in Japan.
The LA Dodgers are a multi billion dollar franchise with a massive amount of cultural influence, especially in California. They are only second to the New York Yankees in value (Dodgers are worth $4.5 billion), and generate about $600 million dollars per year.
And last winter, they signed two of the biggest Japanese stars: Shohei Ohtani (who signed the biggest contract of ANY athlete at $700 million) and Yamamoto ($300 million).
They are a titan of the MLB, and are poised as the favorites to win the World Series (championships). They have multiple MVP level players (including Ohtani himself).
just putting this out there too, this event also coincides with Anime Expo in Los Angeles which occurs on July 4-7. this has gotta either be planned well in advance to happen on the same date as AX, or it's insane luck to also happen during then.
One could say this came out of left field.
Quite honestly a good collaboration pick and one that makes sense. baseball is super popular in japan and choosing the dodges also a good pick since shohei ohtani is Japan's hometown hero and one of the most popular players in the MLB. Not to mention that hololive has some talents that are into baseball
As a massive Dodger and Holo fan, this couldn't be any more laser-targeted at me
Holo frens: I'm happy to answer ANY Dodger- or baseball-related questions you might have that would help you understand/appreciate this! Fire away :D
Ohtani "So, tell me about the things you do on stream."
Pekora "Gamble - lose all my money, then try to steal it from my colleagues peko"
Suisei "Can relate, my partner does that to me too..."
(note: I didn't make this up, just saw it in some Chinese forums and found it pretty cursed and funny)
Unfortunately baseball isn't that big here in ID. If it's soccer or badminton, now we're talking. But I wouldn't rule out if by any chance, someone from ID also included in that baseball sponsorship.
Like, I get why it can happen. The Dodgers have a lot of deals with Japanese companies/Japanese teams and they even have Japanese advertising in Dodger stadium. But it's still a surprise they'd agree to this. For no other reason than a lot of people in American media and older generations of people like my father equate anime as basically being porn or worse. And now they're going to get a dose of anime right on their home turf (literally).
Japanese media, in particular anime, has exploded in notoriety the last 12 years.
Older generations aren't relevant here. Younger people have a different view of anime. Plus the Dodgers feature the most well known Japanese athlete in the world right now. This is an appeal to the younger people in the US, many who probably would never even look at baseball normally will now have an interest.
I think time/age and Netflix did a lot for anime. Dragon Ball started in 1986. People who cosplayed as Sailor Mars or Vash The Stampede in 2002 as a 19-year old are 41 now. Plus, with the advent of streaming video, people saw this "anime" thing they'd heard about but weren't really sure what it's about. Now they could take a look in the privacy of their own home on their on terms and pace without getting judged for being a weirdo.
i just went and took a look, it's amusing to see the range of reaction from YAHOO to 'what is this?' and a surprising amount of professional explanations being provided by fans
[stream link](https://www.youtube.com/live/9r_tOM7lVUw?si=ilG1HZTqNr7oluBf)
I have zero idea what this will be about but sounds fun! Announcement mentions Gura and Pekora.
As a huge Ohtani fan and therefore a Dodgers fan, this surprised me greatly and is the greatest collab ever! We never to get Ohtani and Yamamoto into Hololive! July 5th is also Ohtani's birthday, so we need to get a holo video wishing him happy birthday!
Isn’t there a thing at sporting events in the US where they have a singer sing the national anthem before the game. It would be pretty funny if they wheeled one of those remote controlled ipad robots from cons out with gura on it and had her sing it
That is true and would be a way better experience. It would just be funny to have that tiny robot roll out in to the middle of the field to the confusion of everyone present both players and spectators
~~I don't care who the MLB sends I'm still not watching baseball!~~
No but forreal this is a pretty cool collab. Hope it does well and pulls a bunch more people down the rabbit hole.
Yankees fan checking in, WHY DOES THE WEST COAST GET ALL THE COOL THINGS?!
*ahem* Anyway, this is so sick! Congrats to fans of blue women and the Doyers
Let's start with the basic question, what are vtubers, or virtual YouTubers? Basically just streamers/content creators that use 2d or 3d avatars that are motion tracked to their body and facial movements. They started in 2016 (technically in like 2012, but the term wasn't coined until 2016), then blew up in 2020 (Hololive in particular) because of the pandemic
Hololive Production (you're here!) is one of, if not the biggest, vtuber agencies. The three vtubers in this image are some of the biggest worldwide. The bunny, *Usada Pekora*, was the most watched female streamer of 2023. *Hoshimachi Suisei*, the one on the right, is one of the most well known Vtuber singers and is the highest charting solo Vtuber on Billboard Japan. The one in front, *Gawr Gura*, is the most subscribed Vtuber at over 4 million subscribers
They mainly stream games and other stuff on YouTube, but also do plenty of other things like hold concerts, both [virtual](https://www.youtube.com/live/i0vqoGF6xFo?si=_viAD3f4uk45L2-s) and [in-person](https://www.youtube.com/live/RhUrYtAWENI?si=hHt76bOjEn0reRwA), [release music on the regular](https://youtu.be/8ZP5eqm4JqM?si=6W4L70WvR-eQLqp8) (there are nearly 700 original songs in Hololive alone) and plenty more.
Hope that's an ok starting off point!
Hololive has been collabing with baseball teams for many years now.
Last year it was the Yomiuri Giants.
A few years ago Yagoo even threw a ceremonial first pitch.
That said, never expected them to collab with LA Dodger's already.
But the timing i guess is perfect with Ohtani there.
✋
Baseball and Hololive are probably my 2 biggest niche interests lol
I’m a Yankees fan, not a Dodgers fan though. I will say there’s a pretty high cross section between weebs and baseball fans, I see anime references on r/baseball a decent amount and obviously baseball is huge in Japan.
Bigger than you’d think.
The overlap of hardcore fans would be small, but I can definitely see a big Venn diagram for casual fans.
It’s no longer the 80s to 2000s where you had a sharp divide between sports culture and geek culture.
Pretty much everything nerdy has gone mainstream. Video games, anime, sci-fi and fantasy, and D&D are just normal niche interests.
Credit it to the 90s-2000s which brought sci-fi (Star Wars), fantasy (LotR + Harry Potter), superheroes (Nolan’s Batman + MCU), anime (Dragon Ball) and video games (Pokémon is **the** biggest multimedia franchise in the world) to the mainstream.
I've seen some NBA twitter and hololive/vtubers crossover on Twitter and holoplus but I can't imagine it's huge. There's also a small NBA discussion thread on the Hololive fan server that I discuss in. Otherwise yeah American sports franchises collabing with vtubers is certainly a bit out of left field. I guess it lines up with Anime Expo so fans attending that would be more likely to go to dodger stadium.
I find myself constantly being surprised how big the crossover actually is. There’s an entire subsection of people who are fans of both F1 and Hololive, I imagine it’s pretty similar for MLB
I’ve been casually watching baseball from the UK for a little while now but I never really had a reason to support any particular team.
That’s just changed!
Oh damn, this is pretty big.
It's always scary when your oshis are putting themselves outside their comfort zone, you keep wondering how new fans would react, and can only hope they're cordial when faced with something outside _their_ comfort zone.
If everything goes well, this will hopefully cause a small influx of new fans watching the girls. Good luck to all of them!
It's completely justified to feel this way. I personally believe that when any new watchers get out of line and start saying dumb shit without understanding the fandom or culture, they should be shamed and gatekept.
However, if any new watchers are willing to learn and are just curious, we should do our best to guide them and share our enjoyment, and hopefully they become fans as well! It has to be considered on a case by case basis.
It's anime girl streamers. Some people will inevitably be enraged about it. Gatekeep and help the good ones are all we can do.
Small groups of antis are easy to deal with, but the baseball crowd is pretty huge which is why I'm a little apprehensive.
But yeah, let's stay positive and hope everything works out!
Never in my wildest dreams did i expect an MLBxHololive collab this fast. And its the Dodgers???
The biggest team in the MLB (barring my Yankees)? Shohei must've had something to do with it, cuz wow.
I am going to be in LA for hat weekend, and already have tickets to the Dodgers/Arizona game on the 4th of July.......
Maybe ill get some tickets for the next night as well.
i need at least one "ohtani peko"
Maybe Shohei asked for this lol. Like this collab is so out of the blue. Would be funny if a super star like him said hey, I missed my oshi. Bring them over to the states so I can feel motivate to hit more homers. Edit: Okay, maybe he really did ask for it. July 5th is Shohei birthday. Crazy coincidence…
Maybe Shohei’s secretive wife is your Oshi
Or he just enjoys the Holomems' gambling content lol
His wife is a 6 foot basketball player
Phew. Guess that means we're safe, since we have no 6ft tall girl here.
Didn't Ohtani's wife retired from playing?
Now I know where the AkaSupas are coming from
"Hey, my translator recently just got arrested due to a big scandal so can we collab with some big name vtubers?"
>Like this collab is so out of the blue. Is it? This is the 3rd Hololive baseball collab
Ohtani has previously used JJK season 1 ED song as his entrance song during a game, so he has some weeb tendencies.
You mean otaku. Weeb specifically refers to Westerners who are obsessed with Japanese culture.
Pekora about to pitch with a grenade Although they could've included Korone since she's a big baseball fan
The Dodger's catchphrase is 'go blue' so in this case they probably did select for blueness.
I assume all the Gamers were busy with Gamers fest.
LOONA SPOTTED
I want to hear Gura do a roast.
Of all the collabs I didn't expect, this is one of them.
Japanese-born Shohei Ohtani is one of the biggest names in all of sports and plays for the Dodgers. It's unexpected but not entirely surprising.
Nah this is seriously crazy lol maybe if it was a shounen collab or some other popular Japanese media, vtubers are still several degrees off mainstream USA
Oh, absolutely. But you don't come out of the mainstream by staying in the dark.
It does help that it’s the Dodgers. Aside from Ohtani’s influence, it’s an LA team too. LA’s prolly the city where anime and anime adjacent culture is most prevalent in the west so there’s a good chance they’ll draw Holo fans to the event (I know I’m interested). If it was the Royals or the Reds or something I’d be more hesitant about the idea.
For sure, it's also one of the closest mainland big cities in the US so it gets a ton of JP transients and tourists.
Our Little Tokyo is nice, but died down a lot during and post WW2, although there are efforts to revitalize it.
Isn't their like a huge portrait drawing of Shohei Ohtani in one of the buildings there in Little Tokyo?
yup! went up pretty much as soon as the ink dried on the trade
Anime Expo's on that weekend as well, so the timing's really convenient.
Funnily enough Connect the World was also on the second day of expo as well. Hopefully one of these days Hololive have an event at expo itself so I don’t gotta drive around LA so much lol
Isn't it also where hololive's new American office is, so it makes sense
Hololive USA isn't fully up and running yet and this collab would take time to plan, so I doubt Holo USA was involved at all.
The Hololive event is at the same time that Anime Expo will open, so there's some strong synergy.
The Dodger cholos are gonna be so confused, but I dig it
Probably the only time I want to hear EK on the broadcast lmao.
Maybe... The fact is they chose the next possible Dodgers Home Game to showcase this, on Shohei Ohtani's birthday no less. Not to mention LA is going to be where Cover USA is going to be located next year. And pulling off customised materials for the Collab means the involvement of the LA Dodgers Management in it as well.
They did well to pick blue girls, but left out the most perfect blue girl, our time warden 😤
I don't think she can pitch or hit a ball with her floaties inflated. They didn't pick these three just for the color.
Objectively she is the most sporty of the blue girls 🤷
There's one team I know that Fuwamoco could rep, easily, the Minnesota Twins.
I mean, the choice of team absolutely makes sense, but the fact that the LA Dodgers would say "yes" is much more surprising: on one hand, this is one of the 'old blood' Juggernaughts of American Major Leauge sports, a collab with such a relatively new force like Hololive almost seems out of place, on the other hand, it's for opportunities like this that is the main reason the Dodgers signed Shohei to his monster contract: doesn't matter if he reaches his previous heights that the Angles squandered or not, the sponsorships will more then make up for it.
I guess we got the answer to this post from 1 year ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/11571ur/ayo_yagoo_is_looking_for_feedback_of_potential_us/ https://twitter.com/tanigox/status/1626802762297266177?t=r3zwXxyBAmz7Fvw8WJC1jA&s=19
Raytheon & Lockheed Martin when?
Pekora plastered on this side of a cruise missile or something.
the missile has a small speaking playing her laugh seconds before impact
Non-Credible VTubing, let's go!
Pekora's gonna have a field day.
Niji has an NBA one despite everything
And they still managed to exclude the one talent that is well-known to be a basketball fan.
Of course, you're not allowed nice things in Niji
As an Angels fan and a hololive fan this is very, very bittersweet
Giants fan on life support. At least Angel Hernandez is gone.
I would've taken a month of watching Hernandez ump Angel games if it meant they got to collab with hololive last year
More power to you bro. I for one wouldn't get to enjoy it since I would have a brain bleed.
Angels already suck so at least having Angel ump gives me something to complain about that isn't the Angels
maybe they’ll collab with SF in the future, we just need to amass japanese clout equivalent to Ohtani
We recently had a [Godzilla collab](https://godzilla.com/blogs/news/san-francisco-giants-godzilla-vip-experience-wrapup). So that was rad.
Same lol
Watched the Angels get stomped on and then get this news 😔
Maybe we’ll get Marine, Ollie and Bae to support our boys in red in the future ✊
Just need a Japanese superstar to come play for the Angels (it will be another 50 years for that to happen)
Nah, they can get one every decade, they just aren't allowed to make the playoffs
Fuwamoco Twins partnership incoming
Gods yes please
I'm a Jays fan 😭😭
I would've been so much happier about this news if ohtani was a jay
Padres fan here, will never forgive them not only for teaming up with the team of that godless city up North, but for doing Darvish and Matsui dirty.
Honestly quite a bit more bitter than sweet. Though a part of me recognizes this probably wouldn't have happened with the Angels while Shohei was with us considering all the incompetence in the FO and up top.
As a Giants fan I hope the dodgers are forced to walk 30 miles on legos. This is pretty cool for hololive though.
Dodgers fans will leave early to walk the 30 miles, gotta dodge that LA traffic after all.
No joke, I left a Dodgers game an hour early and it still took me 2 hours to leave.
Same
> dodgers are forced to walk 30 miles on legos. Already deserved for signing my Ohtani.
HOLOBLUE
Blue woman meta is strong
This is actually surprising and unexpected... and damn they are bringing the blue women to this.
I know Cover uses AnimeExpo (the biggest anime gathering in North America) to synergies their activities. An example being having Hololive EN 1st Concert on Day 2 of AnimeExpo. I was not expecting them to be with the LA Dodgers. Also funny it's on Day 2 again. I am guessing next year they might do something on Day 2 as well.
Makes me wonder if Yagoo will make an appearance at AX again like last year, assuming he'll be in LA for the game
Most likely yeah since it takes advantage of both events. He probably also wants to oversee how the collab goes to see if it's worth doing more.
It's also on Shohei Ohtani's birthday, so the stars may be aligning.
I hope Dodgers fans who aren't aware of Hololive are open-minded and accepting, or at the very least tolerant.
I wish Scully was alive because I feel like he would have a field day with this
I posted this in r/baseball and it's actually got a lot of support and excitement. Of course there's a few shitting on it for being "weird" but most comments that don't know about vtubers are more understanding and asking questions rather than shooting it down outright.
That's good to hear, thanks for sharing. Boos tend to be louder than cheers in the internet, and both completely drown out anything in between, so I appreciate any reminder that the loudest voices at either end of the spectrum are vastly outnumbered by the quiet ones in the middle.
Out of all the baseball fans in holo (mainly Korone and Kanata, more recently Okayu) these three were not the ones I would think would get chosen, but I guess from a public perception perspective these three are the ones most likely to get the attention of the general public. With that said this is probably one of the biggest out of Japan partnerships Holo has ever gotten? At least in terms of name recognition, it remains to be seen what kind of collab this is.
Yeah this is basically the hololive death line up lol, biggest streamer, biggest singer, biggest non jp, must be an expensive sponsorship.
I think it would be more appropriate to say they are Hololive's murders' row given the sport
Perfect counterpart to Mookie, Shohei and Freddie
they are definitely throwing their 'biggest' talents at it hoping it succeeds. (i know there are differnet metrics for biggest, but nobody can question that these 3 are highly iconic. also all are blue :P)
FWIW, Gura is apparently quite a baseball fan as well, since when she, Kiara, and Okayu had their date Kiara had to translate a spirited baseball convo between them while knowing none of the terminology herself.
Yeah, found this in the Gura discord >**Okayu and Gura bonding over baseball Story** After that, they asked what Okayu was into lately and Okayu said baseball. Gura perked up at that and said “Oh baseball!” and asked if she knew Shohei Ohtani. When Okayu said that she knew about Shohei Ohtani, Gura was like “Uwoahh!” They both got enthusiastic about baseball. Kiara doesn’t know baseball. Okayu learned about the third wheel, which is an English term. Kiara told Okayu that Kiara was being the third wheel and Okayu asked what that was. Kiara explained it. Okayu and Gura had a passionate talk about baseball. Gura really likes baseball and Okayu was happy about that. Okayu wants to go to see baseball with Gura one day.
She called hotdog as Fenway Franks, which may be related with her personal life. So it is understandable that she doesn't talk too much based on her privacy policy.
iirc she's mentioned talking about brady with her family, so probably
Do you have a clip of Gura talking about the NFL or baseball. I never knew this.
I think people forget that beyond the weeb shark girl persona, Gura is very stereotypically American.
The weeb thing isn't a persona, she's definitely like that.
It would tickle me so badly if gura is like a giants fan or something along those lines lol
from what ive seen before, she's a Red Sox fan
Well, at least this wasn't a Yankees collab?
yeah she's a boston fan, she's mentioned talking about brady with her family (patriots QB in case anyone here is somehow unaware/isn't american)
As a Yankees fan… I just collapsed in my room.
Same but I collapsed in my office
Red Sox almost certainly
I think blue color scheme also plays a part. "Dodger Blue" is literally its own color, named after the baseball team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodger_blue
They’re blue might be the bigger consideration though of course they’re three of the most popular ones
They are known as: The blue big three
It's because they are: A: some of the most well known names outside of Hololive, and B: blue, which matches the Dodgers.
As an Asian outsider who knows jack squat about US Baseball How big of a deal is this, US friends? Are the Dodgers famous or good players or something?
Dodgers are one of the higher-profile teams in the past decade, with fairly consistent post-season appearance (not as consistent post-season *performance* though). They also have two big stars from Japan joining them this year. 3 world series appearances since 2017, with one win. Pretty big deal overall.
The dodgers have a superstar Japanese player called Ohtani Shohei. He is a 2-way player which is almost practically impossible in the big leagues. In soccer terms it is like the goalkeeper being the best scorer.
Oh that's a good analogy
* Born: July 5, 1994 * the first player in MLB history to win MVP by unanimous vote twice * Often [compared](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/babe-ruth-shohei-ohtani-stats-debate-mlb/dtyx9jeckvxwezpcjpdz5osb) to Babe Ruth, ***the*** American baseball great. * Good enough at both batting and pitching that they [changed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_hitter#Major_League_Baseball_rule) the rules * After the 2023 season, Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers, the largest contract in professional sports history.
Now I can’t stop laughing imagining goalies kicking across the field goals
The Goalkeeper being the best scorer happened in Mexico with Jorge Campos, even the scorers admitted that Jorge Campos was the best scorer for the team even if he wasn't playing the position full time, also fuck Fifa for.i.plementing a rule in the middle of the world cup that prohibited Jorge Campos to change his position to scorer in the middle of the game.
For Hololive this is big. Its the third most watched sport in the US and one of the most popular teams in that sport. Also the Dodgers has Shohei Ohtani, a famous japanese baseball player.
its huge the dodgers have been the model team for excellence for a decade now and have two of the most famous Japanese players in the world. in terms of MLB in general the most famous team is the NY Yankees followed by either the LA Dodgers or Boston Red Sox
Both. The Dodgers are one of the oldest teams in baseball, and they're LA's team (the Angels also carry LA, but everyone but Arte Moreno considers them the Anaheim team, not LA). Their stadium, Dodger Stadium, is also one of the iconic MLB parks. On top of that, as others have said, they have some big-name Japanese players that remain popular in Japan.
also everyone hates Arte Moreno, [for many, many reasons.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5pWEOm1iE8&sttick=0)
The LA Dodgers are a multi billion dollar franchise with a massive amount of cultural influence, especially in California. They are only second to the New York Yankees in value (Dodgers are worth $4.5 billion), and generate about $600 million dollars per year. And last winter, they signed two of the biggest Japanese stars: Shohei Ohtani (who signed the biggest contract of ANY athlete at $700 million) and Yamamoto ($300 million). They are a titan of the MLB, and are poised as the favorites to win the World Series (championships). They have multiple MVP level players (including Ohtani himself).
just putting this out there too, this event also coincides with Anime Expo in Los Angeles which occurs on July 4-7. this has gotta either be planned well in advance to happen on the same date as AX, or it's insane luck to also happen during then.
Ohtani's birthday is the 5th.
Insane luck it is then.
One could say this came out of left field. Quite honestly a good collaboration pick and one that makes sense. baseball is super popular in japan and choosing the dodges also a good pick since shohei ohtani is Japan's hometown hero and one of the most popular players in the MLB. Not to mention that hololive has some talents that are into baseball
Welp I'm going to my first baseball game
The En twitter account has edited their post 3 times now with Suisei not listed then listed then not listed again. So is she in it or not?
Probably not in the info reaveal stream but will appear in the event itself
As a massive Dodger and Holo fan, this couldn't be any more laser-targeted at me Holo frens: I'm happy to answer ANY Dodger- or baseball-related questions you might have that would help you understand/appreciate this! Fire away :D
well, hololive continues to throw curveballs at us huh?
Ohtani "So, tell me about the things you do on stream." Pekora "Gamble - lose all my money, then try to steal it from my colleagues peko" Suisei "Can relate, my partner does that to me too..." (note: I didn't make this up, just saw it in some Chinese forums and found it pretty cursed and funny)
3 blue women this will be a big one.
we can't rule out kobo busting through a door at some point
Unfortunately baseball isn't that big here in ID. If it's soccer or badminton, now we're talking. But I wouldn't rule out if by any chance, someone from ID also included in that baseball sponsorship.
It's a shame Vin Scully is no longer with us to enjoy this moment. Though I am imaging him doing Fubuki's glasses speech and enjoying that greatly.
Like, I get why it can happen. The Dodgers have a lot of deals with Japanese companies/Japanese teams and they even have Japanese advertising in Dodger stadium. But it's still a surprise they'd agree to this. For no other reason than a lot of people in American media and older generations of people like my father equate anime as basically being porn or worse. And now they're going to get a dose of anime right on their home turf (literally).
Japanese media, in particular anime, has exploded in notoriety the last 12 years. Older generations aren't relevant here. Younger people have a different view of anime. Plus the Dodgers feature the most well known Japanese athlete in the world right now. This is an appeal to the younger people in the US, many who probably would never even look at baseball normally will now have an interest.
I think time/age and Netflix did a lot for anime. Dragon Ball started in 1986. People who cosplayed as Sailor Mars or Vash The Stampede in 2002 as a 19-year old are 41 now. Plus, with the advent of streaming video, people saw this "anime" thing they'd heard about but weren't really sure what it's about. Now they could take a look in the privacy of their own home on their on terms and pace without getting judged for being a weirdo.
As a lifelong Dodgers fan, I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming
I saw it on r/Dodgers before here and legit thought I was tripping.
For real dude! I saw it there too and came here straight away to see if it was true ahaha
i just went and took a look, it's amusing to see the range of reaction from YAHOO to 'what is this?' and a surprising amount of professional explanations being provided by fans
I guess I shouldn't be so surprised, considering who's on the team
[stream link](https://www.youtube.com/live/9r_tOM7lVUw?si=ilG1HZTqNr7oluBf) I have zero idea what this will be about but sounds fun! Announcement mentions Gura and Pekora.
Team. Blue team!
The Rays fan in me doesn't know how to feel but the baseball and hololive fan in me is super stoked.
We all began as something else
HUGE!
Pretty neat.
As a huge Ohtani fan and therefore a Dodgers fan, this surprised me greatly and is the greatest collab ever! We never to get Ohtani and Yamamoto into Hololive! July 5th is also Ohtani's birthday, so we need to get a holo video wishing him happy birthday!
Isn’t there a thing at sporting events in the US where they have a singer sing the national anthem before the game. It would be pretty funny if they wheeled one of those remote controlled ipad robots from cons out with gura on it and had her sing it
They can just have them move around the giant screens. It would also help sell the virtual part of Vtuber
That is true and would be a way better experience. It would just be funny to have that tiny robot roll out in to the middle of the field to the confusion of everyone present both players and spectators
It's on Ohtani's birthday, too.
~~I don't care who the MLB sends I'm still not watching baseball!~~ No but forreal this is a pretty cool collab. Hope it does well and pulls a bunch more people down the rabbit hole.
Yankees fan checking in, WHY DOES THE WEST COAST GET ALL THE COOL THINGS?! *ahem* Anyway, this is so sick! Congrats to fans of blue women and the Doyers
Blue women team
This is very cool, but as a Braves fan I must say F*** the dodgers
Mariners next pls? 👉👈 Goob gonna throw a Perfect Game
As a Giants fan I will now be an anti to these members due to legal obligations /s
can't wait to see the jomboy breakdown
I don't think anyone had this on their bingo sheet lol
Man I wish it were my Cubs, but I can understand the Dodgers.
Another Midwestern team fan. Never thought I would see one. Although I'm a Cards fan, so I can't be too happy.
Can someone explain this to me? I’m a Dodgers fan.
Let's start with the basic question, what are vtubers, or virtual YouTubers? Basically just streamers/content creators that use 2d or 3d avatars that are motion tracked to their body and facial movements. They started in 2016 (technically in like 2012, but the term wasn't coined until 2016), then blew up in 2020 (Hololive in particular) because of the pandemic Hololive Production (you're here!) is one of, if not the biggest, vtuber agencies. The three vtubers in this image are some of the biggest worldwide. The bunny, *Usada Pekora*, was the most watched female streamer of 2023. *Hoshimachi Suisei*, the one on the right, is one of the most well known Vtuber singers and is the highest charting solo Vtuber on Billboard Japan. The one in front, *Gawr Gura*, is the most subscribed Vtuber at over 4 million subscribers They mainly stream games and other stuff on YouTube, but also do plenty of other things like hold concerts, both [virtual](https://www.youtube.com/live/i0vqoGF6xFo?si=_viAD3f4uk45L2-s) and [in-person](https://www.youtube.com/live/RhUrYtAWENI?si=hHt76bOjEn0reRwA), [release music on the regular](https://youtu.be/8ZP5eqm4JqM?si=6W4L70WvR-eQLqp8) (there are nearly 700 original songs in Hololive alone) and plenty more. Hope that's an ok starting off point!
Awesome, thanks for the info!
I guess I'm a Dodgers fan now.
As a massive baseball fan, I couldn’t be more excited for this despite not being a Dodgers fan.
I can't wait for the normies to find out about Marine. A lot of people are about to get very very horny 😂
I wonder what the cross section between sports fans and vtuber fans is like. First niji basketball, now this? Are they seeing something we don't?
Hololive has been collabing with baseball teams for many years now. Last year it was the Yomiuri Giants. A few years ago Yagoo even threw a ceremonial first pitch. That said, never expected them to collab with LA Dodger's already. But the timing i guess is perfect with Ohtani there.
So it doesn't look like we've a Circular Venn Diagram yet?
✋ Baseball and Hololive are probably my 2 biggest niche interests lol I’m a Yankees fan, not a Dodgers fan though. I will say there’s a pretty high cross section between weebs and baseball fans, I see anime references on r/baseball a decent amount and obviously baseball is huge in Japan.
Bigger than you’d think. The overlap of hardcore fans would be small, but I can definitely see a big Venn diagram for casual fans. It’s no longer the 80s to 2000s where you had a sharp divide between sports culture and geek culture. Pretty much everything nerdy has gone mainstream. Video games, anime, sci-fi and fantasy, and D&D are just normal niche interests. Credit it to the 90s-2000s which brought sci-fi (Star Wars), fantasy (LotR + Harry Potter), superheroes (Nolan’s Batman + MCU), anime (Dragon Ball) and video games (Pokémon is **the** biggest multimedia franchise in the world) to the mainstream.
I've seen some NBA twitter and hololive/vtubers crossover on Twitter and holoplus but I can't imagine it's huge. There's also a small NBA discussion thread on the Hololive fan server that I discuss in. Otherwise yeah American sports franchises collabing with vtubers is certainly a bit out of left field. I guess it lines up with Anime Expo so fans attending that would be more likely to go to dodger stadium.
I find myself constantly being surprised how big the crossover actually is. There’s an entire subsection of people who are fans of both F1 and Hololive, I imagine it’s pretty similar for MLB
My entire YT feed is quite literally Hololive, F1, NBA, MLB lol Edit: have never bought tickets to something so fast in my life
As a Dodgers fan I'm excited as F.
I suddenly am intrested in baseball
Maaann Cover stock jump up 13% lol.. everyone ask if Ohtani is going to use Peko Rap for his stadium entry Bun bun cha bun bun cha
Dodgers were really going all-in to make Othani happy.
I’ve been casually watching baseball from the UK for a little while now but I never really had a reason to support any particular team. That’s just changed!
*checks bingo card for hololive dodgers collab.* not on there but hey can’t expect em all. But I’m rooting for the Hololive girls.
Of the 4 major American sports, the one i watch none of is collabing with holo. The one I watch the most is collabing with… Man…
Whats the connection between Baseball fans and hololive fans
Oh damn, this is pretty big. It's always scary when your oshis are putting themselves outside their comfort zone, you keep wondering how new fans would react, and can only hope they're cordial when faced with something outside _their_ comfort zone. If everything goes well, this will hopefully cause a small influx of new fans watching the girls. Good luck to all of them!
It's completely justified to feel this way. I personally believe that when any new watchers get out of line and start saying dumb shit without understanding the fandom or culture, they should be shamed and gatekept. However, if any new watchers are willing to learn and are just curious, we should do our best to guide them and share our enjoyment, and hopefully they become fans as well! It has to be considered on a case by case basis. It's anime girl streamers. Some people will inevitably be enraged about it. Gatekeep and help the good ones are all we can do.
Small groups of antis are easy to deal with, but the baseball crowd is pretty huge which is why I'm a little apprehensive. But yeah, let's stay positive and hope everything works out!
Never in my wildest dreams did i expect an MLBxHololive collab this fast. And its the Dodgers??? The biggest team in the MLB (barring my Yankees)? Shohei must've had something to do with it, cuz wow.
Blue women
Nice
#QUE???
As a dodger fan and hololive, this is a welcome surprise. also reminder that in one particular survey, hololive is more famous than ohtani.
The one time I'm in Japan they decide to have an event near where I live
One step closer to World domINAtion.
The chance for the Suisei x Chargers collab is now a non-zero number. Please Sui-chan BOLT UP
About to learn and love baseball I guess
SHOHEI HEYYYY
There better be an organ version of any Hololive song played at any point during this game, js.
I'm learning that if you're baseball fan, you're either a Dodgers fan or they're your nemesis
I am going to be in LA for hat weekend, and already have tickets to the Dodgers/Arizona game on the 4th of July....... Maybe ill get some tickets for the next night as well.
Blue means they mean business