Recently I covered Sony’s closure of their English Vtuber group, the PRISM Project, which will be shutting down at the end of March due to the costs of staff resources. While Sony seems to be stepping out of the race, Cover Corp (Hololive’s parent company) is doing just the opposite. Cover Corp has established Cover USA, an American branch of the company dedicated to facilitating the growth of their Vtubers over here through expanding localization. 

Cover is no stranger to promotions over here in the West. They’ve been consistently scheduling their talents to appear at conventions across the country (over 20 in North America last year alone) to build up rapport with event attendees. Their first English concert was held at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles. With a solid foot in the door already established, it must have seemed only logical to create a branch dedicated to ramping up expansion in America. Cover cited an estimate that the global value of the Vtuber industry will rise to 25 trillion yen by approximately 2028 and that Vtubing will continue to grow into an industry that can rival other Japanese forces of culture (anime, manga, games) that have risen to become global markets. While I’m usually skeptical of the capability for more Vtuber expansion, I do think there’s an exception for Hololive. One of the few major agencies in the space, their lack of scandals and proper management compared to the other competitors has allowed them to stand apart and garnish more support from fans, at least in my eyes as a third party watching the industry.

Chill girl, we've got burgers and guns over here, that's civilization for us.

With this new establishment, don’t be surprised to see more English Vtubers debuting or an increase in the amount of Vtubers appearing at conventions and similar events. Did you hear about the founding of Cover USA? Does the Vtuber space still have a ton of room to grow? Will Hololive and their talents be able to rival anime and manga in terms of popularity and impact by 2028? Hire some new modelers, sign some contracts, and expand around the globe in the comments below!