Hololive’s Breaking Dimensions concert showed me the power of VTubers

As I walk toward the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, a line of people stretches around several city blocks, many wearing merchandise featuring blow-up fan art of anime girls. I enter the stately theater, with its ornate gilded stucco and opulent stage curtains, and find my seat. A concertgoer holds up a German flag with the orange-haired VTuber Takanashi Kiara emblazoned on it. The crowd erupts in a deafening roar, with people waving glowing orange light sticks in the air and chanting, “Kiara! Kiara! Kiara!”

Kiara is a VTuber — a content creator who streams via a virtual avatar — and part of a group of streamers signed by talent agency Hololive. Over the past four years, VTubers have been on the rise in the U.S., breaking streaming records on Twitch, amassing millions of followers on YouTube, and even taking over MLB games. Now, they’re taking the main stage and performing live concerts across America. To get a sense of all the hype, I went to Hololive’s Breaking dimensions concert at the Kings Theatre. While the company has performed shows in other countries, this was only the second time their VTubers had performed in English in the U.S. What made this show truly unique was how it bridged the virtual world of VTubers with their IRL audience.

I decided to attend the show after Hololive’s parent company, Cover Corp., gave Polygon a ticket. Before this, I had only seen these VTubers stream video games or sing on the occasional karaoke stream. Like other virtual performers, such as Hatsune Miku, the women of Hololive appear as hologram characters. This show, however, takes things a step further. Instead of showing a fully pre-recorded set like Miku’s shows do, these characters came to life for portions of the show and spoke to the audience.

In between songs, a VTuber or two would appear on stage for private conversations, or they would walk, talk, and interact with the audience, just like any live performer would. During these moments, all of the girls seemed particularly cheerful and lively, almost flirtatious. They would talk about what “breaking dimensions” meant to them, and some would wax poetic in almost glib sentences about how it represented the Hololive girls “breaking into the hearts” of the audience. But even this aggressively positive energy couldn’t stop a little memeing, and in one particularly absurd moment, Koseki Bijou and Mori Calliope led the audience in a call-and-response version of the “you’re so skibidi” anthem.

When VTubers stream on Twitch and YouTube, a real person sits behind a desk and talks to the chat using an anime avatar that is attached to their face. It seems that this show worked in a similar way, as the VTubers were able to interact with the audience in real time. To this day, Hololive has not officially revealed which parts of the show are live or pre-recorded. However, to me it seemed that the musical numbers were pre-recorded, as they were performed on a set schedule and not so much about the audience, and the chat portions were live.

Even though they seemed pre-recorded, the musical performances still had plenty to offer Oooh And aah at. The ethereal Ceres Fauna wore a tulip-shaped skirt that floated and bounced slightly with every move she made. Kiara, the flag girl, sang a solo of a cute little pop romance song — with the song featuring an entire visual scene of pineapples raining down behind her. At the end of the show, all 15 VTubers appeared on stage together. Neatly stacked in two rows as if in one big musical number, the VTubers and their colorful outfits resembled a singing, moving rainbow on stage.

But as big as these moments were, the fans were truly an integral part of the show, transforming the event from a digital-only show to a full-blown experience. The show was held at the same time as the Anime NYC convention, so many Hololive fans attended both events. A fan I spoke to at Anime NYC told me about a fan Discord server that helps people organize the bulk purchase of custom merchandise for Hololive shows – which explained how so many attendees showed up in matching merchandise.

Some performances also featured fan participation, so when the dog-eared duo FuwaMoco sang their number, the audience knew exactly what the reaction would be and when. Fans also bought and brought penlights in advance. On Reddit, fans prepared for the show by discussing the etiquette for the evening and the precise choreography for each idol. As I watched the sea of ​​hundreds of rainbow light sticks move in unison against the French Baroque architecture of the theater, I leaned forward in my seat, completely still and completely absorbed in the image.

With all the flashing lights and concert goers squealing with excitement, I left the venue feeling a little overwhelmed (and with a burning headache). But the glitz and glamour brought these characters to life and it was an event I won’t soon forget.