After selecting one of the five only available Holomembers (at first), we see YAGOO’s bust with curly hair like as if a Greek or Roman built it during gameplay. Greece and Rome are places full of Mythologies. What is Hololive EN’s 1st Generation called again?
Why is Hakos Baelz the only playable character able to flip the hordes of brainwashed Holofans upside down to stun them for a bit? That is because Hakos not only appeared in the Council announcement trailer completely upside down, she also made tweets with upside down words. Hakos dropped this habit ever since.
Why does Gura's "Shark Bite" heal her after enemies are defeated? It is a reference to Maneater, where you control a shark, being able to heal after having the last bite on your prey. Coincidentally, this was also the first game Gura ever played on stream.
The "Cutting Board" item becomes bigger and stronger the flatter the character using it is, but with maxed out Speaker of Space and Knightly Milk, Sana can create an even bigger and stronger cutting board than the flat characters can. Being planet-sized, her curvature is too subtle to be perceived by the human eye.
The "Psycho Axe" which is a reference to Suisei, subsequently dubbed as "Suicopath" by the community which emerged from her Project Winter stream. Was Suisei shining? Fittingly Suisei in game has a passive that boosts damage of Axe type attacks (including collabs).
The "Body Pillow" is that of YAGOO. The function of the Body Pillow is to take damage in place of the idols. In other words, the CEO of Cover is "COVERing" for his idols. Additionally, in place of his idols, YAGOO is the model for their merchandises. Since they cannot show themselves in photos and whatnot, YAGOO himself personally steps in and advertises said merchandises for them. In a way, he is indeed covering for his idols. (It also ties into the meme of YAGOO being "best girl".)
Mumei's main attack boosting passives work off of how the actual concepts work. Civilization (scales off of enemies on screen), has a lot of people. History (scales off of enemies defeated) has a lot of deaths and defeats in its pages.
The additional damage from Sora's Idol Healing skill is referred to as the enemies also being "healed". While this may sound weird on paper, the premise of HoloCure is that some evil force has corrupted the talents' fanbases and the girls have to Beat the Curse Out of Him. Sora is so seiso that she doesn't even really need to attack in order to purify the fanbase.
In that same vein, Sora is one of the characters who can survive the longest against the YAGOO swarm with a special-centric build. Why? Because she is the first and the last of the seiso idols, the final hope for YAGOO's dream. He has nothing to reproach her.
Certain character and item synergies make sense for other reasons.
The Full Meal synergizes fantastically with the healing from the Nurse's Horn, alluding to Choco's culinary prowess. This has become more explicit after Choco's addition to the roster, thanks to her Chocotto Cooking passive.
Roboco and the study glasses allude to the only girl who wears glasses normally (her signature teardrop pair is her special icon)
Sana and Knightly Milk as Sana can easily grow massive in overall size and rival Noel in bust size.
The Nurse Horns are obviously good for Choco (the constant healing means more triggers for her Nurse skill), but it's also great for the other half of the "Melty Kiss" pairing, Mel (since the healing counts as lifesteal, it triggers Mel's Genius Vampire skill).
The GWS Pill is attributed to Reine, who coined the abbreviation. It also is one of the more useful items for her, as she's built to exploit critical hits, and her Special can be expended liberally to maximize the item's uptime.
The Stolen Piggy Bank references the time when Risu stole Moona's piggy bank and started counting what's in it on-stream. The constant coins from the piggy bank helps keep Risu's "DLC" skill going, which in turn minimizes the penalty of having reduced pick-up range thanks to the clone also picking up stuff, and the speed boost is always welcome, especially since Risu's Death of a Thousand Cuts playstyle means that she benefits from being able to dodge more and live longer.
For the 0.5 update’s menu screen, we can see Fubuki in the middle. On the left is HoloJP Gen 1 and on her right are GAMERS. Those who know the inside jokes or brilliance, Fubuki being in the middle shows that she is both a member of Gen 1 and GAMERS.
Also at the 0.5 main menu screen, we can see Sana next to IRyS. Knowing that Sana has graduated, IRyS officially if not unofficially took the 5th spot of HoloCouncil. The five members would later be called "Promise".
It is not the first time we see Okayu eating up others. During one of Watame's past birthday's, Okayu recorded a video where she ate a Watamate and at some point ate YAGOO. Yes, Okayu can eat YAGOO in HoloCure's Endless Mode. Additionally, the possible origin of how Okayu is able to treat the viewers as food source after activating her special is a callback to that one time when she played Slither.io which lead to a hilarious, aggressive side of hers.
The XP gems from fallen enemies are the same color as Youtube's various Superchat levels. The fans are so thankful to be freed from their curse that they're supporting you with Supas!
Due to those XP gems being representatives of Superchats, it is no wonder why the Red ones give the most amount and the Blue ones give the least amount. By collecting those Superchats, they are able to "purchase" things (e.g. BL Book, Psycho Axe, etc.) or "upgrade" their existing weapons or items. In a meta sense, our idols would purchase new microphones (or PCs) or upgrading their current PCs with new parts with the Superchats they earned for instance. Additionally, the leveling up system reflects the amount of subscribers. As the idols level up, the longer it takes to reach higher levels which reflects the Youtube Play Button milestones. Silver (100k), Gold (1 million), Diamond (10 million), Custom Creator Award (50 million) and Red Diamond (100 million).
YAGOO is the most powerful force in the game, which cannot be defeated and no character can withstand for long. No matter how much people meme him getting bullied by his idols and getting his dream broken, the fact remains that as Cover Corp's founder and CEO, he is the one who holds the final authority over his talents' activities and can put a swift end to any and all shenanigans if he wills it.
The Bone Bros collab consists of EN Curse and Cutting Board, but it consists of slashes and gunfire representing Calli and Gura being Back-to-Back Badasses in the "Q" music video. The recipe only makes sense in hindsight — EN Curse represents how much Calli struggles with technical difficulties, and Cutting Board represents Gura's petite figure.
Why does Spider Cooking collab with EN's Curse? Just because of the spooky theming? No, it's because Haachama is holoEN 0th generation, of course! This line of reasoning is also why EN's Curse would be unlocked after you defeat Spider-chama in Stage 3.
"Halu" is usually used to call out a fan for being delusional or parasocial. From the game's perspective, grabbing and leveling up the Halu item (earning more bonus coins by doing so and winning) it's calling out the player's overconfidence for intentionally dialing up the difficulty. Die with it for the first time and you unlock the GWS Pill, i.e. "I told you not to do it."
Gorilla Paw being unlocked after defeating Smol Ame. No one knows why but we do know that real life gorillas will jump, slap or pound the ground when angry.
The countdown that goes upwards each time we play Stage Mode or even Endless Mode? That's the streaming session in progress for whoever we chose to play at the time. Once Stage Mode is done, that means our idol is literally done with streaming for the day. Endless Mode? That's basically their "Streaming Endurance". As stated below, it takes YAGOO to step in to prevent our idols from overworking themselves since there is something called Karoshi which means death by overwork.
The 0.6 update which introduced the HoloHouse, a peaceful place for the Holomembers. One thing of note is the fishing minigame. There is an achievement if the player catches a "Shiny" version of the marine animals which results in gold versions of the marine animals caught. It is a nod to Fubuki who spent ages trying to catch a Shiny Magikarp by fishing. And the fact that one can also catch Axolotls and its Shiny variant also brings Kanata to mind who also spent ages trying to breed a Blue Axolotl, helped or not helped by the fact that Axolotls are rare hauls, more so for its Shiny variant.
Holomembers appearing and leaving each time when you go to the HoloHouse? Some can be seen watering crops or fishing. Or simply just wander around before leaving. This is essentially their "off collab".
Every mini-boss in the first half of Stage 3 Hard (the condensed part of the original Stage 3) is fought in this order of associated talents: Matsuri, Mel, Choco, and Shion. The latter three are associated with the "Halloween Night" song while Matsuri is the odd one left out - but one thing Matsuri is generally joked about for is being flat-chested - something that was a Running Gag for Rushia herself.
Downplayed and Played for Laughs for Ina's "The Ancient One". This skill converts the brainwashed Holofans into harmless Takodachi. In a sense, those Holofans (e.g. Deadbeats) jumped from their respective fanbases to join Ina's fanbase whereas the brainwashed Takodachi were simply reverted back to normal.
Also downplayed and Played for Laughs too by Choco-sensei who can temporarily have said fans attack the others after "seducing" them.
The evil force responsible for the brainwashing did a lot more than brainwash the fans, as it was also able to take control of alternate versions of the talents themselves like Smol Ame, and even Cover employees including A-Chan and Nodoka.
A number of Hololive members seem to have concluded that Fubuzilla, Halloween Bae, Shubangelion and Spider-chama are actually Fubuki, Bae, Subaru and Haachama taken over and forced into monstrous forms. Doesn't quite hold together as all four members are also playable but still a disturbing thought.
The game cannot be ended voluntarily: If you defeat the hordes of brainwashed fans the game only ends with YAGOO beating you down. Do the talents get so consumed by the excitement of combat that they aren't able to recognize the fight is over, and the CEO himself needs to intervene to bring them to their senses?
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