Sandbox / hololive Japan

Character subpage for the main cleanup sandbox

cuts are done

YAGOO

honestly this whole folder alone should be sacked for troping a real person, but the staff regularly make a distinction between the meme YAGOO and Motoaki Tanigou, so for the sake of argument, i'm also going to attempt to make that distinction too

Real life troping

• Actually Pretty Funny: He actually enjoys being the go-to meme material for hololive, and has admitted that jokes where he gets blown up are among his favorites. He's also quite fond of his nickname, Yagoo, which is his current Twitter ID, and seems to prefer being addressed as such by his employees.
• Benevolent Boss:
  • He garners a lot of respect from both the talents and their fanbases for being an amicable person with a good sense of humor, despite his employees frequently making jokes at his expense, and trying to do his best by them in order to promote their works. Polka in particular appreciates how willing he is to help his employees with their content whenever they ask.
  • Miyabi revealed that YAGOO was directly in charge of managing holostars prior to the introduction of the Shinove-san, explaining why he looks up to the CEO so much.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Sou desu ne." According to Ollie, it isn't just a meme, it's something he says a lot in real life and was actually the first thing he ever said to her. This is evident in his interviews with Coco and in Kiara's HoloTalk, and fans tallied that he said this a total of sixty times in the latter.
• Cool Old Guy: Though he's only 48 years old as the time of this writing, he's essentially the CEO all of the hololive members look up to. Fans themselves appreciate all he's done for his employees that there's a reason people keep calling him "best girl".
• Don't Call Me "Sir": From the way the talents talk about him, YAGOO seems to prefer being seen as their friend rather than their boss, as Polka and Subaru can attest to. Whenever the idols refer to him, it's straight up "YAGOO" without honorifics. According to Noel, he asked to be called that way.
• Embarrassing Nickname: People used to call him "Gou-chan" in his childhood, though YAGOO himself seems to reflect fondly upon it. The fandom at large has since adopted this as an Affectionate Nickname of sorts when referring to him.
• Happily Married: He has a ring on his left index finger suggesting that he's married in real life, much to the (jokingly) dismay of fans.
• Has a Type:
  • According to Matsuri, he prefers Joshikousei in the eromanga he reads. This led her to have a realization as to why so many of the VTuber models look like they're high school students.
  • If Fubuki and Haachama are any indication, he also seems to have a thing for girls with cute, high-pitched voices. Fubuki herself explained that it was the reason why she landed her role during auditions, and Haachama (still Akai Haato by that point) was praised for her voice during her tryout.
• Older Than They Look: According to a cameo gag in one of Polka's streams, YAGOO is 47 as of April 2021 (he turned 48 on December 10, 2021), though judging from his official pictures, he can quite easily pass for a late-30s man.
• Perpetual Smiler: YAGOO is well-known for his cheerful smile, whether in live interviews or in his public photos, and the most popular meme image of him is him wearing a wide grin. It's also a factor that helped endearing him to many of his employees, since some of them like Haachama originally believed he was a strict CEO, but gradually opened up to him after meeting him in person and witnessing his cheerful personality.

Stream-only shenanigans, stuff not explicitly about an avatar or their lore, misc. things of that nature

• Catchphrase:
  • "Omedetou!" for when the talents celebrate a milestone. In a fun little detail, the amount of exclamation marks he punctuates it with matches the milestones, i.e. 8 exclamation points when hitting 800,000 subscribers. When he celebrates his birthday, everyone naturally greets him back with this. It's so ingrained to him that he responded to Towa wishing him a happy birthday with this.
• Never Live It Down: His statement "We run an idol group like AKB48" has been taken out of context and played for laughs by both the fandom and the talent.
• So Proud of You: Downplayed, but it is clear he values all the things the idols have done and will congratulate them on any milestone they make. He has also mentioned in interviews that his "idol dream" was less about replicating existing agencies but rather giving aspiring talent that may not have made it as a traditional idol the opportunity to fulfill their own dreams in a new medium, something he feels he has accomplished with the agency's worldwide recognition. This is confirmed in an interview with Coco where he states that despite the jokes about his dead idol dream, his dream is closer than ever to being realized when he sees all the fun and entertainment the talent provides for their fans and each other.
• Unpopular Popular Character: In-character, very few of the idols give YAGOO any respect while the fandom at large like him so much they call him "best girl". When not in-character, the talent does appreciate how nice, supportive and open-minded he is, but are still weirded out by his inexplicable popularity.
• The Unseen: In a way. While his Twitter profile is public and his face is well-known, he seldom makes any appearances at all aside from the occasional interview, and his Twitter account is mainly used for promotional or congratulatory purposes.
• Unseen No More: While he will usually be present at the HoloFes fan conventions and concerts specifically for hololive, in August 2022 he made his first public appearance in the US at Crunchyroll Expo as part of their holomeet event, spending a considerable amount of time meeting with fans of the company.

Not sure

Memesdo memes count as "lore"?

• Beleaguered Boss: Many jokes made at his expense involve his idols acting in the exact opposite that would normally be expected of them, with only a few exceptions.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Most of the talent has cracked jokes at his expense, often engaging in Biting-the-Hand Humor whenever someone impersonates him to join into a multiplayer game. Haato in particular makes it a habit to build and then destroy replicas of his face in Minecraft. He also has a reputation as this among the fandom, as whenever a hololive idol does something completely against the type of a "pure and innocent" image that traditional idols try to exude, it's common to say that his idol dream is dead or he's currently in intensive care due to all the stress.
  • Even in official animated shorts, he isn't spared — the hololive Summer 2022 teaser sees him getting kidnapped and imprisoned by Marine during her quest to steal three crystal MacGuffins in an effort to restore sunny weather around the hololive HQ.probably okay, it's a scripted animation
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Seen by some in fan communities as a real-life version of Kyubey as a bit of dark comedy; many of the talents have gone through personal or professional hardship at some point, and in some cases, applied to hololive out of desperation to have a career at all. As a result, the draw to hololive to "become a virtual idol" can be seen as him making Faustian contracts with the talent. This is downplayed as many talent has spoken about how hololive is a dream career and one of the best things to have happened to them, at least professionally.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: As mentioned above, "YAGOO" is not his name, but rather a misreading of the kanji for his family name "Tanigo". It's so widely used that Coco apparently didn't know it wasn't his actual name until a few months after her debut when Marine mentioned his real name, despite having met him in person.

Other

• Not So Above It All:
  • Incredibly notable for a Japanese CEO; he is not afraid of his talent or the fans making jokes at his expense and will actively go along with their more harmless gags. His nickname of "YAGOO", for example, was the result of Subaru misreading his name and instead of correcting her, just went along with it to the point where some of the subsequent talent didn't actually realize that it wasn't his name. He also has engaged with his talent as part of one-off gags, such as voicing "Hellshake YAGOO" for Kanata or congratulating Polka for her 3D(ays) anniversary.
  • He also has become a scale model for all the hololive merchandise since late 2020; when asked about why he does this, he has stated he genuinely enjoys posing and modeling all the items produced, even some of the odder items like dakimakura.
• Only Friend: A relationship chart shown during a quiz game claims Polka is this for YAGOO, surprising the participating members. Polka herself believes she's likely the only hololive member who talks to YAGOO on a regular basis in a friendly manner, rather than with the rigidity and formality of an employer-employee relationship.
• Quote Mining: Played for Laughs.
  • In the episode of Coco's Reddit Shitpost Review where he was a "guest" (actually just Coco using a soundboard of pre-existing voice clips), she spliced together voice clips to make him "say" "Fuck you" and "Motherfucker".
  • In a straighter example, his most notable quotes that fans often use in subversive jokes are taken out of context. "An idol group like AKB48" was not meant to refer to the content of the hololive performers, but rather the organization's structure of "generations" and their audition practices. Similarly, he refers to COVER as "an entertainment company," not specifically hololive, which COVER is the parent of.
• Rule 34: Lewd artwork of him exists at the request of Coco, something she really regrets saying.
• Weirdness Magnet: How he is depicted in the backstories of the talents. Which makes some sense considering that he has kemomimis, magicians, eldritch creatures, gods/goddesses, and beings from alternate dimensions working in his company.
  • YAGOO's first encounter with Coco involves her traveling from her home dimension and landing right on top of him, in her dragon form, sending him to the hospital with Coco working at hololive to pay off the bill.
  • In Anya's backstory, YAGOO finds her collapsed outside the hololive agency building and takes her inside so she can recover. After learning about Anya's nature as an anthropomorphic sword, he offers her a place to stay in exchange for working as a VTuber.
  • During Botan's 3D debut, YAGOO gets kidnapped by terrorists. After some hesitation Botan comes to the rescue, but mishandles and abandons him several times.
• Yes-Man: What the poor man gets reduced to during Coco's Reddit Shitpost Review with him, meekly acquiescing with every single one of Coco's comments and getting interrupted whenever he does his hololive company spiel. In this case it was very obviously Coco using recordings of him speaking and editing them like a soundboard, even piecing swear words together that YAGOO has never said in public.

A-chan

Real life troping

• A-Cup Angst:
  • Although not on the level of Rushia, A-chan does still react to jokes about her avatar's modest bust size (or lack thereof) in a manner that would imply this trope being in play. According to Rushia, that specific detail about her character model is true to life. specifically the last sentence
• Best Friend: To Sora - she isn't called "Friend A" for nothing. A HoloTalk interview reveals that they've been friends since before joining Cover, with A-chan single-handedly running logistics in support of Sora's idol endeavors even back then.
• Forgot Their Own Birthday: Roboco reveals in the ninth episode of Holotalk that a combination of being workaholic and airheaded made A-chan forget about celebrating her own birthday until she was reminded of it.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Lamy has shared that A-chan changes quite a bit when she goes out drinking, becoming rather funny and described as being "like a cannon".
• Hidden Depths:
  • She knows how to DJ and taught Polka in preparation for Suisei's 4th YouTube Live.
  • She has also proven herself to be a surprisingly gifted singer on the rare occasions she steps up to the microphone.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: She was originally this for Sora when she debuted, due to her impressive technical know-how. After she was hired by Cover, A-chan became the resident techie (but still acting as Sora's official Number Two), where she would take care of hololive Japan's behind-the-scenes matters.
• Jack of All Trades: By her own admission, her actual position in hololive is considered nebulous due to the wide variety of jobs she undertakes within the company, from technical support, to operations management, to audio-visual work, and even on-stream emcee duties.
• No-Sell: It is rumored that she doesn't flinch when punched, or even acknowledge that she was punched in the first place.
• Younger Than They Look: Despite having a deep voice and being more mature than most of the talents she works with, she's actually younger than Sora, having turned 20 in February 2021.

Stream-only shenanigans, stuff not explicitly about an avatar or their lore, misc. things of that nature

• Covert Pervert: Despite the professional air that she puts on, A-chan has made some rather memorable on-stream slip-ups that revealed a more "cultured" side to her, such as feeling excited over Flare's attempt at emulating a "shota voice", actually knowing what NTR means and correcting people when they got it wrong, hinting that she's secretly a Yaoi Fangirl, her preference for oily massage that she couldn't elaborate upon for some reason, and more.
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": Played with. On one occasion, she felt a sudden strain on her back due to her heavy workload when trying to pick up her bag, and couldn't get back up. Instead of yelling out in pain like the typical examples of this trope, A-chan just decided to lie down on the office floor and take a nap.
• Deadpan Snarker: Given half a chance, she gets surprisingly blunt around her fellow members.
• Not So Above It All: Despite her more subdued personality and her attempts to keep things orderly when she's around, A-chan is prone to her bouts of snark, and finds amusement in the idols' antics rather easily:
  • Occasionally, she will also share clips of herself goofing off in the office and playing with various props, sometimes with even more gusto and childish glee than the actual talents themselves.
  • She has shown that she finds Flare's voice attractive.
  • She has expressed confusion at being considered "pure" by the fandom, considering the various kinks and fetishes she's shared on stream in the past. Notably, she's had a surprisingly intense discussion with Miko over the proper meaning of NTR, and once admitted that her sexual awakening came about from, of all things, possession/corruption and vore scenes in Nintendo games (specifically King Dedede and Yoshi).
• Only Known by Their Nickname: In public at least. According to Kanata's PowerPoint introduction to the 0th Generation, A-chan's username was originally planned to be "Asuka". However, it was changed to "Friend A" before it was finalized and then used by Sora, and as a result she is mostly known to viewers as Friend A or A-chan. However, many hololive staff members (possibly including the livestreamers) apparently still call her Asuka off-stream.
• Straight Man: She seems to prefer being the tsukkomi. In fact, her most favorite talents to be this to just so happen to fit the boke label perfectly, such as Aqua or Haachama, and Marine and Roboco to a lesser extent.

Itzutsu-san

most of this character is probably good, given that she shows up exclusively in the scripted talk show Legend of Polka

Real life troping

• Naïve Newcomer: According to Itzutsu, she was new hire by the time The Legend of Polka started premiering. This topic occasionally pops up in the show.

Nodoka Harusaki

Real life troping

• Not What I Signed Up For: She was not hired with the intention of having her take up an avatar, she is tech support staff who showed potential and was invited to the role by A-chan.

Stream-only shenanigans, stuff not explicitly about an avatar or their lore, misc. things of that nature

• Actually Pretty Funny: According to Axel, she apparently takes the viewers' and TEMPUS' constant shipping of them with good humor.