Like seemingly half the internet I got sucked into the Hololive rabbit hole last year. I could’ve learned Swedish, or put a dent in my to be read pile, but instead I watched a bunch of anime girls play video games on Youtube, badly. Honestly, vtubers are the best invention since sliced bread: youtube streamers, but anime girls. However, it can be hard to get it if you haven’t taken the plunge yourself yet. But I got a blog and I got time, so why not showcase some of my favourite clips to try and explain it?
At almost twenty minutes this is a bit of a long video to start with, but trust me, it’s worth it. I choose it because it doesn’t require any prior knowledge of Hololive or its vtubers and because it’s hilarious on its own. All you need to know is that the smug rabbit girl with the carrots in her hair is Usada Pekora, her hapless victim is the “knight cupped” Shirogane Noel and the game they’re playing is Getting Over It.
Getting Over It is a game in which you play a bald guy stuck in a cauldron, who for obscure reasons has to climb up high enough to launch himself into space, using only his muscular upper body and oversized sledgehammer to propel himself. You can use the hammer either to catch a convenient ledge to hoist yourself up to, or by carefully angling, launch yourself at the next bit of overhang you can reach. The sort of game neither my coordination nor my patience is suited for. Watching other people play it is hilarious though. Because while it all seems so easy when somebody like Lockness06 demolishes it in less than a minute and a half, but for the average player it’s an exercise in frustration and that can be very entertaining to watch.
Shirogane Noel is usually one of the more level headed of the third generation of Hololive vtubers. Which is actually the fifth generation, as Hololive started with generation zero, the vtubers it launched with in 2017 and inbetween gen 2 and 3 also launched its gamers branch. Noel herself is emphatically not a gamer. Though like every other Hololiver she plays a lot of them on stream, she isn’t very good at them. Which is why it’s a bit of a mystery as to why she challenged Pekora to this duel. Especially when Getting Over It is such a frustrating game if you’re not good with it. Nevertheless, she’s confident that she can beat Pekora and she actually does rather well at first. That is, until Pekora decides to engage in a bit of psychological warfare…
Usada Pekora is basically Daffy Duck in crossdressing Bugs Bunny cosplay. A bad loser and a worse winner, she alternates infuriating smugness with hilariously bad excuses whenever she’s losing. Fun as she is playing solo, whenever she collaborates with any of her third generation friends, she becomes even more fun. Here we see her at her best (worst) as she pulls every dirty trick in the book to get Noel to lose confidence. While she can’t interfere directly as they’re each playing their own game, she can and does needle Noel through other means. She probably could’ve won the game without it, but why take chances?
To be honest, I understand Pekora’s desire to torture Noel. Her increasingly flustered reactions are hilarious, especially when Pekora decides the loser has to undertaker a forfeit. Maybe it’s my inner sadist, but there’s something adorable in seeing Noel get increasingly despairing at the prospect of having to be at the mercy of Pekora…
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