Takanashi Kiara is not like other girls.
The cliche applies to her in a literal sense. She’s a Vtuber, a term for a content creator who streams using an anime avatar. When Kiara appears on a stream, viewers watch a bubbly anime girl with bright orange hair and blue highlights.
Kiara, the character, is a star. The person who voices her remains anonymous, but is signed to the Vtuber talent agency Hololive and has garnered worldwide acclaim in the role. At the time of publication, Kiara’s YouTube channel has more than 1.55 million subscribers and she’s starred in live concerts as a hologram. Her fans are known as “Kiara Fried Phoenix” or KFP, a reference to the lore behind her character, which evokes a lightheartedness that characterizes much of her work.
Kiara gleefully switches between the contrasting roles of glamorous popstar and laid-back video game personality. She will blurt out “I have diarrhea” on a stream, but then go perform a commanding solo at a sold-out concert. On top of it all, she has taken on the role of an educator and teaches her U.S.-based fans about Japanese idol culture and the ins and outs of Vtubers via a talk show she hosts.
To learn more about KFP, her growing music career, and what it’s been like to perform live, Polygon conducted an interview with her virtually via written responses.
[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Polygon: I met some of your fans and one said that you actively manage your community. Now, some of your fans organize the larger Hololive community. How do you interpret your influence on your fans?
Takanashi Kiara: I am always very happy to see KFP pick up on things that I share with them. When [the first group of English-speaking members of Hololive] first debuted, we were the first in our branch, and I think I was the most knowledgeable about Japanese idol culture. So I wanted to share it with my audience. How to cheer for them, how to dress at concerts and so on! I always hear that KFP has been taking a leading role in non-Japan events of our company in terms of teaching chants and cheers and organizing stuff. I’m so glad that the community that I have been building has turned out to be such a pleasant and fun one!
In your opinion, what is the wildest thing your fans have ever done for you?
Traveling over continents to see me for example in Japan or Germany or just any continent that they are not from! My fans come from various continents and seeing how committed some are to travel, I appreciate them so much for showing up to support me! But even the ones who can’t travel for whatever reason also show me their love and support in many other ways. I do hope everyone gets a chance to see a concert in person one day, feel the atmosphere of the packed venues and socialize with other KFP!
Appearing in a concert seems like a very different experience than day-to-day streaming. How does preparing and appearing at an event like that compare with streaming?
It may seem like we don’t do much besides streaming but there is definitely always a lot of work behind the scenes, especially when there’s a concert of ours coming up.
For me, hololive is a place where I can have a chill and fun streaming job, but also live out my dreams of being on stage every once in a while. It’s 2 very different experiences but that’s what’s so exciting and refreshing! It never gets dull.
Were there any performances from real-life pop stars that influenced your performance?
After my first 2 singles I have been trying to go for a more Kpop-like image with my songs and choreographies, so I would say Kpop artists in general have had influence on that for sure!
But even within Kpop there are different vibes, so I have also been trying to do something different each time. Like Chimera was way more cool and powerful compared to Pineapple which is more the cutesy, energetic type of KPOP!
What’s the one moment from performing live concerts that will stick with you?
First of all, New York was a great place to visit, and I am glad that these concerts give me opportunities to travel around the world! I cherished every second of us hanging out before and after the concerts as much as I could.
Also, since this is our 2nd concert for hololive English, and I have been part of this branch since the beginning, it felt very emotional to see how much bigger it has become already. So many new members making their debut on the stage, new group songs and new fun combinations of members. I’m so proud! I had a lot of time to bond with the members too on this trip.
If I had to choose one moment from the Breaking Dimensions concert, it would probably be everyone singing along to my solo performance of my original song Pineapple. I chose it because it hadn’t been performed on stage before and I had hopes that it would be easy to sing along to, even for people who haven’t heard it before much, and I think it worked out well! Pineapple is such a fun summer song with an addicting chorus and a cute, bouncy choreography, so I wanted to give it some more love and appreciation on this occasion!
Also, right before the Breaking Dimensions concert, we had our first World Tour concert in New York too, and one of the mixed unit songs we performed, was my original song DO U. I released this already a while ago and it was my first 3D MV, kind of cementing my new music direction as strong as it could. I think it became quite the memorable, loved song in hololive and I am extremely proud and grateful for that. Now, this time, people’s reaction to it being a mixed unit song with not just me, but Baelz, Moona and Kobo was priceless. Everyone got so hyped up about it, and even weeks after I still get fans complaining about how we can’t just let this be a one time thing with no recorded evidence of it, haha. If you don’t want to miss out on such exclusive, super special performances, please consider coming by to one of our concerts some time!
Source：https://www.polygon.com/culture/486334/takanashi-kiara-hololive-vtuber-interview
