>>52114781I remember back when the homo collab arc started, a lot of anons talked about how they "felt like a third wheel" in these collabs.
i.e. The males were flirting, laughing with your oshi and you yourself was nowhere in sight.
I understood that feeling during most the Holostars collabs I checked out of curiosity, whether it was the Kronii squad collabs or the Matsuri x Homo collabs or the FoxDemon collabs, all of them have a format similar to that of other Hololive girls only collabs. You mostly only interact with your collab partner(s), and your audience derives joy from watching the interactions between different chuubas on screen. If there's some amount of chemistry or cuteness involved, people will be entertained, but if it's dry and awkward, no one will like it.
EN collabs have good dynamics and comedy, but there's always this subtle undercurrent of flirting in all of it... there's often many one-to-one interactions of 1 homo with 1 girl, making a joke and showing something, and getting them to laugh or respond in any way. The "group collab" becomes a 1-on-1 for those few seconds, and for the audience that supports the chuuba, these can be some of the most uncomfortable experiences they've had oshiing them.
This, I assume, is what the EN audience means when they say they feel like a third wheel. They're watching two people have fun with each other, but they only like ONE of them (their oshi). There's probably a few folks here and there that like the homos AND whoever their holo oshi is, but a large portion of the HoloEN audience have shown - through numbers - that they do not give a SHIT about the homos, and would prefer them to stay in their own lane.
And of course, this doesn't mean that males are the only ones exempt from this feeling. People were mad about Kiara trying to collab with Veibae as well, mad enough to get the entire thing shitcanned. The dynamic is well known among JP niji circles, since they had a lot of cross-collab culture, and there would be several instances where your oshi would be interacting with a liver that you didn't give a shit about or absolutely hated.
In most of the JP homo collabs, there's very little outright flirting/shipping dynamics. You can clearly see the difference in how Roberu interacts with Mea and Animare vs how he reacts to Suisei or Matsuri. Sure they make the odd lewd joke here and there, but it's always with the dynamic of making the guy uncomfortable --> giving more content.
Even collabs like FoxDemon or Subaru - Maimoto have more of a "little sister" type energy rather than that of lovers.
In addition to this, JP homos have not really done much worth hating them for. They haven't tried to shit on their audience, or tried to bring up politics on stream.
A lot of them are also strict adherents to the belief of trying to grow the Holostars brand with their own power.
Of course, even if the dynamics aren't like that, it doesn't remove the feeling of uncomfiness of some folks that comes with being a third wheel in these collabs, so a portion of the fanbase usually decides to skip these collabs to avoid those feelings (since there's very little justification to bully the homos over it). The more sane ones will still watch and enjoy.
And of course, in the outside box collabs like the esports ones or the recent SF6 ones, the dynamic is pretty much always something similar to that of a club participating in a big Event. There's very little time or leeway for flirting or teasing, everyone's just focussed on the game.
And at the end of almost all these collabs, the chuuba will disconnect from Discord and spend a few minutes talking to YOU - the audience - about their experience in the tournament and how things went.
Whether it's Aqua and Korone sharing their frustration of not being able to win, or Botan simply telling you she's tired and that there'll be a zatsudan tomorrow, they will talk with YOU for a while.
You are NOT a third wheel there, you were there with them, enjoying their victories and despairing at their defeats. It can even be an explicit on-stream thing like
>>52117782.
Stuff like that makes the audience feel involved, reduces the feeling of being a "third wheel".
And most of all, some chuubas acknowledging that the audience can be uncomfortable with male interactions is already a huge deal.
Both sides know that it's not really a rational feeling. You can't help what your heart feels about some things after all, even if it's not very fair to the chuuba.
But while the ENs shit on this feeling, stamp on it, spit on it, call you an incel and shame you for even having these feelings, the JPs are far more considerate.
They understand these feelings, because a lot of them have had it themselves, whether it's for seiyuu, gacha characters or video game characters.
While the ENs reject your feelings entirely, the JPs acknowledge them.
This consideration for the audience is what ultimately separates the so-called "male collabs" between JP and EN.
