I'm going to pull a page out of the deadbeat's and hoshiyomi's book and post my thoughts on the debut since there wont be any other chance to do it. gomen
I think Shiori has exceptional potential, but it is going to be a HARD sell and will ultimately depend on what her intentions are and what sort of effort she wants to put in.Perhaps it was to be expected but her twitter interactions did reveal quite a bit about how she carries herself. Her soft spoken voice and gentle mannerisms are quite the gap away from her model which some people may say is unfitting, but she clearly appreciates the aesthetics considering the husbando list and how in depth she went into the details of her model and is likely lean into it overtime. There was some nervousness and voice shake, which is to be expected, but compared to many other Holos, I’d say she is comparatively confident which indicates a good degree of experience, among other signs. Shyness is likely to subside within a week or two at the most.
Now for her content, to put it simply, her interests and what she plans to do for mainline content is unconventional. Books? Educational content? Arts and crafts? None of these could be considered a mainstay in any holomemeber’s repertoire and are usually saved for special events with a hit or miss reputation. Add to this, her seeming willingness to forego the usual content found in Hololive like gaming and casual zatsus leaves her vying for an audience which may be latent, but then again, also rather niche. However, I think she could pull it off. The skills in video editing and production are rare in Hololive and even rarer to see actually used in released content. If Shiori really can perform as she claims, then we have the possibility of seeing holomember produced content with actual production value enough to sell her niche interests. This sort of content is rare in Hololive and especially in the EN branch and would not only be a refreshing change of pace compared to the rest of Hololive, but also allow her the possibility to forge a strong following based on that. The only question is if that is what Shiori intends to do.
Higher production value content is obviously a lot of work and especially so given the restrictions of being under Cover and Shiori might not want to deal with it. She could approach her content like Ina, Kronii, or Mio where they don’t really put that much into it, relatively speaking, and is in Hololive for other reasons like making friends with other members or is just more casual about being a part of Hololive. On the other hand, she could approach her content more ambitiously like Mori, Bae, or Pekora to challenge herself to output high quality content and to experiment with new content. If she’s in the latter camp, I think there’s a possibility of something special happening that could take all of us by storm. If she’s in the first camp, then I expect it’ll be hard for her to gain traction much like with what happened to Sana. Her positioning in Advent as gen lead, Confidence during debut, and quality of debut make me think she’ll be the more ambitious type, but I suppose we’ll find that out in the next couple of weeks.
Her group dynamic with her gemmates is unknown for now, but there is a lot we can glean about her dynamics with her future audience. The statement she made about her future collabs has been shitposted about for hours now by cretins, but it does tell us that she is looking for a specific crowd to stick around that call themselves a fan of hers. Of course, her niche interests were already going to filter people but the explicit state mad that clear. It seems to me that she intends to keep her novelites on a tight leash which may be warranted these days, but even I still think that leash is a touch too short. Considering her type of content that she plans on doing, I was expecting her to lean more on audience engagement and participation much how like Bijou did in her debut, but there wasn’t much of that. Then again, the did call portions of her debut a date and did the usual song and dance by teasing her audience on occasion. Her statements on outsourcing video editing probably explain it most clearly in that she wants to maintain a vision and she does not want others to interfere, audience included.
In conclusion, I think Shiori has exceptional potential and has the possibility to create something special here in Hololive, but of course, no plan ever survives first contact and there are plenty of other factors that have yet to reveal themselves to us so investing into Shiori and her content will be a gamble. But for me, her statement of having a vision is what settled it for me. It feels so long ago since we’ve had a HoloEN member explicitly state their vision that I’m already a little hopeful. Ultimately, I want to see her vision. I want to follow her beyond that hill to see what lies on the other side.
