>>90524010Takanashi 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. 
