Kaela Kovalskia Says Her First Hololive Expo Appearance Was a Gorilla Recording

HOLOLIVE — Kaela Kovalskia told viewers on Tuesday that one of hololive’s first impressions of her was a recording of gorilla noises, played in a booth at a hololive expo shortly after her debut. She shared the story late in a stream of more than five hours in hololive Dreams, the rhythm game fans call Holodori, the day before her own in-game event.

She said the episode took place in her first year, before she had her 3D debut. Management asked her to come to a studio and record gorilla voices while an engineer and staff signaled her to keep going, and she gave variation after variation. She was told only that the recording was for the expo and assumed it would serve as background ambience. She said she learned later that it played through a headset in an individual booth, that visitors queued for 30 to 40 minutes to hear it, and that the whole thing lasted a few minutes with no words, singing or music. She said she has never heard the finished version, and that she has done three or four more gorilla recording sessions since joining hololive.

“Instead of trying to get better at voice acting, I literally tried to find gorilla voices on YouTube so that I could get better at that.” — Kaela Kovalskia, on her gorilla recordings

The voice work came up earlier in the night, too. While playing rhythm-game rooms with Anya Melfissa, Pavolia Reine and Raora Panthera, the group heard a new line from the summer version of Kaela’s card that sounded like “what a bore.” Kaela later checked and confirmed the line is “summer, water ball.” She said the script had referenced a fireball and that she was asked to deliver it in that style. She apologized to anyone who has the card on their team, and said many players probably mute voice lines anyway.

Earlier in the stream, she addressed her name appearing on the hat of the new Holodori outfit. She said she did not notice it in the drafts, assumed every talent’s outfit would carry one, and does not know why only hers does. She said the writing is not her actual signature. Much of the rest of the session went to rebuilding her team and clearing achievements ahead of the event, which she described as another night of grinding.

Chat joined in on the gorilla theme. Kaela closed by urging viewers to have their teams ready and to listen to the full version of her song “Forge My Soul,” which she said would be released that night, about an hour after it appears in the game.