Hyakuto Kyoko Wins Mori Calliope’s Jump King Race for First-Time Players

HOLOLIVE — Hyakuto Kyoko won a one-hour Jump King race that Mori Calliope hosted for players new to the game, finishing ahead of Achichi Mela in second and Raora Panthera in third.

Calliope co-hosted with Isaki Riona of FLOW GLOW, who said it took her 41 hours to clear the game herself. Jump King is a punishing 2D platformer in which a jump cannot be steered once the button is pressed. Every racer started at the bottom with the clock at zero, had to climb as high as possible, and had to stop moving at the one-hour mark and send a screenshot of the final position. None of the racers had played before, and they had only five days to practice. Calliope said finishing the game was unlikely, and that anyone who did would simply start over. Before the start, a recorded message from Kazama Iroha told the field that the secret was to stay calm and climb again after a fall; she signed off with ‘gozaru.’

“Until I joined hololive I had hardly played games, and I was bad at them, so I’m really surprised.” — Achichi Mela, after taking second place

Once the race began, Calliope and Riona moved between voice calls with the racers, saying they meant to pester them, though Calliope said she could not bring herself to be truly mean. Riona relayed that Kyoko, the early favorite, was hungry and had itchy feet but would keep going. The hosts joked that Sorashina Sopia seemed to be working out her jumps by formula, and chat agreed that she was calculating the trajectory. Calliope also told Mizumiya Su that the special prize, which she had described at the briefing, required reaching the sewer stage, not just the forest before it, and took the blame for the confusion.

Kikirara Vivi, deep into a losing climb, asked through Riona why the race had been created at all and said she might turn into a cactus; later she announced that her screen looked the same as at the start, so she must be in first place. Rindo Chihaya, the only racer sharing her game screen, shouted ‘Misato-san’ as a jump cue, drawing Neon Genesis Evangelion lines from chat, and by chat’s count looped through the same stretch about ten times. She also kept her heart rate on screen.

At the end Calliope unveiled a map she had built for the results and announced the placings from the bottom. Raora, in tears when called, received a third-place trophy and a gift. Mela received a gift card for a massage at a spa Calliope likes. Kyoko, who had reached the area just before the snow stage when the hosts checked in, received a full day at a spa. Anyone who had reached the sewers even once, Sopia among them despite slipping back near the buzzer, was promised a gift card for a barbecue restaurant Calliope likes; for the rest she said she would think of something, and joked she might feed a slice of grilled meat to Vivi herself. Calliope told the racers to rest, saying the game is brutally hard. Chihaya closed her own stream by saying she was frustrated but had enjoyed it and would be back.