Korone, Botan and Lui Close Their Ramen Shop After Betting Away the Register Cash

HOLOLIVE — Inugami Korone, Shishiro Botan and Takane Lui ran a ramen shop together in Japanese Ramen Simulator on Tuesday night, and the venture ended the way chat had predicted for hours: with the register cash bet on a gambling game and lost. The three streamed the collab for just over two hours, Korone on her channel and Botan on hers.

They opened with introductions and a volume check, wearing numbered outfits that they joked looked like prisoner IDs. Korone introduced herself as the captain of a squad that wants to scare Botan; Botan introduced herself as the one who does not get scared. Then came the work: boiling pork-bone soup, dosing soy sauce, timing the noodles, and learning the game’s quirks as they went. Ingredients left out overnight spoil, soup cools if it is not kept on the heat, and trash can be thrown away instead of carried. The first lessons were messy. A box of supplies ended up on the floor, green onions went uncollected, and the first customer on opening day got lukewarm soup.

“The idea of paying back debt with gambling is, well, a little scary.” — Shishiro Botan, asked whether the night was scary

Customers were scarce at first, and the register held $464. The three agreed to take the money to the game’s gambling spot, a two-way betting game, and each carried $100 at the start. They won some and lost some. Over the evening the same pattern repeated: a run of wins, a push to bet again, a loss, and a debate over who should have stopped them. The shop manager role passed among them as a joke, and when the supposed manager was blamed for not holding back the others, one of them answered that a friend ought to speak up before a manager does. Between rounds they remodeled the dining room in the game’s building mode, hired two part-time workers named Masaru and Taro, ran a cart into a passerby, put out a stove fire with a newly bought extinguisher and served bowls with their own flourishes, like flinging the noodle-draining water.

Late in the broadcast they wagered everything they had, and the last bet failed. They told their staff the shop was closing, scattered ingredients across the floor to make it look as though a thief had come, and blamed Masaru for sleeping through it. Asked afterward what they would open next, they landed on a cafe, then added that they would need someone to stop the three of them. They also said they wanted to go out for real ramen.

After the others left the call, Korone said she had long wanted to try the game with someone and was glad she finally had. She said gambling was clearly not for her, and that she would stream again the next day, this time solo. Chat kept up a running commentary on the betting throughout.