hololive SUPER EXPO 2025 was earlier this month on March 8 and 9th, held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. This was my first year going to a hololive expo (and also a large Japanese event in general), so I was super excited! Last year, my friends went to Japan for SUPER EXPO 2024. I tagged along for the Japan trip but since I didn’t enter the lotteries or anything, I didn’t end up going to Chiba to hang out with them during that time. This year, with the help of my friends sayaka, NekoDiv, KamiCreed, Vestrel, and gishi, I was able to enter the lottery, and managed to win and purchase tickets for EXPO DAY 1 and 6th fes CREATORS’ STAGE. gishi also managed to secure some food and merch prior to the expo (bless him for staying up late in the night PST!).
Most of us flew in the the Friday (March 7) and checked into hotels nearby. Since I was staying within a 10 minute walking distance and the expo opened at 09:00, I didn’t wake up particularly early for day 1: jetlag and the whatnot had me up at around 07:45. I left at around 08:10, eyes set on the nearest convenience store (ministop), where I picked up a hot canned coffee, a tuna onigiri, and a salmon onigiri for breakfast.
With breakfast obtained, I headed over to Makuhari Messe with gishi to exchange our Zaiko ticket for a day 1 wristband, and the first thing I noticed was the really organized queues. Japanese line management is no joke: from staff directing people from hundred of meters away from the venue (almost to the train station), to those making sure the lines aren’t blocking pathways, it was really organized: there is no comparison with the anime conventions I’ve been to back in North America.
Once we got into the building, there was basically one entire exhibition hall dedicated to line management, and that line sprawled right out of Makuhari Messe (the convention building), and onto the overhead walkways. Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to see actual space between exhibits and whatnot. This was really good as it made moving around really easy, and I didn’t have to worry about bumping into people too much. Unsurprisingly, due to the sheer number of people attending, everything was queued, but that didn’t really block the pathways because the staff were actively managing the lines and managing them exceedingly well. With the sheer number of people, I also did wear a face mask the entire time.
Unfortunately, I didn’t win the lotteries for any of the attractions on the expo floor, but I did go visit the exhibits. I enjoyed seeing the EN talents in ENnigmatic Recollection, as well as the progression of art drawn at the MANGA Live Drawing Canvas!
There were plenty of corporate booths, including Good Smile Company, Taito, Furyu, Bushiroad, and even the company making my favourite Hyakunen Umeshu. They’re definitely out in full swing encouraging fans to spend money on their brand and talents! That included handing out flyers, Weiss Schwarz cards, sample products to look at, and having plenty of standees to take photos of.
Once the mass of people started to subside, we did end up revisiting the line hall. One thing I thought was really cool was the message board. Anyone could write a message on the provided pieces of sticky paper, and then paste it onto the board for others and the talents to read later. I also did leave a short message of 「BAUBAU EXPOサイコー！」. There were some other funny ones like “boat goes binted”, which I had heard of before, but didn’t really understand so I had to look up for context after the fact. 😀
While we lined up for things and roamed around, it was really awesome to see fans of all ages out and about flaunting their itabags and merch in full view. I didn’t really take photos of people’s merch, but just seeing the plethora of people fully decked out in their oshi’s goods (I remember seeing someone with so many Koyori badges and acrylic stands) or someone cosplaying their favourite character Chloe was cool. That sort of atmosphere was pretty comparable to our conventions in North America: you could really feel how passionate some people. Despite this, one thing I did notice while we were leaving the expo area and heading in the surrounding neighbourhoods, many people took great care to conceal their itabags while walking away.
In terms of expo food, I went in with low expectations since it’s convention food, and in the end, it met those expectations: food was okay. gishi ordered the food mainly for the goods that came with it, but nonetheless, we tried Moona’s nasi goreng, Ririka’s ultimate deluxe meal (consisting of rice, sausage, spaghetti, meatball, and karaage), and the beef stroganoff of Lui and Choco-sensei. The food was kinda mid (which was kind of expected): the shrimp crackers were soggy and stale, and the rice and pretty much all the meats were cold. The only exception was the stroganoff, which was actually the best thing out of the ones we tried. It was still quite hot and we were able to dip the bread into it. The taste was pretty decent, too: nothing fancy, but something I wouldn’t mind having again. For drinks, we got the hololive, English, and DEV_IS drinks; all of which seemed like strange drink mixes to me, especially the regular hololive one which had marshmallows. For packaged foods, gishi also got Iroha’s cookies and Calli’s popcorn. I didn’t get a chance to try the cookies, but the popcorn was also okay.
Aside from food, the expo stage was pretty active. I didn’t really stay and watch for too long, except for the last 30-60 minutes of Day 1, where Botan and Korone were playing Liar’s Bar with members of the audience, as well as another game (don’t remember exactly what it was called, but it was basically like tag/onigokko).
CREATORS’ STAGE was also really fun. It was in a separate building. People were seated across three expo halls, and having stages on either side plus also a small, rotating centre stage was great: it was nice to at least be close enough to see the talents from at least one stage. The atmosphere was also really good. In-person Japanese concerts really hit differently than the live streams I’ve watched previously: being surrounded by like-minded fans and hearing everyone cheer really gives a different perspective that you really can’t get watching at home. If I had to pick one of my favourite moments of the live, it would be listening to Moona and Iofi sing High Tide. Iofi’s vocal harmony with Moona really hit hard, and that really stood out for me during the concert. I’ll be keeping an eye on Iofi’s songs going forward.
Since I didn’t win tickets for STAGE 3 (or any other ones for that matter), and neither did gishi and Kami, I decided to buy the streaming ticket on SPWN to watch STAGE 3 (and the ability to watch the archive streams for STAGE 1 and STAGE 2). STAGE 3 was really fun: we were jamming along, watching on gishi’s laptop in his hotel room while eating food from Costco :).
Overall, hololive EXPO DAY 1 and the live concerts on DAY 2 (CREATORS’ STAGE and STAGE 3) were amazing! From being able to see exhibits of talents I know, to seeing so many other things I didn’t know hololive was involved in, I felt the passion of talents and fans everywhere I was that weekend. Also, being able to share these moments with friends was an experience I didn’t get to do last year, so I was really glad to finally do it this year. I would potentially consider going again next year, depending on how my PTO schedule looks like. 😛
Anyways, that’s all I got this time around. I do have some thoughts on the rest of my Japan trip that I haven’t finished yet, so hopefully I’ll have that out soon.
Until next time!
~Lui
