Mori Calliope is a virtual YouTuber under Hololive with 2.51 million subscribers. The musician has made a name for herself with her song “Go-Getters,” which was used as the ending theme song in Suicide Squad: Isekai, and she collaborated with Konami for a fun Metal Gear Solid song. On Wednesday, February 26, she performed in her second solo live concert at the Hollywood Palladium, which marked her first solo live concert outside of Japan. The venue’s capacity is 4,000, and the sold-out event is a good sign for the future of Hololive and solo live concerts for its other VTubers.

Nerd Reactor had the chance to chat with Mori Calliope, who reflected on her first solo live concert in the U.S., her Metal Gear Solid song, and her dream collab with Gorillaz.

“I mean, to be honest, I’d been working on it for so long,” Calliope tells Nerd Reactor about her preparation for the concert. “This live has been in the works for months. Lots and lots of rehearsals to make sure the songs are done the same way every single time. And you know, it’s very methodical. But because I had so much practice, I was pretty confident from the onset with this one. That’s not something that always happens.”

Mori was ready to rock, but there are always nerves until she starts to sing, which is a recurring theme every time she performs.

“So like when the first visual, like the opening video plays, or something like that, and the crowd is cheering for me, for sure, I’m nervous,” she continued. “But as soon as I start performing, I’m just locked in, focused, and I don’t have time to be nervous. You know? I don’t have the mental capacity to be nervous. I gotta focus on performing.”

Mori has grand goals, including performing at Madison Square Garden and collaborating with different high-profile artists. One includes Gorillaz, the pioneer of virtual bands.

“I know that it’s a long shot and will probably never happen, but Gorillaz, right?” Calliope said. “I have a lot of things in common with Gorillaz in various ways. They’ve been one of my favorite bands of all time forever, and they’re the original virtual band. So that’s probably my biggest collaborator goal now is to shoot for getting a shot at featuring in a Gorillaz song someday in the far future. I’ll keep working hard for that day to come.”

Konami wanted to collaborate with Mori Calliope on a Metal Gear Solid song, and she performed a rap song for them called “Sneaking.” However, the singer wanted to create a new version that aligns with her current taste in music with “Sneaking – Revenge.”

“I decided to do a revenge rock remix featuring Lotus Juice to make the song more to my taste, right?” the singer explained. “Because the initial song they made, it was awesome, but not quite to my taste for what I like listening to. And so, I wanted to morph the song into a straight Mori version. If Mori had so much control over this, right? What would I do? What were the beats I’d change? I wanted to get a male vocalist, and I wanted to make it a rock song.”

The rock version was performed at the concert, and it got the crowd pumped and hyped.

The interview was conducted at the Hololive pop-up store at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, a shop where fans had the chance to participate in a meet and greet with their favorite Hololive VTubers. Merchandise was available, including Mori’s vinyl records, CDs, shirts, and concert wands. Even Lil Nas X dropped by to check the place out. The pop-up store ran from February 5th to 27th, 2025.