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With Vtubers getting as big as they’ve gotten in the past couple of years, it’s easy to see why you might gloss over any one of them, even one as popular as Calliope Mori.
As a general rule, Vtubers attached to a big agency such as Hololive tend to have their songs revolve around several themes- either they’re an in-lore song (a la Gawr Gura’s Reflect) or a general upbeat song that everyone can dance or cheer to.
That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions- Vsingers tend to have more robust discographies, but the general MO is there- they’re typically designed with a more general audience in mind. You could ascribe a lot of it to idol culture- it’s an idol’s job to make people smile, and that often means staying in a particular wheelhouse, especially if you want to hit as many fans as possible rather than focusing on a specific niche message.
Talking About Diverse Things
And that’s where Calliope Mori’s strength really shines- her best songs feel very message-first, with often way more complex messages than simple “Love me” or “this is a good song to dance to”.
Her latest EP, Your Mori (and its Lo-fi variant) aren’t that different from your standard Vtuber music, with songs like Red and the Grim Reaper is a Live Streamer being more to the typical Vtuber end of the spectrum of just being well-produced songs that feel good to listen to. Despite that, you also have the existence of Ijimekko Bully and Guh– the former being an amazing song describing a toxic relationship while the latter being Mori reflecting on the self deprecation behind being a Vtuber while also referencing an in-joke with her fans.
You see this pattern in a lot of her work- Off With Their Heads is an incredibly raw song about the climb to success, with lyrics so biting it prompted Twitter drama about people feeling called out by her lyrics. Sure, it’s got that standard Mori tone of superiority to it- but the fact it touches on a more realistic kind of negativity than most Vtubers songs will steer clear of is what sets it apart.
Personally though, I think where Calliope Mori is at her absolute peak is her slower songs. End of A Life is an incredible song that sits almost at the polar end of Off With Their Heads, reflecting on the personal costs of that same climb to success.
What’s great about it is that at no point does she ever seem ungrateful for her life, nor does she seem hostile to the idea of having these feelings. While Off With Their Heads is an address, End of A Life instead feels like the somber moment in the dressing room after.
That Personal Rawness Only Calliope Mori Gives
If you haven’t picked up on it yet, what I think sets Calliope Mori apart from other Vtubers is just that sense of personal rawness to her lyrics. She’s not some rebel against the idol industry, but the sheer contrast of her music is a shining beacon among her contemporaries.
That’s not to say she’s some permanently depressed person- in her own words, she’s just drawing from her whole life to make her music rather than key parts.
She says as much in the comments for her single Cursed Nights, where she prepared a disclaimer in case people thought she was in trouble due to the more grim lyrics of the song.
“Please remember that music is an outlet for feelings, is it not?”, she explains. “And because this song exists, I feel the strength to continue on in everything that I do. I think amidst the happiness, there comes a time for venting the feelings that spill out on your Cursed Nights”.
“Your Boy is All Good”, she says. “As I mentioned, this song exists and thusly I feel great after venting out my personal feelings into music. In fact, as I type this now, I am the happiest I’ve been in a very, very long time. Content with my music, content with my existence, grateful for my fans and ready to continue producing music”.
“With that being said, I know some will still worry about me. But, I can’t sing happy songs every day, as no being, human or no, can do!”
A Great Dash of Spice
Like I said earlier, this isn’t a knock against other Vtubers- they are just as good at what they do. But the point of all this was to highlight that Mori is doing something I didn’t fully expect out of the premise of Virtual Idols- a raw edginess that, at the root of it all, sounds like a creator with complex thoughts about their work and isn’t afraid to say them.
Just like how Kiryu Coco was a huge shakeup to the idea of what a Vtuber could do on-camera, Calliope Mori is a huge challenge to what kind of music they can produce. While I certainly hope the overall idol aesthetic stays- lord knows I don’t want every Vtuber to suddenly start being edgy the way every Kpop group suddenly decided to spec into hip-hop- the occasional deeply personal cut is a great way to keep all the Vtuber music from blending together.
It also helps that she very much has a genuine love for music- you don’t just record a Lo-Fi album for no reason, after all.
