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Interview: Holostars Vtuber Octavio Talks Music and Games

Interview: Holostars Vtuber Octavio Talks Music and Games
Image via Cover

Cover announced that many of its Hololive and Holostars Vtubers will have an increased presence on Twitch going forward, in addition to streaming on platforms like YouTube and Bilibili, and Octavio is among them. To find out more about his plans for Twitch, as well as his musical performances and thoughts on 2025’s game of the year, Siliconera caught up with him to discuss what he’s been up to and planning for 2026.

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Jenni Lada: It’s been a pretty big year for you so far, considering your 3D debut and Holostars 3D concert! What was it like preparing for big events like that?

Octavio: Yeah it definitely was! The interesting thing about the events you mentioned are the very long runways when it comes to planning every single detail out. Everything from the creation of the 3D sets to even the new outfits we got for the Holostars concert, we saw so long in advanced, like close to a year! Because of this, its always at the back of my mind for most of the year and it really becomes a matter of practicing the dance routines and songs as much as you can during that long runway which I think makes the actual day of our performances that much easier! Trust me both of these events turned into hyper fixations that I’m glad are finally over (so I can hyperfixate on the next thing again).

Your first original song, released toward the beginning of 2025, was “String Theology.” What went into preparing the track, and what did you learn from the experience?

Octavio: I’ve been friends with the team behind the production of the song, Stellar Paradigm, headed by none other than Dasu, a well-known Vocaloid song producer based in the Philippines, for quite a while now so I’m familiar with how they do their work! She told me that whatever reference you have in mind, a full song or just a small moment in one, that I like to put into my song, that I just send it to her. I sent them a laundry list of different songs and artists that I liked to theme my original song around particularly stuff from Polyphia, Ado and even aespa and they went off to the races! I even sent their lyricist my full lore so they can understand me better!

I found the whole process enlightening, especially the back and forth between me, the team at Stellar Paradigm, my manager and the music team at Cover. Even little things like how stems are packaged, the exact specs files should be sent in were all new information for me. Hearing the songs from its bones to the final product, I think is currently also helping me with my own music productions!

As part of your 3D showcase, we saw you release quite a few original songs. What was it like preparing tracks like “Cold Blue,” “Octavio’s Puppet Show,” and “It is I (The Poppet You’ve Forgotten” since you were so involved with them? 

Octavio: “Octavio’s Puppet Show” was the first song I’ve ever made and it was really just for a silly bit for my debut stream. I had to learn FL Studio from scratch because of it! I was just happy I was able to make a song from scratch having had no prior music making knowledge aside from singing with a guitar! Its become a staple on my channel though, so much so, that my fans would get angry if I didn’t play it before the start of the stream.

“It is I (The Poppet You’ve Forgotten)” was also for a silly bit for just one stream about a puppet rebelling against its puppetmaster, and I made that in like 2 days! It’s more alternative rock and emo inspired, but honestly, the weirder the idea, the easier the ideas flow from my brain to the DAW.

Now that I think about it, “Cold Blue” is also a silly song that I made because I lost a game and therefore my punishment was to make a love song for another member of Holostars, which is Gavis Bettel. I wanted it to take a lot of inspiration from OPM (Original Pinoy Music) so crafting a sound like it was really fun to do. Its now become a bigger production and I hope to release it in its full glory one day with everything I’ve learned over these past few years of my music journey.

For October 30th, you’ve put together your 88k Milestone Taylor Swift concert. What did prep for that look like and how did you prepare for it?

Octavio: I spent approximately one month preparing for it but it was mostly to practice all the songs! I think there were 29 songs in that setlist and I sang at least 3 songs per Taylor Swift era with some exceptions. The practice was a bit different compared to my other karaoke streams though because I have to take into account that it is going to be a 2 hour concert with little to no breaks in between. Not just that, but choreographing the visuals so that they’re in time with everything for a full 2 hours was no small feat! Overall, it was fun and I do enjoy everything about the process!

Now that you’ll be streaming on Twitch as well, how do you feel about that? How do you think it will affect things like your karaoke performances and poppet commissions?

Octavio: I’ve actually been multistreaming on Twitch since a few months after my debut, and that includes my poppet commissions thanks to the Art category on Twitch! However, now with our official debuts on Twitch, I do want to start offering streams that I think would work best on Twitch only like more interactive games like Cult of the Lamb for example. There’s a lot of games specifically with Twitch integration that I plan to play with my fans in the future, plus I’d like to invite my fellow talents from Hololive/Holostars for Twitch specific collabs, that’d be nice! I haven’t dabbled with singing on Twitch yet, but I do want to experiment with it, maybe apply for a front-page spot when I do so? We’ll see!

You’re also active on Bilibili! What do you like about that platform?

Octavio: Bilibili to me feels like a very casual space for me to express myself as a streamer and artist! Since Youtube is my main platform, I tend to take all my steps there quite seriously, but since we’re still growing our brand on Bilibili, I’ve been focused on making my streams there a comfortable and welcoming space for new viewers! I don’t usually do few hour long Just Chatting streams as its not my style, but I’m willing to do it on Bilibili for example to form a more personal attachment to the fans over there just now discovering Holostars! I’ve also been learning Chinese songs and releasing Chinese covers to reach more people on there.

As for YouTube, how do you think you’ll be using that going forward? 

Octavio: My main audience is still on Youtube for now, but I’ve always believed in meeting everyone where they are in terms of content. That’s why I’m really enthusiastic about branching out to different platforms as much as I can, like now on Twitch! That’s why as long as I can, I’ll continue multistreaming my Youtube streams to Twitch when appropriate so that no matter the circumstance, there is a place for a poppet to watch my streams on any platform of their choosing!

We’re getting toward the end of 2025 now, and you’ve played a lot of the big releases of the year so far like Silent Hill f, Umamusume: Pretty Derby, Clair Obscur Expedition 33, and Atelier Yumia. Have you locked in a favorite yet? 

Octavio: Oh man, what a loaded question! As a true blue gamer that was raised on RPGs of all flavors, especially JRPGs, as well as action and adventure games, I’d have to say my favorites of the year so far are definitely Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. Clair Obscur really showcased what a team that loves the genre can do to both transform it and respect its roots! Final Fantasy Tactics on the other hand is an example of what the pinnacle of the JRPG genre looks like and it sported an incredibly nuanced story to boot! Aside from those however, I’d like to give a big shoutout to this game called Pandora’s Whispers, which is a Tactical RPG made by fans of ARMIS! It only has the demo out for now but it was fun playing as myself, and the other members of ARMIS in a Fire Emblem-esque gameplay style!

Going into 2026, what do you have planned for next year? Any major goals you want to accomplish? 

Octavio: 2026 for me is the year of ORIGINAL MUSIC, made completely by myself. My personal journey in music production started when I began here in Holostars, actually. Also, as the president of the Vtuber Taylor Swift fanclub, I owe it to the queen herself to make music of my own. “Cold Blue” and “Jutai” are the first ones, but I’m already making a lot more behind the scenes, some of which my channel members have been helping me produce! I don’t want to be known as a cover artist in this space, I want to take that step to become a real music artist with fans who support me because of the music that I made in 2026!

Octavio can be found on social media and streaming on services like YouTube and Twitch.

Jenni Lada
About The Author
Jenni is Editor-in-Chief at Siliconera and has been playing games since getting access to her parents' Intellivision as a toddler. She continues to play on every possible platform and loves all of the systems she owns. (These include a PS4, Switch, Xbox One, WonderSwan Color and even a Vectrex!) You may have also seen her work at GamerTell, Cheat Code Central, Michibiku and PlayStation LifeStyle.