Mori Calliope

Mori Calliope is an English Virtual YouTuber associated with hololive, debuting as part of its English (EN) branch first generation of VTubers alongside Ninomae Ina'nis, Takanashi Kiara, Watson Amelia and Gawr Gura.

Profile
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Personality
Calliope is equally excited by both rapping and "reaping." Her favorite weapons include her scythe (nicknamed "Ricky") and the flail, a medieval weapon made from a spiked metal ball on a chain.

Calliope is noted for having one of the most lowest pitched voice in hololive, even more so than likes of Nekomata Okayu, Tokoyami Towa and A-chan. Although fluent in English, Calliope often fails to understand current modes of speech, such as the use of contractions or modern slang. She is easily flustered by romance, leading some to call her the "tsundereaper."

When not on camera, however, she is described as air-headed and hopelessly forgetful. Kiara has mentioned that she frequently misplaces things despite leaving them in an obvious place, like leaving her cellphone in her jacket. She also works exceptionally hard, perhaps too much so.

Background
On 23 April 2020, following the success of the Japanese-language hololive VTuber group, Cover Corporation announced auditions for English-speaking members. The initial round of auditions ran until 24 May.

Mori Calliope first heard of hololive after seeing clips on YouTube, and heard of the hololive English audition from friends. She began watching hololive videos in her work breaks to familiarize herself with the other members, and became excited at the possibility of joining them. Calli had previously spent several years making music with an audience of no more than twenty people.

Calli auditioned by describing her best traits and skills and taking a professional tone. She credits her success to her hard work and willingness to take chances on new opportunities. After she was selected, it took some time for Calli to accept that she had been successful.

The members of -Myth- began training around June 2020, three months before their debut.

Calli's YouTube channel was created on 16 July, and her Twitter account was created in the same month.

On 8 September 2020, Mori Calliope was first revealed in a short promotional video alongside the other four members of hololive -Myth-. A simultaneous announcement was made at the hololive Twitter account, and the hololive English Twitter account. She made her first tweet the same day.

Debut
Calli made her debut stream on 12 September 2020. She was the first member of hololive -Myth- to debut. She performed the premiere of her first original rap song, "失礼しますが、RIP♡" or known in English as "Excuse My Rudeness, But Could You Please RIP?." The song was released on her YouTube channel the same day.

2020
On 22 October, Calli reached 500,000 YouTube subscribers, making her the 16th hololive member to reach this milestone, as well as the 2nd member of the English branch to do so.

On 1 November, she released a new original song "Cursed Night."

On 14 December, she reached 800,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, Calli celebrated with an unarchived karaoke stream.

On 29 December, she sang in Tsunomaki Watame's second original song "Douten Hitsuji" for her rap parts.

2021
On 7 January, she reached 900,000 YouTube subscribers.

On 25 January, Calli reached 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers during a subscriber endurance stream, making her the 7th hololive member to reach that milestone and the 2nd to do so on the English branch after Gawr Gura.

On 31 January, Calli debuted her eighth original song "Off With Their Heads."

On 15 February, she announced during a stream that as part of her birthday celebration she would release a second EP containing 5 songs, 4 of them original. Calli also announced that this EP would be released including physical copies.

On 4 March, Calli debuted her ninth original song "Ibasho (Where I Belong)" as part of a collaboration with the game Princess Connect! Re:Dive, during a stream on her YouTube channel.

On 25 March, she announced that she collaborated with Rikka from Holostars for an original song called "spiral tones," later in the fifteenth edition of RiTunes Labo featuring Calli, they announced that an MV was in the making.

On 1 April, all holoMyth members revealed new chibi models based on popular fan designs by Walfie.

On 4 April, she released the music video for her tenth original song, "Red," along with releasing her second EP "Your Mori."

On 30 April, hololive's Twitter account announced that every member of holoMyth would get their second 2D costumes.

On 3 May, Calli debuted her second 2D costume during a stream, an outfit inspired by hip hop culture. Unlike her main outfit, her hair is styled with a ponytail. She wears a white strapless blouse with a pink skull, a black tank top underneath, black pants with two red stripes, and gray glitter around her waist. On top of these, Calli can also wear a jacket with a design matching her scythe, alongside a black cap with golden decorations. She can wear shades and can move her hand up to hold a microphone. Unlike her standard appearance, Calli's nails are painted red instead of black. At the peak of the reveal, she reached an audience of 135,000 people.

On 10 May, the MV for "spiral tones" was released. Calli and Rikka announced an open spiral tones fanworks event for people to send remixes, vocal covers, or dances to the hashtag #morikka_st with 30 winners to receive an autographed postcard from both of them.

On 26 May, Calli announced on her Twitter account that she would go on a hiatus due to unexpected circumstances. She returned to her activities on 3 June.

On 22 June, Calli reached 1,500,000 YouTube subscribers, making her the 4th hololive member to reach this milestone, as well as the 2nd member of the English branch to do so.

On 1 September, Cover Corp. announced that the spelling of Calli's name in Japanese was officially changed from 「森美声」 to 「森カリオペ」, using katakana to spell "Calliope" rather than kanji. Calli had already used this spelling for some time, including in her logo, Twitter biography among others, and is more commonly used across Japanese community.

On 12 September, during Myth's 1 year anniversary celebration, the group revealed their official logo and announced that every member would get their third 2D costumes.

On 31 October, -Myth- debuted their first original song "Myth or Treat" during a Halloween collab with every hololive EN member attending. The song lyrics were written by Calli. The official video of the song was later debuted that same day on Amelia's channel.

On 9 December, Calli debuted her third 2D costume during a stream. Calli got a new hairstyle with her hair tied up to her left side, decorated with a see-through black lace and two red roses. She wears four red petal earrings with the one on her right having an additional hanging jewel. Calli also uses red make up on her eyelids. Her fingernails are painted dark purple. She wears a black see-through neck piece, decorated with a red jewel at the center and smaller black jewels near the bottom. Her outfit is a large red dress and her black bra is visible. On the waist area, the dress is decorated with a big red ribbon and a black lace. At the center, they are complemented with a black skull that Calli referred to as "Mister Bones". She uses heels with different tones of red. On her right hand, Calli wears a wristband and can hold a cup of wine. The dress is complemented with a removable shawl. With this outfit, Calli also got a new blushing expression.

During this stream, Calli revealed and performed the songs featured in her new EP "Your Mori. (Lo-fi Edition)" in collaboration with dj-Jo. She also revealed that she made the illustration of the album.

On 10 December, Calli reached 1 million Twitter followers.

2022
On 6 January, hololive's Twitter account announced that both Myth and Council members would get new year costumes.

On 9 January, Calliope debuted her fourth 2D costume, a kimono to celebrate the new year. In this costume, Calli got a new hairstyle using short hair. She has a golden diadem with sakura flowers decorating the right side. Her kimono is black with a pattern of golden flowers and a moon. The edge of her kimono seems to disintegrate into smoke. Her obi has red to blue tones and also has a flower pattern. In her right hand, she holds an red ochoko cup. In her left hand, Calli holds a kitsune mask that she can move up and down which is also identical to the one she holds on the cover art of "Off With Their Heads". Calli wears sandals and her toe nails are painted pink.

The same day, holoMyth debuted their second original song, "Journey Like a Thousand Years."

On 18 March, Calliope announced her first full album "UnAlive."

On 20 March, Calliope debuted her 3D model during "hololive 3rd fes. Link Your Wish" day 2.

On 26 March, Calliope reached 2,000,000 YouTube subscribers a few hours before starting a karaoke stream to commemorate the milestone. Calli is the 2nd hololive member and the 3rd VTuber to reach this milestone after Kizuna AI and fellow holoMyth member Gawr Gura.

On 1 April, Calliope changed her Twitter name to "YUNG SH1N1GAMI BO1," or rather Calvin Mori, who seems to be Calli's male persona. He released 4 tracks, "C-MAN," "Street FITE," "My Reality," and "MONEY (Hand Me The Glock)," with "Street FITE" being made in collaboration with Hayko, Hakos Baelz's holo -Ministry- persona. Later that day, Calli had a release party stream in her C-Man persona.

On 4 April, during her birthday, Calliope officially debuted her 3D model on her channel in a concert, during which she announced that she had signed on with Universal Music Group, with her first EP with the label titled "Shinigami Notes" to be released in July.

On 28 June, on Amelia's channel, holoMyth held their first off collab, where every member was present.

On 21 July, Calli held her first major solo concert "New Underworld Order."

During the concert Calliope also debuted her second 3D costume. In this costume she uses a black hat, headphones and various chain necklaces one of them has an ornament that reads "Reaper." Calli wears a black jacket with a partially see through red T-shirt with a golden edge and black decorations. Her pants are partially torn below her right knee, the pants have two belts one is black and golden and the other one is red and is falling to the side from left to right and is also decorated with chains. She wears low black boots.

On 9 September, during a stream, Calli announced her "Official International Online Shop," which was also the first online store exclusively made for overseas artist affiliated with UNIVERSAL MUSIC JAPAN.

Discography

 * ''Main page: Mori Calliope/Discography

Events

 * On 18 February 2021, Princess Connect! Re:Dive's English Twitter account published a teaser of a new song inspired in the game interpreted by Calli, later the same day on her Twitter account Calli also confirmed to be the writer of the lyrics of this song named: Ibasho (Where I Belong), as part of a collaboration between the game and hololive English.
 * On 12 March 2021, as part of their six months celebration the holoMyth members announced that they would receive an official BGM image soundtrack featuring Camellia, with a release date of 14 March. The song inspired by Calli is titled "Lively Bopping to Death's Knocking."
 * On 23 June 2021, hololive's Japanese Twitter account announced that every holoMyth member would appear in "Anime Expo Lite 2021."
 * On 28 September 2021, DoKomi's Twitter account announced that Calli would hold her first concert outside of the stream in "DigiKomi." It was held on 9 October 2021.
 * On 1 November 2021, OMOCAT's Twitter account announced a hololive English clothing collection, showing holoMyth's logo. Later on 12 November, the same account revealed the design used for the cloth in a black T-shirt and jacket. The collection would be released in December 2021.
 * On 14 July 2022, Crunchyroll Expo's Twitter account announced that Calli and other members of hololive English would be appearing in "Crunchyroll Expo 2022," which would be held from 5 to 7 August 2022.
 * On 9 September 2022, Crunchyroll Expo Australia announced on Twitter that Calli and Hakos Baelz would be appearing as guests in a special panel on 18 September at "Crunchyroll Expo Australia 2022."
 * On 10 September 2022, Anime Festival Asia announced on Twitter that Calli and other members would be appearing at "Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2022," which would be held from 25-27 November 2022.

Mascot and Fans

 * Calliope's mascot is "Death Sensei" or at least a small representation of him.
 * Like the rest of the holoMyth mascots with the exception of Bloop, Death Sensei was designed by Ninomae Ina'nis.
 * Her fanbase is officially called "Dead Beats," 「デットビーツ」.

Relationships

 * Notable units and groups Calli is part of:
 * "-Myth-," alongside Ninomae Ina'nis, Takanashi Kiara, Watson Amelia and Gawr Gura.
 * "TakaMori," alongside Takanashi Kiara.
 * "Bone Bros.," alongside Gawr Gura.
 * "CHAD" (Chaos, Hope, And Death), alongside Hakos Baelz and IRyS.
 * "Death Star," alongside Hoshimachi Suisei.
 * "MoRikka," alongside Rikka. Their fanbase together is called DeadTuners.
 * "Holodeath," alongside Kureiji Ollie (zombie) and Uruha Rushia (necromancer)

Quotes

 * "If you quit when you suck, you'll suck forever."
 * "You can be cute and strong at the same time."
 * "We never forget the fallen, but we move on."
 * "I AM NOT YOUR DAD!"
 * "Cute small tomboy girl is what I want to be, cause cute small tomboy girls are so cute and small and tomboy... but I can't be that."
 * "Guh!"
 * "Sometimes life...life is like...a piece of snow, it's so beautiful until it melts away."
 * "Hey guys, two quick questions. Uh, number 1: What the f*** am I looking at? Number 2: Can...Can we stop? Can we...can we not do this? For five seconds? ...FOR FIVE! SECONDS?!
 * "Hard work does not guarantee success. However, hard work INCREASES your chances. Think of it like gacha. If you could increase your chances to pull your favorite character then you would, wouldn’t you? You’d do what it takes, right? Idk, that’s how I see it personally."

Name

 * In Japanese, her name is written 「森 カリオペ」.
 * Prior to 1 September 2021, her name was officially written 「森美声」 on the hololive website and in press releases, using kanji for "Calliope." It was changed to the current katakana spelling in an official statement, although she had already spelled it in katakana on some of her social media before that.
 * "Mori" is a Japanese surname, written with the kanji 森, meaning "forest."
 * Mori is also Latin for the verb "to die," as in such phrases as "memento mori" ("remember death"). This is referenced in her sign-off phrase: "I'm your Mori, and I hope you'll remember me." English words such as "mortal" are thought to derive from the same root.
 * "Calliope" is written in katakana, normally used in Japanese to phonetically spell foreign words or names. It is spelled 「カリオペ」, "kariope," although in English she pronounces her name "ka-LYE-o-pee." She accepts both pronunciations, but best of all prefers the shortened form, Calli.
 * The kanji used to write "Calliope" is 「美声」, normally read "bisei," meaning "beautiful voice." This is a calque of her Greek namesake, Καλλιόπη, which also means "beautiful voice" in ancient Greek. However, "Calliope" is not a standard reading for those kanji, which may be a reason behind the official change to katakana.
 * In Greek mythology, Calliope is the name of one of the Muses, a goddess who presides over epic poetry. As such, Calliope's name is likely a nod to her singing voice as well as her passion for rap music, as poetry is the foundation of the genre.
 * When speaking in English, Calli usually gives her name in the English order, as does Amelia Watson. The other three holomyth members (Gawr Gura, Ninomae Ina'nis, and Takanashi Kiara) put the surname first, Japanese style, even when speaking English.

Lore

 * Calli is a shinigami, a spirit being of death similar to the western concept of the grim reaper. Her purpose is to carry souls of the dead to the afterlife, although she is on hiatus from this job while working as a hololive member, and has promised not to kill anybody.
 * She comes from the Underworld, the realm of the dead. The Underworld mimics the aesthetic of the current era, so it looks mostly like a modern city.
 * Calli's scythe blade is made of stainless steel. She is able to summon and dismiss it at will.
 * Before she became a Virtual Youtuber in the human world, Calli worked two jobs in the Underworld, one of them a summer job at a restaurant chain as a waitress, in order to save up enough funds to take her dream trip to "Overworldian" Japan. Despite making quite a few mistakes and being mistreated by customers, she stuck through. She quit as soon as she could afford the cheapest plane ticket to Japan.
 * Calli currently inhabits a humanoid body. She was surprised to learn that it requires sleep to function, which she found bothersome.

Likes and dislikes

 * She likes slaying people, dark spaces, flowers, beanies, stuffed dolls, sweets, the color red, mafia movies, rap (especially Japanese Internet Rap; she claims that she met the genre in the Underworld because it was dead), red wine, and "Death Sensei" (the Grim Reaper) as she is a reaper in training.
 * Because of her passion for rap, Calliope released an original song on her debut stream. She also announced that she would release her first EP for free to thank the support received, including four songs, an instrumental and an acapella version, some of them written by herself.
 * She dislikes crowds, coffee, hospitals and cantaloupe.
 * Her favorite anime include Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Made in Abyss and Dr. Stone.
 * In a 2022 interview with Crunchyroll, Calli listed her top ten anime as: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Made in Abyss, Baki, Psycho-Pass, Dr. STONE, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, One Piece, Kaiji: The Ultimate Survivor, and Higurashi: When They Cry.
 * Her favorite games include games from FromSoftware, Ghost of Tsushima, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, weird RPG maker games, and platformers (preferring side-scrollers).
 * Her goals and dreams include becoming a great track maker and mixer, collaborating with other VTubers and people, supporting her fellow first gen members, becoming an expert in Japanese, writing and performing an anime or video game opening song, and writing a full album.

Miscellaneous

 * Calli's birthday on 4 April (4/4) references that the fact that in Japanese the number 4「四」 is a homonym for the word for death,「死」. Both are pronounced "shi."
 * While many Japanese hololive members have a special pronoun for themselves (for example, Minato Aqua says "ateshi," Nakiri Ayame says "yo," and Sakura Miko refers to herself in the third person), Calli is the only holoEN member who does something close to the English equivalent, sometimes referring to herself as "your boy."
 * Calli's personal emoji was originally considered by Uruha Rushia as one her possible emojis.
 * Because of her airheaded nature, she has a bad habit of not knowing how to keep her mouth shut when she needs to, thus causing misunderstandings. For example:
 * She said she liked short guys because she wanted to make short people feel included as well as people with beards. This lead to her audience to think she has a fetish for short people and beards which she tried backpedaling on.
 * When asked about her cup size, she tried finding ways to avoid saying before using Shirogane Noel's "Knight Cup" idea for reference, not realizing it to be an innuendo on K-cup bras. This has lead to her saying she is "Grim Reaper" Cup, which immediately backfired on her as everyone started to assume she's a D-cup, G-cup or even as extreme as an R-cup.
 * Calliope was the first member of hololive English to debut.
 * In addition to English, she can speak Japanese, although she is still learning and actively taking classes.
 * Her debut stream experienced some lag. She claimed it was because of the bad internet connection in the Underworld.
 * She is the first hololive EN member and seventh hololive member overall to join official hololive Subreddit as a moderator.
 * She has a habit of randomly making comical gasping noises that sound like "guh," usually after taking a drink.
 * During her second live stream, Kiara revealed her crush on Calliope, much to Calliope's annoyance. This has to do with the fact that Kiara is immortal, so no matter how many times Calliope would kill her, she'd always revive. This has resulted in a long-standing running gag between the two, which eventually became the ship "TakaMori."
 * Her EP "Dead Beats" became the number one album worldwide on iTunes on 22 October 2020. This gave a lot of media attention to VTubers during a few days.
 * Calliope made a guest appearance on the 23rd podcast video of Trash Taste, a podcast channel that consists of three Anitubers (Gigguk, CDawgVA, and The Anime Man). Among other things, she revealed that she is a big fan of MoistCr1TiKaL (penguinz0 on YouTube) and has expressed her desire to collab with him. She has also considered working with The Anime Man on rap.
 * Calliope's tweet about the Just Chatting stream after the new model announcement accidentally leaked the look of the new model due to it being scheduled before the actual reveal, which prompted an amusing remark from Amelia.
 * In announcing that she would run a World of Darkness RPG for hololive English, Calli noted that it had been several millennia since she had last run a tabletop RPG. This suggests both that Calli has a much better memory of the distant past than Kiara, and that the hobby of roleplaying games is several thousand years older than previously understood.
 * On 3 May 2021, the hashtag #CalliDrip became trending on Twitter worldwide when she debuted her second 2D costume.

Media

 * Mori Calliope Ch. hololive-EN - YouTube channel
 * Mori Calliope's corporate profile on hololive.hololivepro.com
 * @moricalliope - Twitter account
 * @calliope_info - Information Twitter account
 * /u/calliopemori - Reddit account
 * MoriCalliope - SoundCloud account
 * @moricalliope_hololiveen - TikTok account
 * Mori Calliope - International Online Shop

Twitter hashtags

 * #calliolive - Stream talk (English)
 * #カリオライブ - Stream talk (Japanese)
 * #deadbeats - Fans (English)
 * #デッドビーツ - Fans (Japanese)
 * #callillust - Fan art (English)
 * #カリイラスト - Fan art (Japanese)
 * #callioP - Music
 * #calliomeme - Memes (English)
 * #カリオミーム - Memes (Japanese)

Further readings

 * 森カリオペ - Nicovideo Encyclopedia
 * 森カリオペ - Pixiv Encyclopedia
 * 森カリオペ - Japanese Wikipedia
 * 森美聲 - Moegirl Encyclopedia
 * 모리 칼리오페 - Namu Wiki
 * Mori Calliope - Hololive Fan Wiki