A fishing lure modeled after Hololive VTuber Houshou Marine has gone viral after successfully hooking a real octopus, with the resulting photo drawing comparisons to centuries-old Japanese woodblock art.
The clip, titled “[Houshou Marine] Making the Captain’s Lure and Catching an Octopus! [Hololive],” was uploaded to Niconico and shared on X by Niconico representative Shigetaka Kurita (@sigekun) on July 30. It shows an angler casting a handmade lure shaped like Marine, then reeling in an octopus that wraps itself around the figure. Kurita’s post, simply captioned “Is this genius?”, quickly spread, with many replies half-jokingly countering that it was less “genius” and more “hentai” — a Japanese slang term that roughly translates to “weirdo” or “pervert,” used here as an affectionate jab at the sheer commitment behind the stunt.
Much of the reaction focused on how closely the image resembled ukiyo-e, the traditional Japanese woodblock print style. Commenters specifically invoked Edo-period master Katsushika Hokusai, joking that he was “watching from the afterlife” and would have been thrilled by the composition, since classical ukiyo-e has a long, well-known history of pairing women with octopi in dramatic poses. Others pointed out a resemblance to the music video for “DIFFERENT SENSE” by the visual-kei band Dir en grey, which similarly features a woman entangled with an octopus, while some fans argued the pairing made perfect sense for Marine specifically, since her pirate persona and octopus imagery go hand in hand.
Who is Houshou Marine?
Houshou Marine, affectionately called “Sencho” (Captain) by fans, is a VTuber under Hololive Production, the virtual talent agency operated by Cover Corp. She debuted as part of Hololive’s third generation with a pirate-themed persona and has built a large following on YouTube and Niconico for her comedic, self-aware streaming style, which frequently leans into exaggerated, cheeky humor that she is happy to poke fun at herself. That established comic persona is part of why fans found the octopus-lure stunt such a natural fit for her image rather than out of left field.
As of this report, the video continues to circulate widely on X, with users sharing screenshots comparing the catch to classical art and swapping references to other pop-culture octopus moments, including a well-known tentacle scene involving a character from the anime Madoka Magica.
Author’s Comment
Leave it to the Japanese internet to turn a man fishing with a VTuber-shaped lure into an impromptu art history seminar. I love that nobody in these replies is embarrassed — they’re out here comparing a Niconico clip to Hokusai with a completely straight face, and honestly, they’re not wrong. This is the beautiful, unbothered confidence of a fandom that has fully made peace with its own nonsense. Somewhere, an Edo-period woodblock artist is either rolling in his grave or taking notes, and I refuse to say which.
