Usada Pekora is one of the biggest Vtubers in the world, but even she can’t withstand the might of Nintendo.
【お知らせ】ガイドライン違反を疑われるゲーム配信への対応に関するお知らせhttps://t.co/VadVl9BCec
— カバー株式会社 (@cover_corp) April 9, 2025
According to a report from Automaton, Nintendo recently contacted Cover Corporation, owner of the Vtuber talent agency Hololive Japan, over concerns Pekora may have used a hacked Pokémon Emerald cartridge during a March 29 broadcast. As modifying video game saves can be a serious crime in Japan and Nintendo’s streaming guidelines reserve the company’s right to “object to any content that we believe is unlawful,” Cover decided the best course of action would be to take down the stream archive and issue an apology on April 9.
“OK, but what the hell happened?” I can almost hear you all asking your computer screen. Let’s get into it.
The offending broadcast involved Pekora buying and investigating a bunch of used Pokémon Emerald cartridges in the hopes of finding one that contained a super rare item known as the Old Sea Map. The item, which provides access to a special area of the game wherein the player can track down and catch Mew, was distributed in 2005 at a handful of live events throughout Japan and as a gift for purchasing a ticket to the movie Lucario and the Mystery of Mew in Taiwan. During the stream, Pekora kept a running tally of the number of carts she checked, and wouldn’t you know it, the save on #22 had an Old Sea Map in its inventory.
Apologies in advance for the screaming.
Someone attended an event in Japan 2o years ago, got the Old Sea Map, for some reason never used it to acquire Mew, and Pekora was lucky enough to find this mystery person’s copy of Pokémon Emerald without having to dig through hundreds of cartridges. Pekora’s fans saw this as merely a stroke of luck, but others pointed out how odd it was all of these unlikely events managed to line up for a perfect stream moment. Her supposedly outsized good fortune, combined with some apparent irregularities in the item’s in-game text, led some viewers to believe the Old Sea Map may have been hacked into the game rather than obtained legitimately.
Pekora addressed the growing controversy on April 3. She explained the situation to viewers as a “gray zone” and announced she wasn’t going to continue her hunt for a shiny Mew, which after finding the Old Sea Map was the ultimate goal of her Pokémon Emerald streams.
“There’re suspicions that the ROM has been modified,” Pekora said in a video. “Pekora doesn’t want to do it if it’s fake, too. I won’t do it. So I put the Mew stream on pause. Who is right? I don’t know anymore. It’s honestly too suspicious so I don’t know. It will be meaningless if it’s fake. So I just won’t do it. That’s the decision I ended up with. I apologize for causing a fuss over this. I’m really sorry. I won’t be catching Mew anymore.”
In its apology letter, Cover promised to be more cautious as well as educate staff and talent to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. Neither Cover nor Nintendo have confirmed whether or not the cartridge was actually hacked.
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