In the service of digging into what the Dodgers might be doing to entrench themselves as Japan’s favorite major league team, I am interviewing an animated character.

“I’m a shark-girl from the lost city of Atlantis,” Gawr Gura tells me. “I swam to the surface to hang out with you guys on land about 9,000 years ago.”

Tell me more.

“I’ve been told I have a heart of gold and a head of bone,” she says. “I have a long history of saying and doing ridiculous things on the internet.”

This is the part where I tell you that Gura — she said I could just call her Gura — will be shouting out the traditional “It’s Time for Dodger Baseball!” exclamation at Dodger Stadium on Friday.

Except, of course, that she won’t be there.

She can’t be there. She’ll be displayed on a screen, where younger generations spend most of their lives. She is what is called a virtual YouTuber, or VTuber.

“You stream online, but you don’t stream with your actual face. You stream with virtual avatars,” said Max Kim, the U.S. sales and licensing director for Cover, the Japanese company that controls 85 such avatars, including Gura, that combine for more than 82 million worldwide subscribers on YouTube.

Gura is the most popular VTuber in the world. Her YouTube channel has 4.5 million subscribers. That is more followers than the Dodgers have on YouTube and Instagram, combined. (On the social media platform X, the Dodgers outscore her, 2.8 million to 1.9 million.)

Just the announcement of Friday’s promotion, featuring Gura and two of her fellow avatars, generated 3.4 million views on X.

The trading card sets that will be distributed Friday already are on sale for as much as $125 on eBay. The promotional T-shirt with Gura in a Dodgers uniform — with her shark tail sticking out — are on sale there for as much as $195.

For Cover — and its signature Hololive brand — the Dodgers’ promotion is one step in a campaign to broaden the appeal of VTubers beyond the fervent core of Japanese young men. Of the viewers of Gura’s YouTube Channel, half are 24 or younger, and nine in 10 are male.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is 25. The Hololive avatars have appeared in promotions for Japan’s Pacific League, in which Yamamoto played from 2017-2023.

I showed him a picture of Gura and asked if he recognized her. He said he did not.

“Our goal is to make sure that people know what VTubing is,” Kim said.

“Ten years ago, the whole concept of streaming was pretty strange. It was not really existing. Now we accept that as a normal means of communication and entertainment. We want the same for VTubing as well.”

That makes Cover no different than dozens of other companies signing up as a Dodgers sponsor to get their message out to a large, mainstream audience. Cover is opening an office in Los Angeles this month, its avatars are virtually appearing at an anime expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend, and it hopes its collaboration with the Dodgers can be just as useful as previous ones with Taco Bell and Red Bull.

Kim said his company would have pursued the collaboration with the Dodgers even if the team had not signed Shohei Ohtani.

“We have our interest: to expand in the U.S. market,” Kim said. “They have their interests. I’m pretty sure the Dodgers will have their own thoughts behind this collaboration.”

They declined to share them. Jon Weisman, the team’s vice president of communications, said the Dodgers did not wish to participate in this story.

In December, when the Dodgers introduced Ohtani, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said this: “One of our goals is to have baseball fans in Japan convert to Dodger blue.”

Is it possible the Dodgers could win new fans in Japan by tapping into an activity which is wildly popular among Japanese teens who just might be looking for a team to follow, even if they might not know it yet?

“The Dodgers and Hololive have distinct fan bases,” said the chief executive of Cover, Motoaki Tanigo. “It’s the diversity of our fan bases that allows us to blend and connect our followers into a unified community, which is the essence of this collaboration.”

For one night, anyway, that collaboration will involve a virtual girl with shark teeth. I asked Gura if she could play baseball.

“I can play ball,” she said. “I got bad hand-eye coordination, I’m not very fast, and my joints might give out by the third inning, but I can cheer and scream for my team like no other!”

So, virtually, it’s time for Dodger baseball!

Nestor Lorenzo often has a neat way of summing things up. Asked about the enigmatic James Rodriguez before a crunch match with Brazil on Tuesday, Colombia’s smooth-talking coach delivered once again.

“Now he runs a little less, but he thinks a little more. It’s good for him. He’s well surrounded, and that’s what’s making him play well.”

Already, after just three games at the 2024 Copa America, the 32-year-old Rodriguez has created 11 chances for team-mates — more than any other player in the tournament — and laid on three assists. If it wasn’t for the merciless line-drawing of the video assistant referee (VAR) halfway through a thrilling first half against Brazil in Santa Clara, California, last night, he would have made it four.

“I know the love he has for the jersey, his commitment for the national team,” continued Lorenzo, “and that’s why I trusted him.”

Rodriguez’s involvement with the Colombian national team has not been assured in recent years, missing out on the 2021 Copa America squad as his club form continued to wander. Now at Brazilian side Sao Paulo, fitness and form have allowed him to play just under 700 league minutes in 12 months.

Nonetheless, Lorenzo has found a place for Rodriguez’s technical ability to breathe in a 4-3-1-2 system, pulling the strings in a positionally fluid role behind the two strikers. Hard-runners and tough-tacklers Jefferson Lerma and Richard Rios can do the dirty work in midfield, leaving the No 10 free to combine with the intelligent Jhon Arias, pick out the relentless channel runs of Luis Diaz, or look to the box for bustling centre-forward Jhon Cordoba.

With the freedom to roam into pockets of space, Rodriguez will react to the game in front of him. As we can see from the graphic below, he likes to drop into the build-up phase and collect the ball from the centre-backs, particularly against the aggressive low-blocks of Paraguay and Costa Rica, who worked hard to close down his preferred spaces in midfield during the first two group matches.

Things were more open in the 1-1 draw against Brazil, allowing him to stray into dangerous areas in the right half-space, where he did not hesitate to cut inside and find his team-mates. Once in those areas, his delivery has been consistently inch-perfect.

One of the last contributions to his lock-picking clinic against Brazil was to create the following opportunity for Cordoba from exactly that space.

With that extra thinking time mentioned by Lorenzo — created as he peels out wide to receive the pass — Rodriguez picks out a perfectly-judged cross that drops right on the six-yard line, sailing over the defenders and landing on his striker’s head.

Seven of his 11 chances created for team-mates in this tournament have come from dead-ball deliveries, and with his ability to judge the weight of his passes, it is clear to see why. Something about how Rodriguez floats the ball in — the almost leisurely way of sending it looping and spinning towards goal, leaving it hanging in the air just long enough to nail the goalkeeper to his line — makes each cross incredibly easy to attack.

For the disallowed ‘equaliser’, look how close Davinson Sanchez is to goal when he makes contact. The delivery is lofted over the defensive line but is not too high to allow the goalkeeper to come and claim the ball.

From corners, too, Rodriguez constantly delivered the ball to the edge of the six-yard box. On this occasion, it is Cordoba again who heads over the crossbar.

Such is the quality and consistency of these crosses, that he will trot over to take any Colombia set piece, anywhere on the pitch, to a raucous reception from their fans in the crowd.

Rodriguez can switch it up too. Early in the first half against Brazil, he grazed the bar with a vicious free kick, the ball dipping and swerving as it careered over the wall.

He also sent a shot flying towards Alisson’s near post from a crossing position. Strolling up to the ball, leaning back, he suddenly closed his body and wrapped his foot around the ball, forcing the goalkeeper to scramble back and push a spinning shot over the top.

There is finesse and firepower in his left boot.

Despite what Lorenzo’s summary may suggest, Rodriguez is not low-intensity by any stretch; only Brazil defender Marquinhos had more touches last night in the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium, while the four tackles he put in could only be bettered by his team-mate Daniel Munoz.

Even if he has lost a yard of pace as he prepares to turn 33 in just over a week’s time, Rodriguez’s appetite for the national team keeps him on the move.

(Winslow Townson/Getty Images)

“He is a player that we have to mark closely,” said Brazil midfielder Bruno Guimaraes before the game, “someone will always have to keep an eye on him.”

Colombia are now 26 games unbeaten and head into their quarter-final against Panama in Glendale, Arizona, on Saturday as strong favourites to make that 27.

Rodriguez has been the beating heart of that historic streak and is offering the world one final glimpse of his galactico days at Real Madrid.

GO DEEPER

Copa America 2024 quarterfinals bracket: Full knockout stage schedule

(Top photo: Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)

Marketa Vondrousova suffered a historic loss at Wimbledon on Tuesday, becoming the first defending champion to drop in the first round since Steffi Graf did so in 1994. 

Vondrousova, 25, won her first Grand Slam at the All England Club last year when she became the first unseeded ladies single player to win at Wimbledon when she defeated Ons Jabeur in the final. 

She admitted after Tuesday’s match that she entered this year’s tournament feeling a sense of pressure. 

“I feel like everybody just expects you to win maybe, so that’s tough too. But I was happy to be back on the Centre Court. It just didn’t go as planned today.”

Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain, who is competing in just her third-ever Grand Slam tournament, ended Vondrousova’s plans of a repeat after winning their first round matchup 6-4, 6-2. 

Jessica Bouzas Maneiro reacts to defeating Marketa Vondrousova during Wimbledon at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 2, 2024, in London. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)

RUSSIAN TENNIS STAR ANDREY RUBLEV SMASHES RACQUET AGAINST KNEE SEVERAL TIMES DURING WIMBLEDON LOSS

It was Bouzas Maneiro’s first win at a tour-level grass tournament and also her first win over a top 10 ranked player. Vondrousova entered Wimbledon ranked No. 6. 

While last year’s win put Vondrousova’s name in the history books, this year’s loss did the same. She is the first player in 30 years to lose in the first round of Wimbledon after winning the tournament the year before. 

The only other player to do that was Graf. 

Marketa Vondrousova walks off the court after losing to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro at Wimbledon on July 2, 2024. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)

“It’s tough to go out defending the title,” Vondrousova said after the match, appearing to hold back tears. “I was really nervous from the morning and everything and [Bouzas Maneiro] was also playing good tennis. That’s kind of tough, you don’t have many chances to win free points.” 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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