Vocatrix Novice: Hatsune Miku

Other names : Miku Hatsune (western order), 初音未来 (chinese)
Developer : Crypton Future Media
Release date : August, 31 2007 & April 30, 2010 (Append) & Spring 2012 onwards (Hatsune Miku English)
Gender : Female
Age : 16
Height : 158 cm (5'2")
Weight : 42 kg (92.4 lbs)
Optimum genre : Pop idol, pop dance
Optimum tempo : 70 ~ 150 BPM
Optimum range : A # 3 ~ E # 5
Voice provider : Saki Fujita
Illustrator : KEI (Standard\2007) & Masaki Asai (Append\2010)
Character Item : Spring onion
Product Code : 29880 & 33030
Reduced Number : CV01 & CV01A
JAN Code : 4511820072413 & 4511820077135
Operating system : Windows XP / Vista / 7
Available in : Japanese
Type : Musical Synthesizer Application, Japanese Vocaloid (English version)
License : Proprietary
Affiliation : YAMAHA

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is a singing synthesizer application with a female persona, developed by Crypton Future Media. It uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 synthesizing technology. The name of the character comes from a fusion of the Japanese for first (初 hatsu), sound (音 ne) and future (Miku (ミク) sounds like a nanori reading of future, 未来, normally read as "mirai"), referring to her position as the first of Crypton's "Character Vocal Series". She was the second Vocaloid to be sold using the Vocaloid 2 engine and the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine. Her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress, Saki Fujita. Hatsune Miku has performed onstage as a projection.

1. Development

After acquiring the Vocaloid 2 speech synthesis engine from Yamaha, Crypton Future Media began to develop their third Vocaloid. Miku Hatsune's voice was created by taking vocal samples from the voice actress Saki Fujita at a controlled pitch and tone. These different samples all contained a single Japanese phonic which when strung together would create full words and eventually phrases. The pitch of the samples was to be altered by the synthesizer engine itself and was constructed into a keyboard style instrument within the Vocaloid 2 program.

Crypton released the first of their "Character Vocal Series", Hatsune Miku, on August 31, 2007. Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "An android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost."

Marketing

Though developed by Yamaha, the marketing of each Vocaloid is left to the respective studios. Yamaha themselves do maintain a degree of promotional efforts in the actual Vocaloid software, as seen when the humanoid robot model HRP-4C was set up to react to three Vocaloids—Hatsune Miku, Megpoid and Crypton's noncommercial Vocaloid software "CV-4Cβ"—as part of promotions for both Yamaha and HRP-4C at CEATEC in 2009. Japanese magazines such as DTM magazine are responsible for the promotion and introduction for many of the Japanese Vocaloids to Japanese Vocaloid fans. It has featured Vocaloids such as Miku, Kagamine Rin and Len, and Lily, printing some of the sketches by artist Kei and reporting the latest news on the Vocaloids.

Crypton has been involved with the marketing of their Character Vocal Series, particularly Hatsune Miku, which has been actively involved in the GT300 class of the Super GT since 2008 with the support of Good Smile Racing (a branch of Good Smile Company, mainly in charge of car-related products, especially itasha (cars featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) stickers. Although Good Smile Company was not the first to bring the anime and manga culture to Super GT, it departs from others by featuring itasha directly rather than colorings onto vehicles.

The Hatsune Miku Studie Glad BMW Z4 competed in the 2008 Super GT season

Since the 2008 season, three different teams received their sponsorship under Good Smile Racing, and turned their cars to Vocaloid-related artwork:

Studie, which participated in the 2008 and 2009 seasons using a BMW Z4 E86. Their car was painted in official Hatsune Miku art, and fan-derivative versions of Hatsune Miku in some races in the 2009 season.
Team COX, participating in the 2010 season, which uses a Porsche 996 GT3 RSR (and will use a Porsche 997 GT3-R). Their car uses Racing Miku (an official Hatsune Miku derivative, wearing an orange race queen suit) as their image.

As well as involvements with the GT series, Crypton also established the website Piapro. Crypton has also started to star Miku in Toyota Corolla commercials.

Sales

The initial sales of Hatsune Miku were so high that Crypton could not keep up with the demand. In the first 12 days of sale, nearly 3,000 sales reservations were made. This was around one sale in 250 in the music software industry, quoted as "an impossible number" by Wataru Sasaki—the person in charge of the planning and production company 'surprise'. Amazon.co.jp stated on September 12, 2007 that they had sales of Hatsune Miku totaling 57,500,001 yen, making her the number one selling software of that time.

Additional software

On April 30, 2010, an updated version of Miku called Hatsune Miku Append was released containing a package of six different tones of Miku's voice: Soft (gentle, delicate voice), Sweet (young, chibi voice), Dark (mature, heartbroken-like voice), Vivid (bright, cheerful voice), Solid (loud, clear voice), and Light (innocent, heavenly voice). Miku Append was created to expand Miku's voice library and as such requires the original Miku Hatsune program to be installed on the user's computer first. This was the first time a Vocaloid had such a release, and more Append versions were reported from Crypton Future Media at later dates.

To aid in the production of 3D animations, the program MikuMikuDance was developed as an independent program. The freeware software allowed a boom in fan-made and derivative characters to be developed, as well as acted as a boost for the promoting of the Vocaloid songs themselves. Another Vocaloid tool that was developed was VocaListener, a software package that allows for realistic Vocaloid songs to be produced.

2. Characteristics

During Miku's development Crypton Future Media decided to take a different approach to that used by the other Vocaloid sound bank publishers. It was decided that to make the product successful not only would a highly appealing voice need to be developed but that voice needed an image. In this way the target focus for Crypton's Vocaloids changed from high end music studios to the general public, specifically teenagers. The task of coming up with Miku's image went to the manga artist Kei Garō. When Kei designed Miku, his only direction was that she was an android and what her color scheme (based on Yamaha's synthesizer's signature cyan color) was. The design on Miku's skirt and boots are based on synthesizer software colors and the bars represent the actual bars within the program's user interface. Miku was originally intended to have a different hairstyle, but Kei stuck to pigtails after trying them out. Crypton then officially created and posted Miku's personal data sheet. However this only contained her 'physical' and technical traits, Crypton did not provide much info in the way of Miku's personality which has allowed song/music video creators and fans to associate the traits that they think suit her best.

Cultural impact

Nico Nico Douga, a Japanese website very similar to YouTube, played a fundamental role in the recognition and popularity of the software. Soon after the release of Miku, users of Nico Nico Douga started posting videos with songs created using her sound bank. According to Crypton, a popular video with "Hachune Miku", a super deformed Miku, holding a leek and singing "Ievan Polkka" (which led to Miku also being commonly associated with leeks/spring onions), presented the varied potential of applying the software in multimedia content creation. As the recognition and popularity of Miku grew, Nico Nico Douga became a place for collaborative content creation. Popular original songs written by a user would inspire illustrations, animations in 2D and 3D, and remixes by other users. Some creators would show their unfinished work and ask for ideas.

In September 2009, three figurines based on the derivative character "Hachune Miku" were launched in a rocket from the United States state of Nevada's Black Rock Desert, though it did not reach outer space. In late November 2009, a petition was launched in order to get a custom made Hatsune Miku aluminum plate (8 cm x 12 cm, 3.1" x 4.7") made that would be used as a balancing weight for the Japanese Venus spacecraft explorer Akatsuki. Started by Hatsune Miku fan Sumio Morioka (also known as "chodenzi-P"), this project has received the backing of Dr. Seiichi Sakamoto of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. On December 22, 2009, the petition exceeded the needed 10,000 signatures necessary to have the plates made. An original deadline of December 20, 2009 had been set to send in the petition, but due to a couple of delays in the Akatsuki project, a new deadline of January 6, 2010 was set; by this deadline, over 14,000 signatures had been received. On May 21, 2010 at 06:58:22 (JST), Akatsuki was launched, having three plates depicting Hatsune Miku and Hachune Miku in several monochrome images, composed of the miniature letters of the messages from the petition form etched in the plates. The UK 59th issue of the music and fashion magazine Clash featured Hatsune Miku as their cover star (using a real-life photo model), with a full feature on her.

The Vocaloid software has also had a great influence on the character Black Rock Shooter, who looks like Hatsune Miku but is not linked to her by design. The character was made famous by the song "Black Rock Shooter", and a number of figurines have been made. An original video animation made by Ordet has been streamed for free as part of a promotional campaign running from June 25 to August 31, 2010.

Appearances in other media

Miku's popularity has seen various references to her in anime. Miku is the protagonist of a manga series named Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix written by her graphical designer Kei Garō. The manga explores the many possiblities of story telling and has featured numerous adventures ranging from giant-sized battles with Hachune Miku to home exploits. There is therefore no single storyline and the entire setting within the manga is unofficial. During an episode of Zoku Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei, Miku is seen auditioning for the voice of Meru Otonashi (Kagamine Rin and Len are referenced in the same episode). Miku's voice is used in one of the ending themes for the anime series Akikan!. In the Lucky Star OVA, Kagami Hiiragi gets magically transformed into Miku cosplay. Outside of Japan, the Ievan Polkka video starring Hachune Miku is referenced briefly by Isabella in the Phineas and Ferb episode, "Summer Belongs to You!". A character in the anime Kämpfer appears dressed as Miku in episode seven.

A series of rhythm games starting from Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA were produced by Sega under license using Hatsune Miku and other Crypton Vocaloids, as well as "fan made" Vocaloids like Akita Neru. TinierMe also made attire that looks like Miku's for their services, allowing users to make their avatar resemble her. Sega announced a new Hatsune Miku project in April 2011.

Miku's clothes also appears as a costume for a playable character in the Japanese version of PangYa and was the back-up vocal for the game's season four trailer, as a downloadable costume for Sophie in Tales of Graces and is seen during a stage in the game 13-sai no Hellowork DS. Miku's clothes also appears in Phantasy Star Portable 2 as a costume for the player's female character, as well as her hairstyle and leek-themed weapons.

3. Featured music

Toyota Corolla itasha featuring Hatsune Miku at Anime Expo 2011

One of the Vocaloid compilations, Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku, debuted at number-one on the Japanese weekly Oricon album charts dated May 31, 2010, becoming the first Vocaloid album ever to top the charts. Another album, Supercell, by the group Supercell also features a number of songs using Vocaloids. Other albums, such as 19's Sound Factory's First Sound Story and Livetune's Re:package, and Re:Mikus also feature Miku's voice. Other uses of Miku include the albums Sakura no Ame (桜ノ雨^?) by Absorb and Miku no Kanzume (みくのかんづめ^?) by OSTER-project. Kagamine Len and Rin's songs were covered by Asami Shimoda in the album Prism credited to "Kagamine Rin/Len feat. Asami Shimoda".

As a virtual idol, Hatsune Miku performed her first "live" concert during Animelo Summer Live at the Saitama Super Arena on August 22, 2009. Miku also performed her first overseas live concert on November 21, 2009, during Anime Festival Asia (AFA) in Singapore. On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled "Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day" was opened at the Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba, Tokyo. Miku performed in the United States on July 2, 2011 at the Nokia Theater at L.A. Live during the 2011 Anime Expo in Los Angeles. The concert followed the same format as the previous "39's Giving Day" concert.

A young male prototype used for the "project if..." series was used in Sound Horizon's musical work "Ido e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido", labeled as the "prologue maxi". The prototype sang alongside Miku for their music and is known only by the name "Junger März_Prototype β".

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is the first Japanese Vocaloid2 in the Vocaloid2 Character Vocal Series created by Crypton Future Media. It is considered as the most popular and well known Vocaloid and the first to become a pop idol. The name of the title and the character of the software was chosen by combining Hatsu (初, first), Ne (音, sound), and Miku (未来, future) thus meaning "the first sound from the future." The data for the voice was created by sampling the voice of Saki Fujita (藤田咲, Fujita Saki), a Japanese voice actress.

Before Miku was released, Vocaloid was not much more than an obscure program. Nico Nico Douga played a fundamental role in the recognition and popularity of the software today. Soon after its release, users of Nico Nico Douga started posting videos with songs created by the software. According to Crypton, a popular video with a comically-altered Miku holding a spring/Welsh onion, singing levan Polkka, presented multifarious possibilities of applying the software in multimedia content creation. As recognition and popularity grew, Nico Nico Douga became a place for collaborate content creation. Popular original songs written by a user would generate illustrations, animation in 2D and 3D, and remixes by other users. Other creators would show their unfinished work and ask for ideas.

The initial sales of Hatsune Miku were so high that Tokyo could not keep up with the demand. In the first 12 days of sale, nearly 3,000 sales reservations were made. This was around one sale in 250 in the music software industry, quoted as "an impossible number" by Wataru Sasaki—the person in charge of the planning and production company 'surprise'. Amazon.co.jp stated on September 12, 2007 that they had sales of Hatsune Miku totaling 57,500,001 yen, making her the number one selling software of that time. It was confirmed in her first year alone, Miku sold 40,000+ units. Later reports came that she had sold 60,000+ copies of her software, normally selling 1,000 copies of a synthesizing software was considered good business. Because of Miku's success, Crypton Future Media were able to open up their services to allow more support for their Vocaloids, including websites such as Piapro and Karen-T, concerts and merchandise. By 2009, some were referring to her as Vocaloid's first "Diva".

Her voicebank recieved numerous awards;

She was nominated for an award in the "All about" awards 2007 of which she later won this award.
Crypton Future Media picked up an BCN award in 2008 award for their productions, with their sales reaching 211% increase thanks to several products, one of which being the Hatsune Miku product.
In March 2008, Hatsune Miku won the "Digital content" AMD award.
In June she picked up the MM総研大賞2008 award.
At the DaiKon7 in August 2008, she recieved another award.
She was awarded the "Good Design award 2008".
She won the Grand Prize at the BCN AWARD 2009.

Append - the Future of Miku

Crypton's next project involving Miku started on Valentine's Day 2009. On 01/08/2009 the first two Apepnds were confirmed as "CV01-dark-ProtoTYPEβ" and "CV01-vivid-ProtoTYPEβ". Later the names of "dark(soft dark)", "soft", "vivid" and "very_small" had been confirmed.

Both the Miku product and the Append product exist and are sold separately, and the voicebanks of Miku Append are different from the voicebank the original Miku has. All the new voicebanks were voiced by Saki Fujita: Soft, Sweet, Dark, Vivid, Solid, Light. Crypton announced that this is an append disk (an addition which offers extension to computer softwares and is similar to Expansion Packs in English) and users need the original Miku to utilize Miku Append. It costs collectively slightly under the original Miku price. While they had been announced on Miku's second birthday, they were released over eight months later. The different appends are meant to capture the "moods" and were described by Cypton Future Media as "like a rainbow of colour" and had been created from vocal performance of her voice provide.

Prior to the release, demos had constantly been put on Crypton's website. These included productions by various Vocaloid producers from Nico Nico Douga. Ryo's "Black Rock Shooter" 2M mix had also been done with one of the beta voicebanks.

Despite the success of Miku herself, her Append did not sell as many units. Following the Kagamine Append release, both the Kagamine and their Append software pushed Miku's Append software into 6th place on Crypton's sales page. Though it returned to popularity soon after, the reaction to the Append has never reached the same level as her original voicebank.

Demos

vivid-β, soft-β and very small-β Demos

English Voicebank

On October 8, 2010, at the New York Comic-Con, Ito Hiroyuki (Crypton's CEO) announced that if Miku's facebook page hits 39,390 "likes", an English bank will be developed. The project was termed "Project MIKUCASH".

Miku's page has reached more than 39,390 "likes" on her Facebook page (run by Crypton staff). It has been confirmed that there will be more released on this soon. Samples have already been made and demos are said to be in the process of preparations. A Tweet from Crypton on Twitter confirms that they are not sure if English Miku will be Vocaloid2 or Vocaloid3. Early on in the English voicebank announcement, Crypton Future Media made a point across they would not make a localised version of the software if it did not meet their expectations, i.e. it did not sound cute enough.

The alpha stage of development went under review the weekend of the 19th of March 2011. By then it was still far from the beta stage, Crypton reported they would keep their fans up to date with its development and were aiming for a good qualified English voicebank. Crypton also report that they would like to do Miku English Appends in the future, however they have no specific plans right now.

On the 28 of May 2011, demos of Kaito Append Whisper and Power along with Miku English were posted on Nico Nico Douga. This voicebank was only 40% complete and there is more developement left to do, as noted by a number of native English fans her smoothness was lacking, but improvements had already been made from Luka's voicebank.

On July 2, 2011 a Beta version of Miku's English voicebank was used at the "MikuNopolis" concert in Los Angeles. It was used to enable Miku to address the audience and, with Luka, perform World's End Dancehall with English lyrics.

On Oct 16, a video was uploaded on Youtube with Miku's English Voicebank showing much improvement.

On Oct 24th, it was reported that Miku's voicebank is 70% complete and all the basic sounds had been captured.

On March 25th, 2012, a demo using Miku's English voicebank compossed by Fink was released. At this point, Crypton said they are still working on her triphones. Saki Fujita was been said to have problems pronouncing many of her triphones but the english voicebank was still progressing steadily.
[English Hatsune Miku] Tokyo x Nicofarre [Fink-Demo] Youtube Broadcast

Vocaloid 3 demo

Miku was one of the two voicebanks, the other being Sweet Ann, used to demostrate the difference between Vocaloid 2 and Vocaloid 3 during the Vocaloid 3 announcement. When Miku's Vocaloid 2 voicebank iwas shown in Vocaloid 3 during the demo, she was not restricted to just saying "My" in different key like Ann was. However, Crypton Future Media stated that at the time they have no plans to update her to Vocaloid 3.

Marketing

Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "an android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost." When KEI illustrated Miku, he was asked to draw Miku as an android and a color scheme to go off of (based on YAMAHA synthesizer's signature blue-green color). Crypton also provided KEI her detailed concepts, however, Crypton says it was not easy to explain what a "Vocaloid" was like to him, and KEI says he could not create an image of "singing computer" at first, as he did not even know what a "synthesizer" was. It took him more than a month. The digital design on Miku's skirt and boots are based off synthesizer program colours and the bars represent the actual bars within the program, following Crypton's idea. Part of her design seems to be based in Yamaha's keyboard model DX-100. Miku was originally intended to have a different hairstyle, but KEI stuck to pigtails after trying them out.

When it comes to the Corolla Miku presented in 2011, her attire is slightly different from KEI's: instead of one skirt stripe and single floating ribbons, she now has two, as was intended by the client.
In 2011, Crypton began to focus on marketing Miku to the U.S. audiences. On May 7, USAmazon placed a preview of Supercell's hit song "World is Mine" as a single. When the song finally went on sale, it came 7th in the top 10 World singles list on iTunes in its first week of sales. The entry was presented as "The World is Mine Feat. Hatsune Miku". Crypton had to consider who they were aiming the advertisements of Miku at, mostly at the web base and had to check the differences between the nationalities of Japan and the United States. Since Crypton always sold Miku as a virtual instrument in Japan, they asked their Japanese fanbase if it was acceptable for them to sell her as a virtual singer to the new market audience.

Crypton Future Media do not approve of using Miku for politics this is so far one of the biggest areas of marketing that Miku has avoided being used for.

In March 2012, the Nomura Research Institute estimated that the sales of all "Hatsune Miku" brand goods added up into the region of ¥10,000,000,000 since her release in 2007.

Manga

A manga called Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix began serialization in the Japanese manga magazine Comic Rush on November 26, 2007, published by Jive. The manga is drawn by Kei, the original character designer for Miku. A second manga called "Hachune Miku no Nichijō Roipara!" drawn by Ontama began serialization in the manga magazine Comp Ace on December 26, 2007, published by Kadokawa Shoten. Miku sometimes wears glasses in the manga, and Rin and Len call her "onee-chan"(big sister). A yonkoma webcomic made by artist Minami called Chibi Miku-san can be found on his webpage, as well as on third party sites.

Robot Miku

At CEATEC Japan 2009, Boffin, in joint with Yamaha had the robot model HRP-4C react to the Vocaloid software for demonstrational purposes. She was dressed up to look like Hatsune Miku for the demo. Miku was one of 3 voicebanks HRP-4C was set up to react to, the other two were Gumi and Crypton's CV-4Cβ.

HRP-4C as Miku

Guest Appearances

Hatsune Miku in Zoku Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei episode 13

Miku's popularity has expanded enough to have her appearance make cameos in various anime and manga, such as in Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Miku is seen in the auditions of the role of Meru Meru. In the OVA of Lucky Star, Hiiragi Kagami is forced to cosplay as Miku by the power of Konata's wand. She and Rin are in a choir featured in Maria†Holic episode 12. Miku is also seen episode 11 of the anime Baka To Test To Shoukanjuu, in the B class. A recolored Miku is also seen in episode 9 of MM! at the school festival holding a stick in the shape of a leek. In the anime Usagi Drop, in episode 6 a negi very similar to Miku's can be seen in a shopping bag. Miku also appears in Un-GO, in episode 1.

For online multiplayer games, the Japanese version of PangYa started a campaign with Hatsune Miku on May 22, 2008 in which she is included as one of the characters. Her first appearance in a video game is in 13-sai no Hellowork DS (Job Placement for the Age of 13) for the Nintendo DS where she is included as one of the characters. Miku Hatsune also stars in a video game of her own, Hatsune Miku - Project Diva on the Playstation Portable (PSP) in Japan. In Tales of Graces (Wii), she is a downloadable costume for one of the characters. In Phantasy Star Portable 2 (PSP), her hairstyle is available for female characters, and her costume as well as multiple weapons themed after negi are unlockable by inputting certain passwords.

Miku also appeared in the visual novel game Idolmaster 2 singing "The World is Mine" and "Melt". Her costume is also unlockable.

Miku also made a cameo appearance in a Weekly Jump strip.

Concerts

Miku and other Vocaloids began to appear in concerts in Japan 2009, since then she has made appearances outside of Japan. Hatsune Miku performed her first "live" concert like a virtual idol on a projection screen during Animelo Summer Live at the Saitama Super Arena on August 22, 2009. At the "MikuFes '09 (Summer)" event on August 31, 2009, her image was screened by rear projection on a mostly-transparent screen. Miku also performed her first overseas live concert on November 21, 2009, during Anime Festival Asia (AFA) in Singapore. On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled "Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day"「ミクの日感謝祭 39's Giving Day Project DIVA presents 初音ミク・ソロコンサート～こんばんは、初音ミクです。～」 was opened at the Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba, Tokyo. The tour was run as part of promotions for Sega's Hatsune Miku: Project Diva video game in March 2010. The success and possibility of these tours is owed to the popularity of Hatsune Miku and so far Crypton is the only studio to have established a world tour of their Vocaloids, which led to subsequent concerts to be premiered on March 9.

Later, the CEO of Crypton Future Media appeared in San Francisco at the start of the San Francisco tour where the first Hatsune Miku concert was hosted in North America on September 18, 2010, featuring songs provided by the Miku software voice. A second screening of the concert was on October 11, 2010 in the San Francisco Viz Cinema. A screening of the concert was also shown in New York City in the city's New York Anime Festival. Hiroyuki Ito, and planner/producer, Wataru Sasaki, who were responsible for Miku's creation, attended an event on October 8, 2010 at the festival. Videos of her performance are due to be released worldwide.

Miku's Los Angeles concert sold out on the 26th of May 2011. Not only was she the first singer to sell out but this was the only time AX, the company in charge of selling her tickets, had ever sold out. This also caused a huge fan out roar on the AX forums, as usually AX tickets did not sell out and because of the numerous spare tickets it had been possible to enter a concert for free if you turned up 10 minutes before the show. Because there were no tickets left, regulars who had expected to be able to get in for free on the day had not expected to be able to not get into the concert at all. Because demand was so high AX are currently looking to book more seats. Previously, only the first floor seats were booked as those were the seats where viewing the Vocaloid concert's hologram-like visual was most optimal. However, they had been trying to ascertain if the balcony seats would suffice and if more tickets could be sold.

On March 9, 2011, Miku's 2nd Performance, "Hatsune Miku's Live Party 2011 39's Live in Tokyo"「初音ミクライブパーティー 2011 -39’s LIVE IN TOKYO-」marked a new step in broadcasting concerts. Not only was the concert held at the same location Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba, Tokyo, it was also broadcasted into 15 others theaters within the vicinity of Japan, under the name "Hatsune Miku Live Party 2011 Live Viewing in Theater"「初音ミクライブパーティ2011 ミクパ♪ 39's ライブビューイングインシアター」. This particular concert did not use the traditional glass screen but a box screen to present Miku and the team. The same concert was to be repeated in Yamaha's Home, Sapporo Hokkaido at Zepp Sapporo under the name "Hatsune Miku's Live Party 2011 39's Live in Sapporo"「初音ミクライブパーティー 2011 -39’s LIVE IN SAPPORO-」, but was postponed due to the Great Japan Earthquake that occurred 2 days after the Tokyo Concert. It wasn't until April 27 where details of the postponed concert was given.

On July 2, 2011, Miku's first concert performance in the United States was held at the NOKIA Theatre in Los Angeles, California, during the Anime Expo 2011 event. The concert was based on the "Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day" Concert, with improvements and new songs.

On August 16 to 17, the Postponed "Hatsune Miku's Live Party 2011 39's Live in Sapporo"「初音ミクライブパーティー 2011 -39’s LIVE IN SAPPORO-」took place and was held for two days. It was held at the Sapporo Education and Culture Hall at Sapporo, Hokkaido. This concert had been redone and the transparent glass screen was once again implemented. The concert was not broadcasted on NicoNicoDouga unlike previous concerts. It was broadcasted in the same theaters that broadcasted the last concert, but it included 2 additional theaters, one from Hong Kong and one from Taiwan.

A Sequel to the Sapporo Concert took place in Singapore on November 11, 2011 at the I Love Anisong Concert. This marked her second visit to Singapore, with her performing at the 2010 I Love Anisong Concert. This was Rin, Len, and Luka's first visit, as the concert last year lacked them.
On February 10, 2012, Miku performed twice at the Snow Festival from Sapporo with a secret mini-concert that was not announced or broadcasted. This performance was the first time that she appeared singing outside.

Figurines

Hatsune Miku Pullip Doll

Miku's popularity has led to numerous figurines based on her image. Many are inspired by PVs made by fans and Vocaloid users.

For Miku's Append, a standard figurine was produced but both Figma and Nendoroid figurines have also been produced since.

A special version of Miku "Snow Miku" has also seen a number of figurines. This started out as a special seasonal Nendoroid but has since been updated to add joints and become a Pullip doll alongside Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len. After the Earthquake in Japan in 2011, both a figure and Nendroid "support" version of Miku were made with donations going to the Japanese Red Cross for every sale. Due to the popularity of the Lucky Star Kagami cosplay scene in the OVA, both a nendoroid and a figma version of the character dressed as Hatsune Miku were produced. A figurine from the "Soul of Chogokin" series of figurines made by Bandai were also produced as a special release. As a cross over, a figurine of Miku based on Fei-Yen from “Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Operation Moongate” a game made by SEGA, was also released. The release was because SEGA owned the rights to produce games based on the Crypton Future Media Vocaloids and had also previously produced other models based on Miku as part of promotions for the game "Project Diva".
Many of the figurines have been made based on the Crypton fanbase in put with a standard and DX "Love is War" figurines being released in 2011. Other releases include VN02, a figurine based on the MMD "Lat" model and "The World is Mine" to name but a few examples.

She also had a Tony Taka model. A note about this particular model though is that is that it is one of the models that could be striped down until Miku was in just her underwear as her clothes were layered, these could also be removed to leave her as a Makaizou model. However, this will damage the model in the process.

The Good Smile racing company have also produced figurines every year since 2009. These have been special releases not set for overseas shipping and can only be bought with a season ticket. She also had a couple of figurines amongst the Prize Fair figurines in September 2011. She also has had several resin kits made for her. In December 2010, Brindle made two such kits. During the Winter Wonderfest 2011, a White Miku figurine was produced by Polygonia. In the Summer Wonderfest 2011, Replyfrom made a non-scale resin kit for Miku and Polygonia made a 1/7 scale model. Honeycomb also produced an Append Miku figurine at the 2011 Winter event earlier that year and the model was tweaked and reissued for the summer event. During the May 2011 Treasure-Festa, an Append non-scale kit was produced by Ambivalent.

Unfortantely, her popularity has led to a number of bootleg goods being produced, particularly towards Nendoroid and Figma models.

For more Figurines see Template:Nav Figurines

Toyota Big Air

Hatsune Miku's image during the Toyota Big Air event

For the 2012 Toyota Big Air,, Hatsune Miku will be used as part of the sponsor of the event. 3,000 more sets of limited-edition "Toyota Big Air x Hatsune Miku" tickets will be sold in advance at major subway stations starting on January 10. The first 1,000 people who present their ticket stubs at the event site on February 12 will receive a "Toyota Big Air x Hatsune Miku" original collaboration sticker. The event is also held in Sapporo.

Cosplay Mania Cameo

Cosplay Mania , a cosplay festival in the Philippines, is the first known appearance of Hatsune Miku in the Philippines that was officially sanctioned by Crypton Future Media, apart from Singapore. This was first announced in Hatsune Miku's Facebook page controlled by Karen-T. Her appearance will only be in the form of the said sticker.

LincEnglish

LincEnglish is currently collaborating to make use of Megurine Luka and Hatsune Miku's abilities to do English and thier voicebanks will be used to teach Japanese kids "English". The lessons are "comming [sic] soon" according to the advertisment.

Google Chrome

The Japanese version of google chrome also has done a advertisement campaign to do with Hatsune Miku. The chrome advertisement on Youtube beat similar Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga ads, gaining 500,000+ views in its first 3 days, although the difference was that the view counts of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga ads came from mostly Japan alone while the Hatsune Miku ad views came from across the world.

Coca-Cola

A promotion for Hatsune Miku with Coca-Cola was introduced. The promotion featured a competition where those entering were challeneged to depict Miku in Coca-Cola's colors.
The wining entry was announced on the 5th of April 2012.

Music Girl

Hatsune Miku is being released for the "Music Girl" iPhone app, this is made by the same team who made Project Diva. It is due out Spring 2012 in Japan and the models seen in the video advertisement are made by Marza who had organized the MikuPa concerts.

Playstation Vita Limited Edition

A limited edition Hatsune Miku Playstation Vita handheld was revealed in May 2012 in assiocation with SEGA and Crypton Future Media. The limited edition was made as part of promotions for the next Project Diva game.

Voicebank Libraries

Comparison between the Vocaloid and voice provider
Hatsune Miku has songs in the Nico Nico Douga Hall of Fame
Book on how to use Hatsune Miku & Kagamien Rin/Len

Vocaloid 2

Hatsune Miku (CV01)

Hatsune Miku (CV01)

Biographical information
Development status	Unsupported as of Vocaloid 3
Operating system	Windows 32-bit operating systems (XP, Vista)
Languages
License	Proprietary
Website	Homepage
Technical information
Optimum tempo	70 ~ 150 BPM
Optimum range	A#3 ~ E#5
Optimum genre	Pop idol, pop dance

The Vocal Character series were designed to be a set of vocals with particular characteristics about them; her voice allows for manipulation in a variety of ways while maintaining a cute sounding voice as a result of this approach. In 2009 she was also offered alongside the Sonar8 software package.

Strengths

Her strength lies in her ability to climb up high into the octaves while maintaining a strong mid-tone range without loosing her cute sounding vocal tone. Within the Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks, only Prima matches the same high notes that Miku can achieve, while both tie on being able to hit the highest optimum note of any Vocaloid 2 voicebank library at #E5. She can also reach high notes that very few singers can reach. Some users say that Miku, comparatively with other other Vocaloids, has strong attack and marked consonants

She was balanced more in favour for less experienced Vocaloid users and her difficulty against her singing results were favourable, even against higher quality Vocaloids released from 2008 onwards. Most notably, no other Japanese voicebank was able to produce the same balanced level of results until 2010. Her voicebank library was the most common bought by new Japanese users wanting to learn how to use Vocaloid as well as the most used overall. Users who could not use Miku, often did not buy another Vocaloid. She is still held in a high standard over several newer Vocaloids released after her during the Vocaloid 2 era.

Weaknessses

In terms of realism, Miku's results are not that realistic in comparison to Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks that followed her, the focus of her voicebank remains entirely on its vocal performance rather then its singing results. As the Vocaloid 2 releases continued and improvements were made to the basic levels of quality, Miku became one of the more dated voicebanks for Vocaloid 2 and is now considered not as smooth as later Vocaloids. She is either choppy or slurry on many of her vowel sounds and results from other sounds may produce mixed results. these issues are caused by her lack of vowel related sounds.

Hatsune Miku (CV01); Append

Hatsune Miku (CV01); Append

Biographical information
Development status	Unsupported as of Vocaloid 3
Operating system	Windows 32-bit operating systems (XP, Vista)
Type	Expansion pack
Languages
License	Proprietary
Website	Homepage
Technical information
Voicebanks available	SWEET, DARK, SOFT, LIGHT, VIVID, SOLID

The Append voicebanks exist side by side with the original voicebank, giving Miku a total of 7 possible voicebanks to choose from for users with both plug-ins.They require the original Hatsune Miku software to function and are designed to expand the possible methods of applying Miku's voice, expanding the possible usage of Hatsune Miku. They are a higher quality voicebank then her original and for older Hatsune Miku users will also act as a method of updating the Vocaloid 2 engine to a newer version, which was only possible during the Vocaloid 2 era by buying a more updated voicebank. Each voicebank has its own strengths and weakness.

Hatsune Miku Append;SWEET

Optimum genre: French Pop, Ballad, Electronica
Optimum tempo:
Optimum range: A # 3 ~ E # 5

Hatsune Miku Append;SWEET
Optimum Genre	French Pop, Ballad, Electronica
Optimum Tempo	55 ~ 155BPM
Optimum Range	F 3 ~ D5

Strengths

This vocal is a cute, higher-pitched whisper voice. It is good at slow songs.

Weaknessses

This vocal is the quietest of the six Miku Append voicebanks, and sounds the least like the original Miku.

Hatsune Miku Append;Dark

Optimum genre: Ballad, Jazz, Folk, Ambient
Optimum tempo:
Optimum range: A # 3 ~ E # 5

Hatsune Miku Append;DARK
Optimum Genre	Ballad, Jazz, Folk, Ambient
Optimum Tempo	60 ~ 145BPM
Optimum Range	D3 ~ B4

Strengths

Her Dark voicebank sounds more mature and broken-hearted than her regular voicebanks. This voicebank more closely resembles Saki Fujita than any other Miku's voicebank.

Weaknessses

The vocal sounds quiet and can often sound flat.

Hatsune Miku Append;SOFT

Optimum genre: Soft Rock, Ballad, Folk, Ambient
Optimum tempo:
Optimum range: A # 3 ~ E # 5

Hatsune Miku Append;SOFT
Optimum Genre	Soft Rock, Ballad, Folk, Ambient
Optimum Tempo	70 ~ 150BPM
Optimum Range	A3 ~ E5

Strengths

The soft vocals make this voicebank optimal for backing vocals and long notes. This vocal is also the closest one to the original Hatsune Miku vocal in terms of optimum performance having both the same optimum tempo and range.

Weaknessses

The softness of the vocals make this voicebank weak in terms of vocal range and clarity.

Hatsune Miku Append;LIGHT

Optimum genre: Pop, Rock, Dance, Techno Pop
Optimum tempo:
Optimum range: A # 3 ~ E # 5

Hatsune Miku Append;LIGHT
Optimum Genre	Pop, Rock, Dance, Techno Pop
Optimum Tempo	85 ~ 175BPM
Optimum Range	A3 ~ D5

Strengths

This voicebank is cute sounding and has a sense of happiness to it.

Weaknessses

This voicebank has much similarity to Miku's VIVID Append, and it can be difficult to distinguish between them.

Hatsune Miku Append;VIVID

Optimum genre: Pop, Techno Pop, Trad
Optimum tempo:
Optimum range: A # 3 ~ E # 5

Hatsune Miku Append;VIVID
Optimum Genre	Pop, Techno Pop, Trad
Optimum Tempo	95 ~ 180BPM
Optimum Range	G3 ~ D5

Strengths

Miku's VIVID voicebank is the second closest one to Miku's original voicebank after her SOFT voicebank.

Weaknessses

It can be difficult to distinguish this voicebank from Miku's LIGHT Append.

Hatsune Miku Append;SOLID

Optimum genre: Pop, Rock, Dance, Electro
Optimum tempo:
Optimum range: A # 3 ~ E # 5

Hatsune Miku Append;SOLID
Optimum Genre	Pop, Rock, Dance, Electro
Optimum Tempo	65 ~ 160BPM
Optimum Range	D3 ~ C5

Strengths

This voicebank sounds strong and powerful. It is good for Rock songs. The clarity of this voicebank is excellent compared to the other appends.

Weaknessses

Because of its loud tone, SOLID can overpower other vocals in a song.

Demo Version

In December 2009, demo software versions of "soft" and "dark" were released. They did not allow VSQ saving, but did allow .wav rendering, which led to a stream of videos released on Nico Nico Douga.

Vocaloid 3

Hatsune Miku English

Biographical information
Development status	In developement
Operating system	Windows 7
Languages
License	Proprietary
Technical information
Optimum tempo	???
Optimum range	???
Optimum genre	???

Strengths

Hatsune Miku English will allow users to use the software in English. Previously, the only way to make Miku sing in English was to edit the Japanese Phonetics with low quality results. Like her Japanese voicebank, the same prinicple of focusing the voicebank on being cute have been applied. She will be an improvement over Megurine Luka's Vocaloid 2 English voicebank library capablities and will have a standard level of of English as a result of it.

Weakness

The tone is more vivid then the original, this is a common occurance with vocals that cross into other languages.Like with her Japanese vocal, the focus on her vocal being cute renders her a unrealistic sounding singer.

V3 Hatsune Miku (CV01)

Biographical information
Development status	In developement
Operating system	Windows 7
Languages
License	Proprietary

The updated version of Hatsune Miku .

V3 Hatsune Miku (CV01); Append

Biographical information
Development status	In developement
Operating system	Windows 7
Languages
License	Proprietary
Technical information
Voicebanks available	DARK, SOFT (confirmed so far, others to come)

The updated version of Hatsune Miku Append.

Notable Miku Songs

Main article: Songs featuring Hatsune Miku

Main article: Songs featuring Hatsune Miku/Million

Main article: Youtube List/Hatsune Miku Songs

Popularity

Crypton's top ten list showing Miku at the top; taken 12/10/2011

Miku has remained the fan favourite amongst the Japanese fandom, having the strongest following and usage even after the release of much better Vocaloids for her era. Her popularity was so high that when GazettE’s Aoi made a negative comment on her through twitter, he was imediately met with outraged fans and was forced to retract some of his comments after trying out the software for himself. Indeed most of the more popular songs for Vocaloid are sung by Miku and she has more hit songs on Nico Nico Douga than any other Vocaloid. Merchandise for Miku is plenty and often sells well due to her popularity and by 2009, most of the merchandise released for Vocaloid was of Miku. All of Crypton Future Media's promotions also centred on Miku's image. As she is the most popular Vocaloid and the most commonly used, she is the most associated with the software and is regarded as the first true "Vocaloid Diva Star".

Hatsune Miku's popularity had major impact on the developement of other Crypton Future Media voicebanks. Because of the high demand for her voicebank and character image, Crypton were caught up by the overwhelming popularity and demand for her vocal and character image. This caused delays to other Vocaloid 2 projects, including the release of a additonal Character Vocal series characer known simply by his Character Vocal code "CV04". However, how much impact her popularity has had on other Vocaloid voicebanks is unknown and Crypton Future Media has many delayed voicebanks that were originally set for a Vocaloid 2 release.

An independant Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 2011. Miku, however had managed to gain 9904 uploads to the site during this period making her the no.1 Video submission for Vocaloid related videos. She also had the highest number of total views during this period with 23847081 views and 1943303 mylists. However, Miku was put in 3rd place on average number of views per video with 2407.82 views per video (and 196.21 mylists). However, a comment led by the report noted that due to the populairty of the most famous Producers, it was much harder to conduct the report. When the mean number was conducted, which was a more accurate report of the Vocaloids during this period, Miku did not even make it into the top 6 Vocaloids despite having consistant no.1s throughout this period.

Her design has also influenced the Vocaloid mascot designs of other companies, creating the "Miku formula" that divides fans opinions on character design. Her design has also spawned many producer based derivatives. She is the most common Vocaloid to recieve derivatives due to the popularity of her voicebank and heavy promotions by Crypton Future Media.

In 2012, a poll was held for the London Olympic Games 2012 which asked people which singer or group they would like to see at the Olympics. Miku reached the no.1 spot, beating popular singers such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. The poll was not offical and was done for popularity reasons.

Those against Vocaloid or skeptical on it cite Hatsune Miku's vocal as a reason for their feelings against Vocaloid. A common negative reaction towards her centers on her high pitched vocals, labelling her as sounding like a "chipmunk", as it is not normal for a singer to be able to reach easily. In turn this can led to incorrect presumptions on the software itself and a common sterotype of Voclaoid is that all Vocals are as high pitched as Miku herself. However, most Vocaloids do not reach Miku's notes and the only Vocaloid capable of reaching her same notes during the Vocaloid 2 era was Prima, who does not have the same vocal pitching or vocal type as Miku. So for those who are not impressed by Miku, she can often end up being the source of anti-Vocaloid opinions.

Crypton's top ten list 12/10/2011; showing the Miku Append in 6th place

Miku's Append was not as well received as her original voicebank, though it managed to stay in the top ten products from Crypton Future Media. It may also disappear from the list entirely from time to time.

Trivia

Because she is the first Vocaloid many get to know and the first to draw a large amount of attention, a number of mistakes have become commonly spoken;
- Miku is often mistaken as the very first Vocaloid ever produced by those new or unfamiliar to the software's history, or the first Vocaloid 2 released. While she was the first Vocaloid 2 to be released for the Japanese market, it was PowerFX's Sweet Ann who claimed the place as the first Vocaloid 2 to be released, she was released 2 months prior to Miku. When Miku became more known in 2010, the media also incorrectly labelled her as this as well. On more than one occasion Crypton Future Media have labelled her as the first, though this is likely an error as they usually introduce her as "the first of the character vocal series".
- Since 2010, Miku has won the classification of "Virtual Diva" and has become a pop star in her own right. However, some reports mislabel her as "the first virtual star" when other "virtual stars" have been released prior to her existence as early as the mid-1990s, although these "stars" never rose to the level of popularity Miku has reached.
- Miku is also not the first Vocaloid to debut in America as Zero-G's Vocaloids were already on sale before her. However, all previous Vocaloids failed to make an impact in America.
- Miku is also not the first to have an avatar, the first was Sweet Ann who was based on "the bride of Frankenstein", though Miku was the first to have a profile and expand on the concept of an avatar. Leon and Lola did not feature a character on their boxart, Miriam had a blurred photo of Miriam Stockley. Though Kaito and Meiko had characters on their boxart, they were not originally meant to represent their vocals.
- She was also not the first to feature in a "live" concert, Miriam had the first in 2004. However, Miku was the first to actually feature herself "live" in the concert whereas Miriam's concert featured just her vocal.

Sound Horizon, a popular band that uses music to tell stories, used Miku Hatsune in their third single "Ido e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido" and its corresponding album, "Marchen". Saki Fujita, the seiyuu that provided her voice, also does narrations.

In Sega's game "Vocaloid Project Diva: Dreamy Theater", for the Playstation 3, Hatsune Miku can gain access to a costume based off Sega's very own Ulala from Space Channel 5, an older dancing game from Sega. She gains Ulala's trademark white Space Channel 5 Uniform, and her hair and eyes change to Ulala's hair and eye colors. In addition, her outfit and trademark negi make an appearance as obtainable and equippable items in Sega's RPG series Phantasy Star Zero, Phantasy Star Portable 2 and it's update Phantasy Star Portable 2: Infinity contains the same items and more, as well as items for Crypton's other Vocaloids.

With a total of 7 voicebanks made and at least one on the way, Hatsune Miku is the vocaloid chracter with the most voicebanks to her name and is currently only beaten in number of total voicebanks by the Kagamine software releases.

Since the trial version had enough vocal capabilities to function as a normal Vocaloid, hackers were reported to have found out how to turned off the limit of 30 days for her 30 day trial versions.

The thin squares around her pigtails are futuristic ribbons made of a special material that float in place. As seen in Kei's art for Miku, they are able to hold Miku's pigtails in place without having to physically touch the hair itself. The ribbons are also reported by Kei to be the hardest item on the character's design for cosplayers to recreate.

The singer Kerli has made several references to Miku in her videos. In the most direct reference, Miku's music was used as the background music in a video for the making of a prop for one of her videos. In "Tea Party", a twin pigtailed doll is seen. In "Army of Love", a megaphone is used by the singer, a reference to "Love is War". In 2011, the singer also dyed her hair the same color as Miku's hair and even wore it in long pigtails.

Due to her iconic long twin-tails, her close physical similarities and her specialization of music, Sona from League of Legends is seen as a tribute to Hatsune Miku. This is not the only time the game made tribute characters; Lux was also seen as a tribute to Touhou heroine Marisa Kirisame, down to her magical abilities and even catchphrase.

After an Internet Meme involving Hachune Miku, Miku was assoicated with a spring onion (often mistaken for a leek due to the similair appearance). This along with Kaito's discovery started a habbit called "the Item War" where it became traditional for new Vocaloids to have an item assigned to them and the items were debated on until one stuck via a Internet Meme.

Gallery