Hatsune Miku

Miku Hatsune (初音ミク Hatsune Miku) is the first product in the Vocaloid2 Character Vocal Series created by Crypton Future Media. It is considered as the most popular and well known Vocaloid. 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.

The First Vocaloid "Diva"
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. 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 leek, 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.

On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported that she was suspected to be victim of censorship by Google and Yahoo!, since images of Miku did not show up on the image searches. Google and Yahoo denied any censorship on their part, blaming the missing images on a bug that does not only affect "Hatsune Miku" and related keywords but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible. Images of Hatsune Miku were relisted on Yahoo on October 19.

Cultural Impact Spreads
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 Danbooru(the site itself is 18+).

At CEATEC Japan 2009, Boffin, in joint with Yamaha had the robot model HRP-4C react to the Vocaloid software for demostrational 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

Miku's first appearance in an anime is in episode 5 and 13 of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei in which she (and other Vocaloids) auditioned to dub Otonashi Meru's voice. 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, Miku Hatsune - 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 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 that goes by 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 depiciting Hatsune Miku.

Miku was also the subject of one of the most controversial uses of the legal agreements of any Vocaloid producing studio was from the Democratic Party of Japan, whose running candidate, Kenzo Fujisue, attempted to secure the use of Miku's image in the Japanese House of Councillors election of July 11, 2010. The hope was that the party could use her image to appeal to younger voters. Although Crypton Future Media rejected the party's use of her image or name for political purposes, Fujisue released the song "We Are the One" using her voice on Youtube, by only replacing her image with the party's character in the music video.

Append - the Future of Miku
On April 30, 2010, Miku Append, a data library which consisted of six new Miku voicebanks, was released. 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".

The original appends planned had been "soft", "very small", "dark-prototype", "vivid", and "solid". However, "very small" was replaced with "sweet", "dark-prototype" became "dark", and "light" was added. 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. 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.

Usage
Miku has been used for a variety of songs in very different areas. Her voice is higher pitched than her predessor Meiko and her voice allows for manipulation in a variety of ways. Miku has a great amount of help within the Vocaloid fandom to make improve her usage as well as a vast array of different songs made by other Vocaloid 2 users as examples. Some songs have undergone a large amount of voice editing or use aids as such VocaListener.

As she is a Japanese Vocaloid and is not predicated on singing in English as well as any other Japanese only Vocaloids, she does not have voicebanks for English pronunciations. This is why she often has a very strong Japanese accent when she is singing in English and even an experienced "Japanese to English" user may take many hours to use her for an English song. Main article and detailed information:Phoneme List

The Append voicebanks exist side by side with the orginal voicebank, giving Miku a total of 7 possible voicebanks to choose from for users with both plug-ins.

(comparative verification of 7 voicebanks)

Trivia

 * 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.
 * Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "an android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost." When KEI designed Miku, his only direction was that Miku was an android and her colours (based on YAMAHA synthesizer's signature blue-green color). 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. Miku was orginally intended to have a different hairstyle, but KEI stuck to pigtails after trying them out
 * 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".
 * In Sega's game "Vocaloid Project Diva: Dreamy Theater", for the Playstation 3, Miku Hatsune can gain acess 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.