Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is a Japanese VOCALOID developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media, Inc., and was initially released in August 2007 for the VOCALOID2 engine. There has since been numerous installments such as additional voice banks dubbed 'Append' as well as an upgrade to the VOCALOID3 engine which includes her long awaited English vocal release. She was the first release for Crypton's VOCALOID Character Vocal Series, the third Japanese VOCALOID, and the seventh VOCALOID to have been created overall. She is considered the most popular and well known VOCALOID and the first to become a pop idol.

Her voice is provided by the Japanese female voice actress, Saki Fujita (藤田 咲, Fujita Saki).

Concept
Crypton had the idea to release Miku as "an android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost."

Etymology
The name of the title and character for the software was chosen by combining Hatsu (初, first), Ne (音, sound), and Miku (ミク, future) thus meaning "the first sound from the future."

Appearance
When KEI illustrated Miku, he was given a color scheme to work with (based on YAHAMA synthesizers' signature blue-green colour) and asked to draw Miku as an android. Crypton also provided KEI with Miku's detailed concepts, however, Crypton said it was not easy to explain what a "Vocaloid" was to him. KEI said he could not create an image of a "singing computer" at first, as he did not even know what a "synthesizer" was. It took him more than a month to complete the commission.

Miku was originally intended to have a different hairstyle, but after trying out pigtails Kei thought them more suitable. Her pigtails have since become an iconic part of her design. On June 22, 2012, Hatsune Miku's twin tails even earned her the title of the Twin Tail which best represented the 2000s, marking her the best set of Twin Tails from the dawn of the 21st century. She now shares her twin tail distinction with other characters like Sailor Moon (who won best Twin Tails for the 90s period).

The digital design on Miku's skirt and boots is based off synthesizer program colours, and the bars represent actual bars within the program, following Crypton's ideas. Part of her design is based on some of Yamaha's keyboard models, particularly the DX-100 and the DX-7. The thin squares around her pigtails are futuristic ribbons made of a special material that floats 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.

After an internet meme involving Hachune Miku, Miku was associated with a spring onion (often mistaken for a leek due to the similar appearance). This, along with Kaito's association with ice cream, started a discussion called "the Item War" within the Vocaloid fandom, where it became traditional for new Vocaloids to have an item assigned to them and the items were debated on until one stuck via an Internet Meme. This occurrence has since died out.

VOCALOID Releases

 * Hatsune Miku has songs in the Nico Nico Douga Hall of Fame
 * Book on how to use Hatsune Miku & Kagamine Rin/Len

Examples of Usage

 * -|Hatsune Miku=
 * -|Append=
 * -|English=
 * -|V3 Append=

Marketing
Miku's initial marketing was similar to past software synthesizers and VOCALOID voicebanks, and was standard marketing for the software at her time of release. She was originally aimed only at professional producers; the amateur and Otaku market hadn't fully formed yet, and so it was not initially considered. For a variety of reasons, Miku received unexpected commercial success. Due to Miku's popularity boom, Crypton had the chance to take advantage of early technical support for Miku and several guidebooks and magazine support were released solely focused on her vocals. This type of technical coverage was even possible long after Miku's initial release and methods of adapting her vocals are the most well documented amongst the VOCALOID2 era vocals.

Since the success of her voicebank led to an expansion of marketing possibilities, most of the mass marketing has come after her initial release as a response to her popularity. Even with the addition of other Character Vocals, Miku's name continues to be used as the primary source of marketing for Crypton Future Media, to the point where most products for their VOCALOIDs will usually only feature Miku's name, despite the inclusion of other Crypton VOCALOIDs. 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. Miku's name is now the easiest of all VOCALOIDs to market. Also owed to her popularity, many vocaloid related products such as piano sheet music packs, books, and magazines carry her image on the front cover. Between Jan 28 2013 a 3 day survey was run by Tokyo Polytechnic University. During the survey (based on ages 12–38) 95% of those entering reported knowing who Hatsune Miku was, in comparison participants barely knew who Megpoid, IA or Aoki Lapis were.

Corolla Miku, presented in 2011, wears slightly different attire compared to KEI's original design: 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 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 the web fanbase) and had to check the differences between the Japanese and English fan communities. Since Crypton had always sold Miku as a virtual instrument in Japan, they asked their Japanese fan base if it was acceptable for them to sell her as a virtual singer to the new market audience. The main purpose of the Miku English version is to allow Japanese producers to break into the west and also expand their audiences.

Crypton Future Media do not approve of using Miku in politics. This is, so far, one of the biggest areas of marketing that Miku has avoided being used for. However, Hatsune Miku sung the theme song for Japanese National Election candidate Yoshikazu Tarui. Despite this, her mascot was not used; instead, a pink twin-tailed girl dubbed Android Rui replaced her.


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Popularity

 * Google Trends "Hatsune Miku"

Trivia

 * Because she is the first VOCALOID many got to know and the first to draw a large amount of attention, there are a number of common misconceptions about her:
 * Miku is often mistaken as the very first VOCALOID produced by those new or unfamiliar with the software's history, or the first VOCALOID2 released. While she was the first VOCALOID2 to be released for the Japanese market, it was PowerFX's Sweet Ann who claimed the place as the first VOCALOID2, released 2 months prior to Miku. When Miku became more well-known in 2010, the media also followed this misconception. 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 prior to her arrival. However, all previous VOCALOIDs failed to make an impact in the USA.
 * Miku is also not the first VOCALOID2 to have an avatar; the first was Sweet Ann, who was based on a "bride of Frankenstein" theme. However, Miku was the first to have a profile that expanded 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, and 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 concert; Miriam was the first, in 2004. However, Miku was the first to actually be featured "live" in the concert whereas Miriam's concert featured just her vocal.


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


 * With a total of 13 voicebanks released, Miku now has the most vocals released for the VOCALOID™ engine.

Notable for...

 * First Japanese VOCALOID2 to be released
 * First of Crypton Future Media's Character Vocal series
 * First specialized vocal of VOCALOID2
 * First VOCALOID to have a "true" avatar given
 * First VOCALOID to have a bio
 * Highest amount of pre-orders of a software synthesizer
 * Holds the highest sales figures of all VOCALOIDs
 * First VOCALOID to earn the status of "Diva"
 * Most awarded VOCALOID software released
 * First VOCALOID to be Appended
 * Most common/popular VOCALOID
 * A number of the Internet Memes linked to VOCALOID
 * Most songs created to date
 * Most merchandise to date
 * First VOCALOID to have a videogame
 * First VOCALOID to be on stage
 * One of 3 voicebanks used by the robot HRP-4C
 * First to have a song with a million views