Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is the first Japanese Vocaloid in the Vocaloid Character Vocal Series, the third Japanese Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media, and the seventh Vocaloid to have be created overall. Released on August 31, 2007, she is considered the most popular and well known Vocaloid and the first to become a pop idol. The data for the voice was created by sampling the singing of Saki Fujita (藤田 咲, Fujita Saki), a Japanese voice actress.

Concept
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 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. 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.

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).

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.

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.

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."

Vocaloid Releases

 * 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 & Kagamine Rin/Len

Examples of Usage
To our readers and editors, for section notes please read; Notes; Examples sections.
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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 than 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"

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 Ievan Polkka, presented multifarious possibilities of using 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. 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 at 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. To add perspective, 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 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". In 2010, Crypton Future Media produced a ranking of the Vocaloids they sold on their website; since then, Miku has consistently led or been close to leading.

Miku has remained the fan favorite amongst the Japanese fandom, having the strongest following and usage even after the release of much better Vocaloids from her era. Her popularity was so high that when GazettE’s Aoi made a negative comment about her through twitter, he was immediately met with outraged fans and was forced to retract some of his statements after trying out the software for himself. Indeed, most of the more popular songs of Vocaloid are sung by Miku, having more hit songs on Nico Nico Douga than any other Vocaloid. Merchandise for Miku is plentiful and often sells well due to her popularity; by 2009 most of the merchandise released for Vocaloid featured Miku. All of Crypton Future Media's promotions also centered 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 a major impact on the development of other Crypton Future Media voicebanks. Due to the huge market for her voicebank and character image, Crypton have sometimes been overwhelmed by demand. This caused delays to other Vocaloid 2 projects, including the release of an additional character, CV04. How much impact her popularity has had on other Vocaloid voicebanks is unknown, but Crypton Future Media has many delayed voicebanks that were originally set for a Vocaloid 2 release.

An independent Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga between July 1 and December 15 2011. Miku, however, had managed to gain 9904 uploads to the site during this period, making her number one in video submissions for Vocaloid related videos. She also had the highest number of total views during this period with 23,847,081 views and 1,943,303 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 popularity of the most famous producers it was much harder to assess. 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 consistent no.1s throughout this period.

Her design has also influenced the Vocaloid mascot designs of other companies, creating common design influence that divides fans opinions on character design. Her design has also spawned many producer based derivatives. She is the most common Vocaloid to receive 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 famous singers such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. The poll was not official and was done for popularity reasons.

Those against Vocaloid or skeptical about it often 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, labeling her as sounding like a "chipmunk". In turn this can lead to incorrect presumptions on the software itself; a common stereotype of Vocaloid is that all Vocals are as high pitched as Hatsune Miku. However, most Vocaloids can not reach Miku's notes; the only Vocaloid capable of reaching the same notes during the Vocaloid 2 era was Prima, who does not have the same vocal pitching or vocal type as Miku. For those who are not impressed by Miku, she can often end up being the source of anti-Vocaloid opinions.

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, although it disappeared from the list entirely from time to time. Despite this, it has been known to have reached the top 3 products on occasion, as well as to knock other CV vocals further down the charts. Miku was ranked as the no.1 Vocaloid product they sold, and despite drifting between ranks on their product list her Append managed to grab 2nd place.

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 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, 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 to have an avatar; the first was Sweet Ann, who was based on "the bride of Frankenstein". 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 "live" 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 Miku Hatsune 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 7 voicebanks released, Miku tied in 2nd place with Gumi at the time of her appends in total number of released vocals.
 * Miku's signature item is a spring onion, though many have often confused it with a leek, due to their similar appearances. This mistake is even found in a couple of the Project DIVA games and other games by SEGA.

Notable for...

 * First Japanese Vocaloid 2 to be released
 * First of Crypton Future Media's Character Vocal series
 * First specialised vocal of Vocaloid 2
 * Most merchandise to date
 * Most songs created to date
 * First Vocaloid to have a "true" avatar given
 * First Vocaloid to have a bio
 * First Vocaloid to earn the status of "Diva"
 * First Vocaloid to be Appended
 * Holds the highest sales figures of all Vocaloids
 * Highest amount of pre-orders of a software synthesizer
 * Most common/popular Vocaloid
 * First Vocaloid to have a videogame
 * First Vocaloid to be on stage
 * One of 3 voicebanks used by the robot HRP-4C
 * A number of the Internet Memes linked to Vocaloid
 * Most awarded Vocaloid software released
 * First to have a song with a million views

Gallery

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