"Didn't you know? I'm forever 16."
- Hatsune Miku in her birthday 2019
Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) was a fictional character from the Vocaloid character series by Crypton Future Media. She is a singer. Her voice provider is Saki Fujita.
Vocaloids[]
A vocaloid is a synthesizer program where someone (in this case, Fujita) records some specific parts of their voice, and the program makes it so that the user can make words from the voice samples. Therefore, a user can make songs after pitching the sounds. The character is a representative of the voice, and many music producers who use Miku's voice use her character too, although that is not always the case.
Here is a video showing the worldwide influence of vocaloids, made by Google.
Release[]
An official illustration of Miku by Kei Garou.
She is the first Japanese vocaloid to be released by Crypton Future Media in August 31, 2007. However, she wasn't the first vocaloid; She is the seventh one. She was released for the VOCALOID2 (V2) engine first, but got a version with V3 and V4. She received another voicebank called "append" for V2, and got an English voicebank for V3. All that has been updated for V4, along with a Mandarin voicebank.
When Crypton stopped licensing YAMAHA's VOCALOID vocal-synthesis engine in favor of its own Piapro Studio-based engine, Miku technically stopped being a Vocaloid; however, fans still regard her as the poster child of the Vocaloids due to her long-standing popularity.
Etymology[]
Her forename "Miku" is written as 未來 in kanji, which means "future". It is written as ミク in katakana, possibly to make her name sound more ethereal. Her surname "Hatsune" is a combination of 初 (Hatsu-), meaning "first" and 音 (-Ne), meaning "sound".
Her Chinese name is 初音未來 (Chūyīn Wèilái).
Appearance[]
Her design was made by Kei Garou, who spent a whole month drawing her, as he had no idea of what a synthesizer was supposed to look like.
She has many different variations of her appearance, but she usually has long green twin ponytails that reach to around her ankles. The two squares are floating in mid-air, and can hold her hair up even without touching it. She also wears black and pink earpieces, and has bangs.
Her top is grey, and has a shirt collar and is a vest. She wears a long tie that is the same color as her hair, and her shirt goes just past her hips. She has a short school-like skirt that is black with green hems, and she has a green sash hanging from underneath her shirt.
She has separate sleeves that are black and have little bars on them, which are meant to mimic the bars in the actual VOCALOID program. She also has nail polish that is the same color as her hair, and thigh-high black boots with green soles.
Personality[]
Due to Miku's voice and character being used for many different types of songs and media throughout her time, her personality can drastically change from one song to the next. However, her vocal may be used, but the song itself might feature some original characters from the artist, so only the persona of Miku singing as herself in a song will be considered with her "personality", as there is a slight trend in her personality change through the years.
At first, her voicebank was only used to cover simple songs, but the appearance of みくみくにしてあげる♪ (Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru♪) by Ika on a Japanese video streaming platform called NicoNicoDouga had started to gain popularity. In that song, Miku is energetic and cheerful, and seemingly getting everyone obsessed with her voice. The Miku in these years were usually happy and perky.
Another early song that features her voice and her persona is メルト (Melt) by Ryo. The song is a simple love song, and Miku is portrayed as pure and in love in this song. It gained massive popularity because it was the first time a producer had managed to make a vocaloid sound that realistic, and was instantly popular with vocaloid fans, widing the fanbase by a lot.
However, another type of song that started being widespread after more vocaloids joined the ranks were horror songs. It included most of the more well-known vocaloids today, which included Miku. For example, ロッテンガールグロテスクロマンス (Rotten Girl, Grotesque Romance) by Machigerita-P is one of the trademark "dark" songs, which have gory topics. And in some of those songs, Miku is portrayed as an obsessive girl who is insane. The rise of popularity in these songs may be because no real life singer would ever sing these songs, so the producers realized that Miku would be the perfect outlet for singing these songs.
As the years progressed, Miku's songs started featuring original characters, and now most songs have their own original characters, in contrast for using Miku as the main character. Additionally, many other voicebanks have also started becoming more widely used, so the vocaloid industry is less dominated by just Miku.
A MikuMikuDance (MMD) model of Miku.
More recent (More like 5/6 years ago) famous songs that feature Miku, such as ODDS&ENDS by ryo show Miku in a more "meta" perspective, seeing her as a person who is aware of all the voicebanks and songs created by her. The trend in this persona may be because this could be a way of connecting with the audience even more, as most of these songs feature Miku directly addressing the producer or the listener, and are more about the process of making the song than anything else.
However, there have been many famous vocaloid producers who have left the vocaloid industry, such as wowaka, Hachi, Samfree and Ryo. For some of them, they have made songs that signal the end of their vocaloid era, such as 砂の惑星 (DUNE) by Hachi, who now goes by Kenshi Yonezu. There have also been popular songs that signal the end of Hatsune Miku and the vocaloid era, such as 初音ミクの消失 (The end of Hatsune Miku). Miku's persona is also relatively "meta", however, there is a hint of despair and she feels more sorrowful, in comparison to the happiness that she used to have after realizing that her voice brings hope to everyone who listens to her.
However, she also has a fanon personality, although it varies from community to community. It is usually agreed on that she loves leeks, popularized through a video of her holding two leeks while covering Ievan Polkka. This one characteristic has stayed true throughout all versions of Miku, even in the horror songs.
Notable Producers[]
Here are some notable producers that use Miku. They are just the most mainstream ones in the industry.
(Notable songs: Vampire, Salamander, Ghost Rule, NeedLe, Otome Dissection)
(Notable songs: DUNE, Matryoshka, Donut Hole, Panda Hero)
(Notable songs: Melt, World is Mine, Love is War, ODDS&ENDS)
(Notable songs: Dramaturgy, Heart Forecast, Gunjo Sanka, As You Like It)
(Notable songs: Viva Happy, News 39, Newly Edgy Idols, Wah Wah World)
(Notable songs: Unknown Mother-Goose, Rolling Girl, World's End Dancehall, Two-faced Lovers)
Voicebank Versions[]
The main Miku voicebank is Hatsune Miku - Original (V2, V3, V4), but there are also other versions, which include:
- Hatsune Miku - Sweet (V2 Append, V3, V4X)
- Hatsune Miku - Dark (V2 Append, V3, V4X)
- Hatsune Miku - Soft (V2 Append, V3, V4X)
- Hatsune Miku - Light (V2 Append, V3)
- Hatsune Miku - Vivid (V2 Append, V3)
- Hatsune Miku - Solid (V2 Append, V3, V4X)
- Hatsune Miku - English (V2 Unreleased, V3, V4X)
- Hatsune Miku - Chinese (V4X)
- Hatsune Miku - Falsetto (Never released)