The following article was written as an assignment for the Newsroom Management class.
Introduction
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| Vocaloid Hatsune Miku |
The Internet has dramatically changed subculture scenes worldwide in the last decade. Even in the last five years, after various social networking websites have played an important role in networking people and establishing online communities, subculture fans have shared information and contents they like with others who love the same genre. Some have even created their own pieces such as music, videos, photos, and writings, and posted on their Facebook pages. In Japan, the same things happen, but in a bit different way. People developed online contents collaboratively and share them with other users in a unique way. In the following article, by using the example of
Hatsune Miku, I'd like to show how the online collaborative creation process has develop and become a huge phenomena that can no longer be ignored in Japan today.
Hatsune Miku phenomenon in Japan
A digital character called Hatsune Miku has been popular on the Internet in Japan in the last few years. She now became a virtual pop idol in the digital age, especially for the younger generation. For example, the tickets of her two-day concerts held last month were immediately sold out. 10,000 people enjoyed lives at the theater, while more than 120,000 people watched them online. It now becomes more than 123-million-dollor business in Japan. Many kinds of commercial goods such as CDs, figures, and games are sold at the stores and online. For example, SEGA sold more than one million copies of
Miku-related games in total so far. At a karaoke shop, more than 1,700 Miku-related songs are distributed and sung by fans. Her songs became so popular that one of her songs was sung in the graduation ceremonies at several junior high and high schools.
Hatsune Miku phenomenon in the U.S.
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| Click the image to watch Toyota ad |
Her name also becomes known outside of Japan. Last year, she had her first ‘virtual’ concert in L.A. with 5,000 audiences (See
the live video above). There, she was shown as a projection of 3D animation, as if she were singing on top of the stage. Some big-brand companies also started to use her popularity in the ads. Last year, Toyota featured her in
its TV commercial aired in the U.S. She was also featured as a campaign character after Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber in the
Google Chrome's global promotion campaign.
Who is Hatsune Miku?
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| Vocaloid 2 interface shot |
Hatsune Miku is the name of an anime-like female character created and released in 2007 by
Crypton Future Media, Inc. She is the mascot image of
Vocaloid 2, which is singing synthesizer application software developed by Yamaha (Her name in kanji literally means “first sound in the future”). By typing lyrics and melody, a user can synthesize singing so that amateur songwriters can produce their original songs without any ‘real' singers' help for their vocal parts. There are more than 30 types of Vocaloids available now with different characters including male, child, and Korean characters. Miku's voice still sounds a little ‘robotic' for the first-time listener, but the latest model
IA in Vocaloid 3 sings songs so perfectly like a ‘real’ singer that the listener doesn't recognize the song being sung by a Vocaloid.
Hatsune Miku as a ‘singer’
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| Click the image to watch music video |
Today many amateur songwriters and musicians use Vocaloid as their ‘singer’ and upload their original songs on YouTube and Nico Nico Douga, which is the most popular video-sharing website in Japan. More than 32,000 Vocaloid-related songs were uploaded on Nico Nico Douga last year. Several songs have become No.1 hits on the charts. For example, the song used in
the Google TV commercial called “
Tell Your World” by Livetune reached No. 1 on Japan's iTune Store chart. Some professional musicians such as
Tetsuya Komuro also started adopting Vocaloid to their music. As a result, many music listeners now choose songs by songwriter's names, not by band's names. In a sense, as Hatsune Miku becomes a ‘common property’ among the listeners, song composition and live performance by a group band are no longer seen as a standard musician style.
Massively collaborative creation
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| Click the image to watch video |
Song writing is, however, just a beginning of the consequent creating process by different kinds of creators. As I examined one of the songs' variation in
my previous blog post, a various types of videos related to a song are created collaboratively by many users in different genres (You can see how they are actually interrelated to each other in
the video on the right). For example, one user draws illustrations that match to the song, attaches them to it, and uploads the video. The other user sings the song and uploads the video. The other ones create MAD videos based on the lyrics of the song and upload them. Some play the song with musical instruments. Another user choreographs the song, which makes others dance with it and upload their dancing videos. Some create 3D CG video with the Vocaloid character dancing to the song. Another user makes a hit chart of the week including the song. These different kinds of videos are uploaded simultaneously within a few months by many users if the song becomes popular among the them. Several genres such as singing, dancing, and 3D CG are so popular on Nico Nico Douga that hundreds of videos about a popular song are uploaded in each genre. Some of them are watched over a million times. In many cases, the viewers are inspired by other videos and make their own videos. In this way, they form loose creator communities online. On Nico Nico Douga, the reuse of existing videos on the website is welcomed. All users upload their videos in acknowledgment of the videos they used. Last year, the site started its own creator's incentive program so that the video creator can receive a certain amount of money accordingly if the video were viewed a certain times for a certain period.
The Google TV commercial (See
the video below) describes the collaborative works among different online users very well in 60 seconds without any words.
Copyright issue
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| Crypton CEO Hiroyuki Ito |
All the creations mentioned above can be done because there is no copyright issue involved. Crypton allows the users to use Miku's voice, name, and image freely as far as it is not commercially used and offensive. In other words, these creations cannot be done with other commercial characters such as Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty. In this sense, Crypton proposes a new licensing business model. This coexistence between commercial products and fan creations is widely supported by the Internet users in Japan. This is thought partly due to Crypton's CEO
Hiroyuki Ito's career background as a programmer and Japan's fan-fiction culture of anime and manga.
Conclusion
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| Click the image to watch Google ad |
“HATSUNE MIKU is not merely music software anymore. It's turned into a source of inspiration to create its derivative works.” --- What Crypton says on
its website describes precisely what actually happens on the Internet today in Japan. Miku has emerged as a new type of music creation and consumption in the online-sharing culture. I'd like to see how this ‘digital diva’ will change the music scene also in the world.
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