Namco Taiko Blog (15 March 2012)- Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu

It had to happen someday. First Danba Danba Din Dan, then Red and Blue Rose, and now the final 10th anniversary collaboration song is in the spotlight, featuring Japan's first cyber-idol.

Vocaloid Corner: Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is the first voice synthesizer software made with the Vocaloid 2 engine, and the first to have a human persona associated with it. This character is responsible for turning Vocaloid into the cultural phenomenon it currently is now, with her generally appealing looks. Miku's voice was actually sampled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita (藤田咲), who prior to this has been the voice actor for several anime shows.

Like the Vocaloids before it, the original target audience when Miku and Vocaloid 2 as a whole was released, was for professional producers only; the otaku market did not come into play until a little after Miku was released in August 2007; subsequent brilliant creations by fans led to a chain of quality songs coming in for Miku, which only spurned the fanbase even further. She is the main Vocaloid used by Crypton for advertising; kind of like the company mascot. At a stretch, you could say Miku is Japan's first successful cyber-idol. Her popularity is still going strong as the winner of 2014's overall Vocaloid popularity polls, outmatching of 3/4 times the 2nd-place entry, GUMI.

The original few Vocaloid songs on Taiko all belonged to Hatsune Miku, at first limited to one composer, Ryo from supercell, then growing to involve more and more artists as time went by.

Originally a song series on this blog, since the Vocaloid directory is getting larger and larger, the series has been disbanded and this Vocaloid Corner made for Hatsune Miku, along with a list of all the songs she has been in thus far. However, the original series from Melt up to Senbonzakura is preserved to save effort and is shown below. The rest of her songs, as with the rest of the Vocaloid content in Taiko, will be featured in future Song of the Week features.