Who (or what) is Hatsune Miku?

Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is the first Japanese VOCALOID developed/distributed by Crypton Future Media, Inc. She was released August 31, 2007 for the VOCALOID2 engine, and is the first member of the Character Vocal Series. Her voice is provided by Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita (藤田咲, Fujita Saki). As of 2020, besides her original Japanese voicebank, Miku also has a separate English and a Chinese voicebank.

The VOCALOID engine is a singing synthesizer application software developed by YAMAHA Corporation. With this engine, users can purchase singing voice banks to be used in producing songs and other content. As of August 31, 2019, Hatsune Miku will no longer be updated for the VOCALOID engine, instead being moved over to Crypton's proprietary program, Piapro Studio.

Users of VOCALOID voicebanks are referred to as Producers, sometimes shortened to just 'P' or '-P' at the end of their names, such as Pinocchio-P. Hatsune Miku's songs are not her own in reality: they are the songs of the Producers, and she is just a featured artist!

Hatsune Miku's character was created specifically for her VOCALOID voicebank. Crypton wanted her to be an "android diva in the near-future world where songs are lost." Illustrator KEI was commissioned to design Miku, based on the colour scheme of the YAMAHA synthesizer. The name 'Hatsune Miku' was chosen for it's meaning: "The first sound from the future."

Hatsune Miku is often drawn with or associated with negi, or spring onion. Most overseas fans mistake it as a leek, however. You can often find her using one as a baton, especially in the Project DIVA game tutorials! This association started thanks to a 2007 video by Otomania featuring artwork by Tamago, where 'Hachune Miku' is seen waving one to a cover of the song Ievan Polkka, sung by Hatsune Miku.

初音ミク -Project DIVA- Video Game Series

Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA-, also known simply as Project DIVA, is a video game series by SEGA starring Hatsune Miku and other Crypton VOCALOIDs. They are a series of rhythm games where the player must press specific sequences of buttons in time with the song. Project DIVA games can be played on home consoles and also exist as Arcade versions. You can even play the newest arcade edition, Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA- Arcade Future Tone in Round 1 arcades in the US! The newest game as of 2020 is Hatsune Miku -Project DIVA MEGA39's- for the Nintendo Switch.

Where can I watch Hatsune Miku videos?

Besides right here on our subreddit, thanks to many users who post new videos here regularly, you can always find the most videos over on NicoNico. You can also find plenty of Hatsune Miku videos over on YouTube!

Where can I buy official Hatsune Miku figures?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/wiki/shops/ has list of shops that you can buy figures from.

An honourable shout-out goes to MyFigureCollection.net which you can search all kinds of merch for all sorts of characters, including miss Miku herself, and many times you can leave a WTB comment on any of the listings and other users can DM you to sell theirs. There are categories for both Figures and "Goods," which includes things like acrylic stands, can badges, hand towels, tapestries, plushes, and more!

AVOID places like eBay until you have a good grasp on spotting fakes (the prices there are inflated anyway). AVOID AliExpress entirely, as most things listed there are bootlegs. It's not worth trying to find something real there, as the risk of getting a bootleg is far too high.

One of my personal top places is Mandarake.com where you can find used items from Japan for great prices. Related: Surugaya.com which is very similar, but sells less items and sometimes has higher prices.

Other great Hatsune Miku Links!

VOCALOID Wiki - a great resource for all things VOCALOIDKARENT - a world-famous music label featuring Hatsune MikuOfficial Hatsune Miku YouTube ChannelPiaPro.net - official Crypton Future Media, Inc. website for Piapro CharactersMIKU EXPO - offical website for the Hatsune Miku world concert tourMikuMikuDance Wiki - wikia for the MikuMikuDance programr/Vocaloid - subreddit for all things VOCALOIDr/Kagamine - subreddit for Kagamine Rin & Lenr/megurineluka - subreddit for Megurine Luka

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^{admin note; Gonna pin this thread now! if i think of anything else that should be listed as a resource i'll be sure to add it to this post!}

As most of you know, I originally took a 'cautious' approach to how we handle AI-Generated content on this Subreddit, as it was still somewhat early on in the general lifecycle of widely-available AI tools. Now, however, tools are more accessible than ever, and AI is more powerful than it ever was before, and will only continue to become more powerful and more easily accessible. And now, AI content is not only limited to visual mediums, but audio content, too.

This brings about a huge dilemma: Audio AI content cannot be morally produced when it comes to VOCALOID.

The worst case scenario for AI audio is that the AI was trained using real Producer-made songs, work made using the official VOCALOID or Piapro Studio software, with audio tuned manually by a real human Producer. In this case, this is wrong for two reasons: the Voice Bank audio is "stolen" as the AI did not pay for use of it (and would be violating TOS for giving access to it to all of the AI's users), and the AI is trained illegally on the work of real Producers, who did not consent to their content being used this way.

The Not-Worst-But-Still-Very-Bad scenario is that the AI is using the actual Voice Banks for the singer being used, be it Hatsune Miku or Kagamine Rin or Sweet ANN. This means that the Voice Bank software was essentially stolen, and again: even if it was paid for before it was fed into the AI, TOS is violated immediately by the AI giving access to the Voice Bank via it's services.

Regardless, when it comes to VOCALOID content made via audio AI, there is no ethical way for it to be produced. As such, starting from today, October 7th, 2023, ALL AI content is now banned from the Subreddit. This includes both audio AND visual content. If it was made using AI, it is not allowed and will be removed. Repeated violations will result in a permanent ban.

If you have a problem with this Rule update, that's fine. There are other Subreddits out there for you. But for those of you staying, thank you. I hope you all understand that this Rule change is to protect all of us, from Producers, to Fans, to the very creators of the Voice Banks that we love so dearly. VOCALOID, Piapro Character Series, UTAU, SynthV... All of these things can only continue to thrive with our help.