The+Impact+of+Virtual

= __ Miku Storms! And her Impact to Japan __ = Hatsune Miku is the new vocalist in Japan. She is 16, and has long green hair bunches. Miku has a sweet and innocent voice. She can reach a very high pitch without singing out of tune - her songs are perfect. Her song //Mikku Miku ni shite ageru~// // ♪ // (translated as “I’ll make you Miku Miku) is one of the famous songs now in Japan. The song is not sold in a form of CD, but is uploaded to Nico-Nico Douga (the Japanese popular video sharing website) as a form of animation. According to the “most viewed animation ranking” of Nico-Nico Douga, the animation of the song //Mikku Miku ni shite ageru~// // ♪ // ranked first, with ** 5,823,204 ** views since September 20, 2007. (Nico Nico Douga) And you might have already noticed, that Hatsune Miku is not “real”, but a singing synthesizer application software powered by YAMAHA’s Vocaloid 2 technology and developed by Crypton Future Media in Sapporo. The software enables users to synthesize singing in Japanese by just typing in lyrics and melody. It immediately ranked 1st in the software ranking of Amazon.co.jp after its release on August 31 2007. (Okada Yuka, Exceptional Sales of HATSUNE MIKU ) Quickly after its release, people recognize the cute mascot Hatsune Miku and soon gather to create songs, animations, computer graphics, and more fan arts of her. “There have been more than 30,000 songs and movies about Hatsune Miku were posted in popular Video sharing web site such as YouTube and Nico-Nico Douga(Japan)… remarkable numbers of derivative illustrations and dedicated free software (including an amazing application tool to create 3-D animation of Hatsune Miku, etc.) were also created… more other related activities such as launching new site and SNS site featuring Miku or organizing events for MIKU fans are taking place.” (Crypton) Miku now appears everywhere in Japan. You can find her in magazines, comic, TV shows and games. Miku is also seen in car racing competition. She is involved in the 2008 Super GT season, where one of the cars named Hatsune Miku Studie Glad BMW Z4" (#808) adopted images and colour scheme of Miku. The “Miku Movement” storms Japan, and quickly spread to other places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Fans across the culture gather on the Internet and create fan arts of Hatsune Miku. She now has fans around the world, published CDs, merchandises. Hatsune Miku is primarily nothing more than an illustration on the cover of the software pack. Yet, fans arts create her identity and personality. Suddenly, this virtual vocalist possesses what makes her “real”: a unique personality. The web give birth to Miku. She is brought to the real world after her domination in fan culture in the web. Is this virtual idol more powerful than a new one? Some said Miku have already overtaken ordinary vocalist in the sense that she has 30,000 songs, more songs than any singer in the world. With the success of Hatsune Miku, Vocaloid 2 further developed the series. The second series was released on December 27 2007, which featured the voice of two 14 years old boy and girl named Kagamine Len and Kagamine Rin. The third series has just recently released on January 30 2009. It features a voice of a 20 years old female called Megurine Luka. Luka is bilingual and she can sing in both Japanese and English. All three series generate great successes. A song of Luka, //RIP=RELEASE,// was uploaded in Nico-Nico Douga on the day of release. Amazingly, the total number of views jumped to 487,069 within 5 days (Nico Nico Douga). __ **Early predictions of Miku’s Development**  __ The rise and development of Miku actually satisfy early predictions. It was already predicted that technology like Miku is going to popularize. In 1995, Brian Eno, a digital pioneer has predicted this development: “What people are going to be selling more of in the future is not pieces of music, but systems by which people can customise listening experiences for themselves. So, in that sense, musicians would be offering unfinished pieces of music – piece of raw material, but highly evolved raw material, that has a strong flavour to it already.” (Porter 118) In the same year, Alvin Toffler, a U.S. futurologist has proposed the development of a new economic agent called “prosumer”, where “the end of indefinite development of the market characterizing the second wave, and a sharp increase in domestic self-production”, where “consumer carries out part of the production activities” (Flichy 116) Peter Drucker, a U.S. management expert, has used to musical metaphor to further explain Toffler’s idea of “prosumer”, “…formerly the organization resembled an opera; in other words, it was big, with extensive division of labor and rigid coordination achieved through partitioning. By contrast, the new organization should draw its inspiration from the small jazz band, where coordination is based essentially on mutual adjustment.” (Flichy 117) The popularity of the software becomes a natural response to these predictions. Success requires “innovation in programming, new kinds of delivery, and personalization of content” (Flichy 119). Vocaloid 2, satisfying these requirements, has lead it to a success. = __ Miku’s Impact __ = The release of the singing synthesizer software has a bigger impact on non-professional public than the music professionals. People who are interested in making music but don’t have the proper instruments and skills turn to the software. It is easy to use and it makes the experience of making music at home possible. Users spent days and nights making music for Miku. The recognition of music production has doubtlessly increased. Moreover, as users upload their work to video-sharing sites, non-professional but talented users are being discovered. Ryo, a user of the software, frequently upload his work to //Nico-Nico Douga//. His works are greatly appreciated by viewers and also by officials of Vocaloid 2. Vocaloid 2 then bought his works and released them in CDs. This has encouraged more people to show their talent and the rise of “Internet celebrities”. This new technology will doubtlessly affect the music industry. Compared to the other singing synthesizers, Hatsune Miku developed by Vocaloid 2 is surely outstanding and superior. With professional tune and voice adjustment skills, Miku’s voice can sound very much like natural human voice. This leads to a question whether the virtual Miku can impact real vocalist and voice actor. If the software reaches the stage where it can perfectly reproduce human-like voice, can Miku replace real vocalist? Can the virtual overpower the real? Miku has the biggest impact on music industry. With such excellent software on singing synthesizer, can it overpower the real? No one believes that Miku can replace real vocalist. Although it can sing like human, it lacks emotion. People do believe that Miku will be used to replace some small procedures in music production, such as the need of background singers might be replaced by software like Miku as it cost less and can reach a very high quality. Miku has also affected businesses. Some responded the “virtual” problem of Hatsune Miku. Does virtual hold copyright? There is a case in Japan, where a cell phone ring tone company took a song of Miku and sold it in to the public without asking for Crypton’s permission. The company explained that Hatsune Miku is not real and therefore she shouldn’t have copyright. Though the creator of the song should have bear copyright, but as there isn’t any previous case that deals with the copyright of virtual product that goes real, there are still many doubts concerning copyright of Hatsune Miku. (Okata Yuka, Is Hatsune Miku a copyright owner? ) Miku primary has no identity. She can be a 16 years old student, or she can be a teacher, a nurse, a murderer or a mother. She does not have a fix image, and therefore she can be good or bad. No one is responsible for giving her an identity. When gamers are addicted to video games, the society blames the video game. When violence increases in society, people blame violent TV shows. Someday, if someone uses Hatsune Miku’s image in a way which affect the society in a negative way, who or what should the society blame? Can they blame Miku? Things have to be reconsidered when virtual invades real. Work Cited Flichy, Patrice. __The Internet Imaginaire__. London: MIT P, 2007. Porter, Beth. __The Net Effect__. Bristol: Interllect Ltd, 2001. Okada Yuka. "Exceptional Sales of HATSUNE MIKU." __ITmedia News__ 12 Sept. 2007. 5 Feb. 2009 . Okada, Yuka. "DTM in the boom again: How anonymous creators are discovered by Hatsune Miku." __ITmedia News__ 28 Sept. 2007. 5 Feb. 2009 . Okada, Yuka. "Is Hatsune Miku a copyright owner?" __ITmedia News__. 18 Apr. 2008. 5 Feb. 2009 . Crypton. "What is the "Hatsune Miku Movement"?" __Crypton - Vocaloid 2__. 2007. 5 Feb. 2009 . __ Crypton - Vocaloid 2 __. 2003. 5 Feb. 2009 . __ Nico Nico Douga __. Ed. Niwango. 12 Dec. 2006. 5 Feb. 2009 <[|http://www.nicovideo.jp]>.