Hatsune Miku Expo in NYC
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Hatsune Miku has finally made her place in New York City! For those that haven’t heard of her, Miku is a singing character software that can be bought and program to sing anything. She’s known as a Vocaloid, where there are other characters (Rin, Len, Kaito, Meiko), having live concert performances as holograms. After years of publicity, Miku finally took the stage at the Big Apple, having thousands of fans going to her Expo and Concerts.
I happily attended the Miku Expo that just happens to be several blocks away from my school. I didn't know what to expect since this is the first Miku Expo in NYC, but I was ecstatic with how everything was. The people that worked in the Expo knew just about everything about Miku, eventually telling me things I haven’t even heard of yet (and I've been a fan for about four years). There were art pieces set up all around, basically like a gallery, showing different types of Miku and how everybody drew her in their own style. The huge eye-catcher was actually the Life-Sized Miku Figurine by the front door. It caught my full attention because it was not just a cut-out of cardboard or anything like that, it was a full statue of how Miku would stand in comparison to everyone.
The second floor was stunning. There were so many Miku statues and creative projects from an actual doll, to a Lego-figurine, to an origami folded Miku and even more. A wall scroll of the history of the vocaloids and a poster of the new partnership between Hatsune Miku and Crunchyroll (Anime Streaming Website) were there too. It even gets up to the point where they have a video playing in the back which is the most humanized version of Miku ever seen (credit lisa). It shocked me and my friends because of how it appeared so realistic, yet you can slightly tell by the hair and eyes that it’s all a fictional character. Still, it made a huge impression on me and my friends after the Expo.
But how did Miku get so famous in the first pl ace? Millions of people still don’t know of her existence, but she’s steadily growing. She grows from an online community since her software is purchasable. Millions of fans of the vocaloid community makes thousands of different songs daily. This was all planned by the company in the first place. They assumed that if a million copies were sold, those million of miku’s will all end up unique from one another. This whole scheme developed a steady growing pace of her popularity.
The concert was even better than the Expo. Hundreds of people dressed up and thousands attended the concert. It might sound silly that in reality, they all paid to watch a hologram sing and dance on stage, but to many fans like myself, it was like our thoughts and ideas from the internet actually becoming a sort of reality. The amount of attendees at these concerts show how much Miku means to people. She might just be a computer program to some, but to others, she’s a futuristic and creative idea.
I hope she’ll have another visit to NYC in the future. It’s amazing how far things are going with technology, and the idea of Hatsune Miku brings new people together. If you still don’t really know about her, please take a look at one of her most popular songs the “World is Mine”.