After almost two months of silence Crypton has released the last bits of info about the upcoming 3rd character to the Vocaloid series. CV03: Megurine Luka will be released on 30th January 2009. It is already available for preorder at the Crypton online shop at 15750 Yen (~168 USD).

Her voice will be sampled by the seiyuu Asakawa Yuu. VC03 is supposed to support both English and Japanese. As of now its unknown if both English and Japanese will be featured in the same package or if they will be released seperately.

For the full character illustration art by KEI and her full profile check out the official Crypton Megurine Luka page.

Via Canned Dogs

As Canned Dogs reports, Crypton has posted first samples of the upcoming addition to the Vocaloid2 series. There have been no further details revealed about the third character installment in the series yet, but at least now we know what it will sound like!

Head over to Crypton’s official blog to listen to the samples.

Nick has just sent in the news about the Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin Ufo catchers currently appearing in Akihabara. Had no luck preordering a figure and don’t wanna fall for the bootleg ones on eBay? Now is your chance to still get one of the extra figures. If you are anywhere near, head over to the 4 massive UFO catchers right infront of the Sega World Tower in Akihabara, Tokyo and try your luck!

It’s so big you can’t miss it! Click the thumbnail to enlarge view, one more detail picture can be found here.

Once again thanks to Nick for sending this in and taking the pictures! Enjoy the rest of your trip!

Due to the insane popularity of the Hatsune Miku figures it probably was only a question of time until bootleg copies appear. It seems like currently there is a big flood of fake Hatsune Miku figures appearing on eBay and the like.

Mikufan reader Sarah has sent in an email regarding this after receiving a bootleg figure herself. We will try to write up a guide on how to recognize fake figures soon, until then please be careful when purchasing any figure on eBay or a similar online auction place.

Since Christmas is around the corner and some of you might want to pick up a figure try to pay attention to the following points:

• Ask the seller for additional higher quality photos different from the ones listed in the auction
• Compare the art, text and images on the packaging to the original
• Pay close attention to details on the figures – There should be no rough parts or scuffmarks
• Pay attention to the price – if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is
• Avoid sellers from Hong Kong and China and Thailand, unless they are willing to provide further details and pictures regarding the figures

We will keep you updated on this topic as soon as more information comes in.

This song is a cover of the 1995 JPOP classic “WONDER GIRL” by Akiko Hinagata, who was not only a successful JPOP singer but also a gravure idol. The song is pretty catchy once it reaches the chorus and this cover is done pretty well. Enjoy!

For those of you interested in more of Akiko Hinagata you might want to simply read more about her or maybe buy some of her music or even her sexy DVDs.