Just announced in the recent nicovideo livestream event was the winning 2014 Snow Miku design, as well as the winning pet design that will accompany her. The designs were chosen by fans by using a voting system on the live stream itself. Selection boxes appeared over each choice, and the votes (clicks) were tallied.

The winners of the event are the #8 finalist of the Snow Miku design contest, and the #7 finalist for the associated pet that will also be included with her design. The theme of next year’s design was “magic”, and required that all design entries of Miku included a wand.

Congratulations to both winners! Now comes the long wait before the designs are refined and finally processed for creating a Nendoroid. You can view larger and more detailed images of the winning designs from here (Miku) and here (pet).

After the previous Winter and even Spring Family Mart promotional campaigns featuring Snow Miku and Sakura Miku, it seems that the fans just can’t get enough. With the demand for promotional goods still high, Family Mart will be launching another promotional campaign this summer, starting at a currently unspecified date.

The recent livestream event on nicovideo detailed many of the prizes that can be expected in the lottery of the upcoming promotion. Like the last time, each store will carry 100 tickets and 100 prizes. Tickets will cost 800 yen each. The majority of prizes will be the smaller rewards, such as the Graphigs and clear files. The much rarer prizes include the 2013 Family Mart version Nendoroids of Rin, Len and Miku.

The rarest prize of all is a Family Mart Swimsuit Miku Nendoroid, which will be rewarded to whoever buys the last (100th) ticket from each Family Mart store. So not only will this figure be rarer, but fans will have to camp near stores to be able to snatch it.

Better images and more detailed info will follow soon.

Images borrowed from 初音ミクみく.

Click image for contest website.

It’s that time of the year again! For the third year in a row, Good Smile Company and Piapro are collaborating on a contest where the Vocaloid community can submit illustrations to be used for the 5th official Snow Miku design. The contest began on April 24th, and will end on May 13th at 4:00 PM JST.

The theme for next year’s Snow Miku has a few rules. The theme this time around is “magic”, so all entries must show Snow Miku with a wand of some kind. Another addition that’s new this time around is the inclusion of a pet. This is a seperate category, meaning there will be two winners this year!

Entries for Snow Miku designs must be submitted to Piapro with the tag “２０１４年雪ミク衣装”, and the tags must be locked. If you need it, you can use the template design provided here. Entries for pet designs are also submitted to piapro, but must use the tag “２０１４年雪ミクペット”. Once again, the tags must be locked.

EDIT: Mamitan from Good Smile Company has posted a translated guide here.

Winners of the contest will receive a free Nendoroid of the winning design, along with many Snow Miku goods. You can see all current Snow Miku entries from here, and pet entries from here. The winners will be selected sometime around mid-May.

I can’t wait to see the next winning design!

Needless to say, I think we were all expecting a DVD and Blu-ray release of the Mikupa in Kansai concert event at some point. It looks like those expectations have been answered, as there are now three different sets to choose from this time around. If you’re wondering about the Hong Kong, Taiwan and 2013 Sapporo concerts, those have been acknowledged in this announcement as well!

Up first is the DVD set. The entire 3 hour event spans two DVDs and includes all 39 songs. If you preorder from Amazon.co.jp, you can receive the following bonuses:

A special decorative box, a full brochure of the event containing additional images and infomation, and a white carrying pouch decorated with the images of all 6 Cryptonloids.

The DVD set is priced at 5,284 Yen and ships internationally. Please note that DVDs are region locked, and may require special steps to be playable in other regions.

Up next is the Blu-ray set, which is similar to the DVD set, but with a few important differences.

The Blu-ray set includes a bonus disk containing special footage from the 2012 Hong Kong and Taiwan concerts, as well as the recent 2013 Mikupa in Sapporo event. The carrying bag for this set is black instead of white.
 

The Blu-ray set is priced at 6,838 Yen, and ships internationally.

The final set is much pricier, but contains a few attractive bonuses that are exclusive to Amazon.co.jp orders. It includes all bonuses found in the Blu-ray set shown above, as well as the following items:

A 50 page album containing special live and behind the scenes images of the event, and a steel-case book containing special illustrations by KEI. The price for this Amazon exclusive set is 11,340 Yen.

All three sets are scheduled to ship out on August 30th, a day before Hatsune Miku’s 6th anniversary. Alternatively, the first two sets can also be ordered from CDJapan (DVD and Blu-ray) and Amiami (DVD and Blu-ray).

If you missed it before, here is a video from the official Hatsune Miku YouTube channel containing footage and interviews from the Mikupa in Kansai event:

View the full song list from the concert event here.

Back in November 2012, the official Hatsune Miku Facebook page announced the release of the promotional video of the song ‘Initiation’ featuring Hatsune Miku. Unfortunately, the video was blocked by Sony Music Japan from outside viewers… Until now, that is.

The full video has been recently discovered on a VEVO channel that allows viewers from outside Japan.

The promotional video was released to advertise the new album release by the producers Keiichiro Shibuya and Hiroki Azuma, which is still available for purchase in in limited edition Blu-ray and DVD versions.

From the animation and music style, the video was clearly made by the same studio responsible for the production of THE END, the four-time sold-out opera performance at the Yamaguchi Center in Japan from December 1st through the 3rd in 2012. The event was so successful, they have announced an additional showing in Shibuya, Tokyo for May 24th, and even a showing in Paris for November 14th.

It’s quite possible that the promotional video is a part of THE END itself, as you can hear a small section of ‘Initiation’ at the end of the official promotional video for THE END. The music video can be best described as intense and mind-bending, and can even seem somewhat confusing at certain points. Enjoy the official video below.