Click to see full size image.

In yet another F5 spamfest, many fans have observed Hatsune Miku’s facebook fanpage reaching 500k likes (easily breezing past the Vocaloid facebook fanpage). It moved too quickly to catch it at exactly 500,000, so the image above is the best I managed to get.

To celebrate the event, the page will start to cycle through a new fan-made header image every day for two weeks. Congratulations to Hatsune Miku for the achievement, and of course thanks to all the fans who helped her get there!

[EDITED 5/16/2012]: And coincidentally, not long after this event, mikubook.com has celebrated its 1 million favorites milestone. Congratulations once again!

ALL OF MY WANT!

Sony Japan recently unveiled a new limited edition crystal white PS Vita that’s complete with with a custom Hatsune Miku themed skin. This beautiful piece of hardware is set to release on August 30th, just one day before Hatsune Miku’s 5th anniversary. The PS Vita sells as a bundle that will also include the new Project Diva game and a 4GB memory card. The price for the Wifi Only model is set for ¥34,980 ($428 USD), and the 3G+Wifi will sell for ¥39,980 ($500 USD).

The bundle is only available for pre-order within Japan. If a source is discovered for international pre-orders, I’ll be sure to update this post. You can check the website of the announcement by clicking the image, or simply by clicking here.

Pre-order sources have been discovered! The Wifi versions can be found here: Click here or here.

And now for a vid on the new color scheme and design:

A couple days ago, it was announced that the DVD and Blu-Ray sets  for the recent concert in Tokyo are now available for pre-order. The Blu-Ray has a set price of 11,401 JPY ($142 USD) and the DVD has a set price of 9,860 JPY ($123 USD). This may seem expensive at first, but these are 7 disk sets that contain concerts from both days, as well as music disks! Both products are capable of shipping internationally, despite being purchased from the Japanese Amazon site. Just click in the upper right corner where it says “Would you like to see this page in English?”. If that doesn’t work, you can always translate the page using Google.

The sets are due to ship on August 29th, roughly 4 months from now. Remember: the DVDs will have a region lock, but can be played in a PC after converting your DVD drive to Region 2 (Japan). You can only change your drive’s region 4 times, so it makes more sense to also have a dedicated DVD drive for Japanese region DVDs. You can find slim-type external DVD drives for as low as $30 or less these days.

Hatsune Miku’s Facebook page admins forgot to add the link for the DVD box set. So I made sure to add it to this article to make it easier to find.

Despite the success of my message regarding the “Save Miku” movement reaching hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, there’s still something that a lot of the fans want: An official word from Crypton themselves. This is understandable, so Scott from Mikustar.com and myself have both sent messages to Crypton to ask for confirmation on the matter. We have both received the same response via email.

“Regarding SAVE MIKU Movement, the deletion problem has been almost solved and we have nothing to announce so far.”

Now, before you jump to conclusions, this can mean a lot of things. Due to how this was a global issue that had to deal with individual country’s copyright laws, it’s possible that there has been a lot of communication and paperwork done over this. These things take a lot of time, even if the initial problem of the false claims has been stopped. I’ve yet to see any new videos vanish from my own playlists for some time now, so it’s now likely that they could simply be working to finish things up.

Crypton has the intention of making an announcement once everything has been settled. So keep cool and keep and eye out for that, and stay tuned!

These past few days have been pretty crazy. Thanks to the mention from the Vocaloid facebook fanpage, my message has reached hundreds of thousands of Vocaloid fans around the world. It makes me happy that we can finally put old problems to rest, and we can continue doing what the community has always done before: Share our love and interest of Vocaloid with the many fans and artists around the world. I have taken the time to answer everyone’s questions on Facebook, Youtube, and Mikufan, and I want to thank everyone for the positive feedback!

I’ve been pretty busy for the past few days, the last couple in particular due to the unexpected attention, so I have a lot to cover. So I’ll just quickly recap some of the major news events, and express my opinions rather than going into heavy detail.

The Virtual Tupac Performance at Coachella Fest

I live within the Coachella Valley, so news of this spread around very quickly (here is a local article). Naturally, the thought of Hatsune Miku’s live 39′s concert performances came to mind and immediately reminded me of the Mikunopolis concert I had attended. This actually has me excited due to the fact that the music industry is realizing the potential that this technology has as an entertainment platform. Of course, the technology has never been exclusive to Hatsune Miku. So the idea that it was “stolen” is rather silly. It is a rather old concept that has been used many times before, most notably by the Gorillaz music group, and even the Haunted House ghosts at Disney Land. When it comes down to it, it’s just merely a projected image on glass. It will be very interesting to see where this leads in the future.

AniMiku Fan Concert to Premier at Tora-Con in New York

One of the very surprising recent announcements is that a completely fan-driven Vocaloid concert will be shown at Tora-Con on April 21st in New York. Crypton and SEGA have no official involvement in this concert, but they have acknowledged the concert and announced it to the fans to show their approval. This could very well be the first of many fanmade performances in the future. Additional information and details can be read from the linked article from Hatsune Miku’s facebook post.

A Chance for Miku to be Immortalized in Wax

Madame Tussauds is a well renowned London Gallery of famous people sculpted in wax, with 14 locations worldwide. One particular gallery located within Bangkok, Thailand has opened a facebook poll for people to vote for the next person or character we would like to see added to the gallery. Hatsune Miku is currently sitting with a comfortable lead with over 1,000 votes above the second highest candidate. If you can, go and place your vote to show your support!

Hatsune Miku Not Making an Anime Expo 2012 Concert Appearance

This comes as somewhat sad news to many expecting fans, including myself. The staff of Anime Expo has informed their followers that Hatsune Miku and the other Crypton Vocaloids will not be making a return concert appearance at Anime Expo 2012. SEGA and Crypton did, however, say that they have “other exciting plans”. These plans are still a mystery, so fans will need to stay tuned for further updates. They have also hinted at the possibility of a return concert in 2013. Regardless, I will still be attending Anime Expo 2012, and I hope to see many of you there!