During our visit to Anime Expo 2014, the MikuFan staff had the fortunate opportunity to interview one of Crypton Future Media’s on-site staff, Kanae Muraki, and cover various topics and questions that have been heard throughout the Western community.
Kanae Muraki is the director of Crypton Future Media’s global development team for marking and promotions in Western countries. She has also represented Crypton at a number of information panels at overseas conventions and events.
We hope you will find the interview below insightful and informative. It’s quite long, so be sure to read the full story by clicking “more” below.
Legend: MF = MikuFan, CFM = Kanae
MF: Thank you very much again for taking your time for this interview.
CFM: Oh, thank you, too!
MF: To start off, I had a couple questions of my own. The first being the collaboration with Hatsune Miku as the opening act for Lady Gaga’s ArtPop Ball music tour. The announcement caught many fans by surprise. Can you comment on what it was like working with Gaga for these events?
CFM: The offer from Lady Gaga to have Hatsune Miku as the opening act came very suddenly, just 7 weeks before the first show was scheduled to start. We were already in the process of planning out the next Miku Expo at the time. We did not have much preparation time to decide what the performance would be like, and we could not have a live band during the opening act since the stage would need to be cleared quickly. We had to create everything for each set from scratch, from the video to the music selection. But we knew it would be really boring having just a video, so we had the idea to have other on-stage live dancers.
Hatsune Miku’s opening act on June 2nd at Lady Gaga’s artRAVE in San Diego
CFM: Even though Miku was announced as an opening guest, we knew the majority of the audience would be Gaga fans, so we decided to try something new. We wanted to do something special for the music set list, and the first song I found was “Glass Wall“. It was a really good song, and the English was well done. The song gave me a feeling similar to the first Hatsune Miku songs from 2007, when she first started getting popular. So we first shared that song on the Hatsune Miku Facebook, and it got great feedback from fans. Then we contacted the producer to ask permission, and he was very excited. Another great song we chose was Story Rider by Eleki. It felt more like a Western style song, and Lady Gaga’s fans ended up loving it.
MF: I had noticed that the crowd seemed confused and unsure about Miku’s appearance at first, but they started warming up more as the opening act progressed. I’m glad to see that things went pretty well overall. Continue reading »