Mar 022013
 

An interesting new creative topic has been sweeping Pixiv over the past few weeks, and it is indeed a very unusual one. In all my years of observing the Vocaloid community, I’ve never seen this happen before.

The concept for this new illustrative idea isn’t too difficult. You simply draw Hatsune Miku in a school outfit with water in place of her normal hair, usually with a fish swimming around inside of it. The result is the new fan-made design known as “Bottle Miku”.

I first took notice of the phenomenon on February 14th, just 7 days after the first image that was submitted to Pixiv by the user “PAR。“. At this point, there was already over 9 pages (180 images) of new fan creations that were inspired by his illustration. This growth rate has quickly accelerated over the past few weeks. As I’m writing this article, the illustration count has just exceeded 41 pages (820 images) after only 20 days!

The new idea has sparked a wave of illustrative creation on a scale that I’ve never seen before with any past designs. With more artists taking notice and no signs of an end in sight, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the concept even receives official recognition.

While the concept may seem somewhat odd to some, many of the artworks are actually quite stunning and beautiful. Take a look at the image shown above, and the two linked below as examples. If you’re interested in seeing more, you can browse all related images with this link: Botttle Miku on Pixiv.

Way to go, CBS

 Posted by at 4:51 am  Meme, Other  15 Responses »
Nov 132012
 

As the Vocaloid movement becomes more and more popular, it also attracts more and more attention from the press, both good and bad. We’ve seen plenty of negative or even downright uneducated articles over the years, and the community has dealt with a lot of them (usually through vocal bashing until they finally cave under the pressure).

Things are a bit different once we have a higher profile news site like CBS News make a blunder like they did in their article from last Friday. Not only is CBS relatively late to the party, but a lot of the article information was ripped from other sites. The biggest issue, however, is the title of the article.

I was one of the people who caught this early before much of anything was said about it, and was also the second person to ever comment on the article. I was hoping that CBS would catch on and fix the title before anything drastic happened. I’ve seen what the community’s general response is to something of this nature.

Sadly, the situation was not fixed by the time the official Hatsune Miku page commented about the article the next day. As expected, all hell broke loose in the comment section of the article. Four days later, CBS still seems to have not taken any notice of the negative feedback, and the article has remained untouched since its original publication.

 

News of the community reaction towards the article has quickly spread, and it’s even making news over on Japanese Vocaloid blogs and news sites. While CBS intended for the article to be read by English viewers, they have very quickly made an embarrassment of themselves on a global scale. All because of a poorly written title (“fakest” isn’t even a proper English word).

We can only hope that they’ll eventually take notice and fix it. Perhaps future news writers will also learn a lesson from this. But I suspect they wont.

Aug 242012
 

The Family Mart advertisement campaign is already taking the internet by storm. It has inspired a fairly large amount of fan illustrations and videos. However, this fanmade parody video earns extra points for doing something out of the ordinary.

The video was created as a 7-Eleven parody, and is both humorous and creepy at the same time. Enjoy the official youtube print below.

Nicovideo version available here.

Jul 192012
 

Created by Mitchie M, this amazing PV to celebrate Miku’s Birthday uses all of the Cryptonloids (minus Miku herself) for the music. And despite being over a month early, that doesn’t make the song and video any less amazing. Well done!

Producer’s youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/MitchieMTV

Obligatory meme image: http://i.imgur.com/UD95R.gif

Watch the official youtube version below, or watch on Nicovideo here.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmYU2ikxjpA]

Apr 012012
 

You will often see many fans try to pit Miku against popular music stars in an endless battle over which one is superior. But it’s not too often where you see someone compare Miku with a real singer to see which one is more fake.

This interesting video idea comes from the user on youtube, and makes some pretty interesting points. Many of the top rated comments on the video page are also entertaining, so be sure to give those a look.

Someone give this man a medal.[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3c8STXjQ20]