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The character Miku Hatsune has become synonymous with modern Japanese culture, and at the 2014 J-Pop Summit Festival, reporter David Chang of Nihongogo.com sat down with Kei Garou to talk about the birth of the popular Vocaloid.
Kei Garou’s work not only created a world recognized character, but he brought to life to an entire industry. His work with Crypton’s Character Series has spawned countless video games, merchandise, and even a virtual reality concert series.
Miku Hatsune, first introduced in 2007 as the mascot for Vocaloid2, a singing synthesizer application developed by Crypton Future Media, has come a long way since then. Miku is a humanoid persona voiced by a singing synthesizer application developed by Crypton Future Media, headquartered in Sapporo city. She was the first Japanese Vocaloid to use the Japanese version of the Vocaloid 2 engine, and her voice is sampled from Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita.
DrawingMiku
When Kei Garou began to illustrate Miku, his only instructions were to draw an android whose base color scheme would utilize the Yamaha Brand synthesizers’ signature blue-green color. Troubled with understanding how to convey the image of a singing computer and not knowing what synthesizers were, it took Kei over a month to complete the commission. Years later, we find the CGIdol spawning a series of popular music rhythm games appearing on Nintendo and Sony platforms, performing a virtual concert tour, and serving as the opening act for LADY GAGA’S artRAVE the ARTPOP ball.
Read the interview here.
