Thursday, October 9, 2014

Hatsune Miku Makes Her Live US TV Debut

So I totally thought this was a joke to begin with. The official Hatsune Miku page has been hyping up this Letterman Late Show performance for weeks. In case you didn't know, Hatsune Miku is not a real person. How can they have a live performance with someone who isn't real? Lasers. Or something, I don't know, but it's pretty cool. Check out Ms. Miku performing "Sharing The World" by BIGHEAD.




Ok, so first of all this song is actually in English. This is my first complaint about this. English is a pretty complex language to read. What it feels like is they just plopped a bunch of syllables into a computer generator without tweeking it. A lot of the emphasis comes off weird, and it's often times hard to understand what she's saying. And honestly, I know they are promoting her US Expo dates in NYC and LA, but couldn't they have chosen a song from one of the games that are out for PS3 and PSVita? That was a huge cross promotion they missed out on, in my opinion.

Other than that, I feel like this broke a lot of ground. Japanese acts have never been popular in the US regardless of what language they sing in (just as Utada Hikaru and her two great but failed North American English albums). To have a Japanese artist of any caliber come over and debut on network television is a huge step in the right direction for us. Perhaps we will see acts like Koda Kumi step up to the plate -- and we'll understand just as much of her English as we did Miku's.

The effects were pretty cool, especially that exit. The whole Miku experience doesn't show up well on camera, and I'm told that seeing it in person is mind blowing. Letterman didn't have much to say about the act, as it was used at a time filler at the end of the show. That didn't stop the internet from going insane about it. It was trending on both Twitter and Facebook, with news stories exploding all over about it.

Not that that's why I wrote mine. I just happen to like Hatsune Miku.

And Kagamine Len.

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