NAVIGATION:
HOME
| FIGURE
| ANIME
| GAMES
| JPOP
| TECH
| JAPAN
| NIHONGO
| MISC
RSS
Feeds
| Overseas Otaku
Making
online purchases/pre-orders especially for Jpop CDs and anime/game
PVC figures have always been the best option for me and many otakus
who do not live in Japan. Listed below are my wish list, preorders
and purchases from these reputable online companies.
| Online Shops & Affiliates
Play-Asia
(#1 for Games & PVC figures)
YesAsia
(conquers Jpop CDs and DVDs)
J-list
(many 'weird' Japanese stuff)
HobbySearch
(I shop the least here,
no free shipping and no shipping cost provided
upon placing an order)
| My Personal Wish List & Preorders Figures,
Games & Jpop stuff:
Suzumiya
Haruhi 1/7 Gothic Lolita ver.
Mid May '08
FREEing
Nagato Yuki 1/4
Mid May '08
FREEing
Tsuruya-san 1/4
Mid May '08
Vocaloid
Hatsune Miku 1/8
Sep '08
Kotobukiya's
Sennin Haruka 1/8
Jul '08
PlayStation
3 Metal Gear Solid 4
12 Jun '08
Hatsune Miku Cosplay
Posted: May 15th, 2008 8:30 am (Thu) by Divine Fang
Tag: All, Hatsune, Miku, Cosplay
Views: 23
While
the word "ミクミクミクミク" (MikuMikuMikuMiku) is still spinning on
my head after my blog about
Hatsune Miku's fame in my previous entry recently, I could NOT resist
but to point this cute cosplayer out. I first saw her on Danny
Choo's blog and he pointed the source Yukawa.
As a PVC
figure collector, I just could NOT miss Hatsune Miku (初音ミク). So
who the heck is this girl who suddenly pops out of nowhere and jumped
into the PVC figure scene exactly? If you would have asked me this question
a while ago, you'd see lots of "???"-signed halo on
my head. She was discovered when I was lurking around at Play-Asia &
Amazon
and she was ranked top (#1 on both sites in fact) in their figure pre-order
listing. Having that informed, I could not resist but to study more about
her. After some 2 hours of consultation with ゴード グーゴル
('God' Google), I was pointed to the mega virtual library, Wikipedia and
all following findings.
VOCALOID
is a vocal-synthesizing software that enables song writers to generate
authentic-sounding singing on their PCs by simply typing in the lyrics
and music notes of their compositions. The software synthesizes the
sound from "vocal libraries" of recordings of actual singers,
retaining the vocal qualities of the original singing voices to reproduce
realistic vocals....
About
VOCALOID Hatsune Miku 「初音ミク」
While
there are English version of VOCALOID softwares available, Hatsune
Miku is generally designed for Japanese songs. To date, Hatsune Miku
is not all about vocal synthesizing, she has been regarded as a virtual
idol, especially among otakus. Proceed for countless derivative works
of Hatsune Miku.
Hatsune
Miku (初音ミク) is the first installment in the Vocaloid Character Vocal
Series released on August 31, 2007. The name of the title and the character
of the software was chosen by combining Hatsu (初, First?), Ne (音, Sound),
and Miku (未来, Future). The data for the voice was created by actually
sampling the voice of Saki Fujita, a Japanese voice actress. Unlike
general purpose speech synthesizers, the software is tuned to create
J-pop songs commonly heard in anime, but it is possible to create songs
from other genres...
Before that,
head to Miku's very cool official page and download some MP3 samples there.
You'll also learn that Hatsune Miku is a 16-year-old idol who is 158cm in
height, weighing 42kg and enjoys pop and dance music.
Pre-ordering Status Of Hatsune Miku Figure
As of time of writing, I am aware that the allocation of GoodSmile's 1/8
scale Hatsune Miku which is set to be released Sep '08 at Play-Asia
is full. However, Yesasia
(ridiculous price for figure usually) is still taking pre-orders but they
have an 'early-bird' deadline which is on 16th May 2008, only 4 days left
from now. Locals (KL, MY) might just want to secure their copy at XiaoLoong
in which their 'early bird' deadline is on 16th May 2008 also.
I would really like to point out who the first cute babe
cosplaying Miku is but unfortunately this pic has been sitting on my PC
for quite a while and I could not recall her name. However the second and
third picture shows the infamous cosplayer Usagi-chan and Arisa-chan.
YouTube Videos
The fame of Hatsune Miku didn't end just here, in fact, she skyrocketed
her fame on YouTube since her debut. Doing a simple search of "Hatsune
Miku" or "初音ミク" on YouTube returns a significantly great
amount of cool and impressive videos of this virtual idol. I had gotten
myself down and dirty digging some worth watching YouTube videos for you
readers :)
To make life even easier for those who dislike streaming videos, I have
provided a direct download
link of some Hatsune Miku videos in a single rar file. (For your info,
I'd normally keep good YouTube vids on my hard drive :P ). Listed below
are the videos in the rar file. I highly recommend using VLC
player otherwise have K-Lite
codec installed on your PC for video playback.
• Hatsune Miku - Hare Hare Yukai.flv
• 『創作のミクエリオン』.flv
• 【3DCG】くるっと・おどって・初音ミク【ねんどろいど】.flv
• Hatsune Miku - Miku Miku wa Uchuujin.flv
• 千の風になって Miku Arrangement.flv
• 合唱組曲『ニコニコ動画』 featuring 初音ミク Special-Edition Ver.flv
• 雪、無音、窓辺にて、Solid Snake & Hatsune Miku。(修正版).flv
• FFX-2 Real Emotion - Miku.flv
• melody.flv
• Evangelion OP - Zankkoku na Tenshi no Tense - Miku.flv
• ZOE Beyond The Bounds - Miku.flv
If you have made your readings until here and have watched a few vids about
Miku, you'd realize that Miku gains big part of her fame by... umm... COPYING!
Please do not get the wrong idea, no bad impression here, it is because
that IS part of Miku's 'job'!
Extras
There are just too much to show you about Miku and if this
carries on, your browser's scrollbar would shrink needle thin. I was going
to post some random pics of Miku but there are just too many out there!
Go Google
them!
PS: A few of above videos are in which their origin are songs and openning
of anime "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu" a.k.a "The Melancholy
of Suzumiya Haruhi". Future entry shall feature the fame of this super
high-profile anime as well as its figurines. Heck I am a big fan of Suzumiya
Haruhi!
------------------
Last Edited: May 13th, 2008 7:17 am (Tue) | Permalink ------------------
It has been quite a while since I read this UK Magazine called WTF
(What's The Future?) Issue 3, published Feb 2008. I find the headline
interesting -BIG IN JAPAN- and I thought I should mention
some of the interesting parts here. Excerpts from the magazine are indented
as follows:
Trends
in consumerism.
What comes to mind when you think of Japan? Probably a diverse mix if
images: traditional Geishas, cherry blossom and tea cermonies alongside
humanoid robots, anime films, ultra-trendy urbanities, high-speed trains,
and high tech consumerism.
Why is this important to us in the UK? Well because there is an established
pattern in global history of west leading east and east leading west.
Approximately every 900 years the pendulum swings, and at the moment
east leads west.
So if something becomes popular in Japan, then the chances are it will
take off there too. Whatever is the latest must-have in Japan now, you
can expect to find it, or a Europeanised variant, in a shop near you
soon. Consequently a quick glance at Japan today could well offer us
a window into our own future...
Now that
would mean that Japan is the 'future'! I remember that some guys (American)
who hosted an electronic gaming TV program called X-PLAY
mentioned that if they were to pick a country to migrate to, Japan would
be their first choice! So, yup, there are westerners going to the east,
especially to Japan.
...another truly odd gadget is the 'Ubi-Wa'. Its name has two meanings
in Japanese: "finger ring" or "speak by finger",
and this is precisely what it allows you to do, yep, it's a ring that
is a phone. Cleverly, the Ubi-Wa converts the vibrations, which travel
down your hand and arm bones into your ear canal, into speech you can
understand. It may be a bizarre gadget now, but given the rise and rise
in girl power in Japan, it can only be a short of amount of time before
it becomes one of the must-have accessories....
Girl
Power, Japanese Style
In fact, girl-power is having a big impact in Japan,
in particular schoolgirls and teenagers, who are the true arbiters of
cool, and the Arasa, the 30-something single girls with spending power.
There are even shopping malls, such as Yurakucho Marui and Marronnier
Gate in Tokyo, targeted exclusively at Arasa, and there is a rapid rise
in brands directly appealing to this affluent market because it's all
about fashion and luxury, which equals a lot more spending.
Anime
and Manga
However, it is not just girl power in Japan, Otaku
are also having an impact on retail trends. These are geeks who are
devoted to the grown-up Japanese animated films and comic strips. Many
of them are hitting silver-surfer zone and bringing some serious spending
power with them. While many of the younger ones still live at home with
their parents and thus have a lot of disposable income, are also joining
the craze. With the biggest phenomenon at the moment being 'moe',
which is basically an obsession with a particular type of character.
Retailers are pandering to the 'moe' as the consumers are willing to
spend big bucks on their obsession. While alongside the inevitable rise
of memorabilia is the growth of 'maid-cafes', where the waitresses are
dressed in Anime- or Manga-inspired uniforms. While you may think this
is a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, experts are predicting that
as Anime and Manga increase in popularity globally, so too 'moe' will
eventually go global too.
Above:
The SOS Dan (randomly picked from Moyism
Blog)
As an overseas
Otaku, I do possess quite an amount of spending power for Otaku stuff
too. The next few blog entries shall see my figurines collections :) What
about you readers, how much have you spent for your 'Otaku' stuff? Or
have you not?
| About Shin-Otaku.com:
Shin-Otaku is a blog site belongs to the author, Divne
Fang who is a super otaku wannabe. Here he shares his thoughts just
about anything related to otaku in this very portal -figurines, anime,
games, jpop, cool technologies, Japan, Japanese language e.t.c. As
of time of writing, he is especially obsessed with:
• Ayumi Hamasaki (since 2000)
• Tekken
5 DR (hard-core player)
• Suzumiya
Haruhi's figures
• Learning
Japanese
Overall things are pretty much scratchy now, the top banner is simply
a re-produced version of CLANNAD's wallpaper and the site lacks of
standard blog features (no logins, custom avatar support e.t.c) as
for now but I'll be working on them over time. Many related links,
friends' blogs and useful sites have not been added yet. I have also
'disabled' the Navigation panel as this
blog is still new. I'll activate them when there are more entries
in the future.
This site is optimised for MS Internet Explorer. Set your screen resolution
to 1280x800* or above to view this site in its full glory!!!
*This resolution is supported by many laptops, LCD monitors, and of
course, even the lowest end LCD HDTV nowadays.