Ask John: Can Hatsune Miku Hit it Big in America?

Question:
I’m sure you’ve heard that Viz now holds licensing rights to Hatsune Miku in America. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Miku can go mainstream here in America or will it remain an otaku niche?

Answer:

When Crypton Future Media released its Vocaloid 02 Hatsune Miku software on August 31, 2007, no one could have predicted the future explosive popularity of the Hatsune Miku character. In less than four years, Miku went from a concept in the mind of Japanese visual artist Kei, to be married with a voice synthisizer program developed by Yamaha, to a chart-topping Japanese vocalist, international celebrity, and star of American Toyoto Carolla commercials. However, Hatsune Miku’s tremendous celebrity in Japan, her international popularity among otaku, and Viz Media’s recent acquisition of American master licensing rights do not promise that Hatsune Miku will achieve a degree of fame and recognition here in America that’s equivilant to her celebrity in Japan. In fact, several factors distinctly make Hatsune Miku much more marketable in Japan than in American.

To first clarify, Viz Media’s acquisition of domestic master licensing rights does not mean that America will suddenly witness a boom in Hatsune Miku products or exposure. Viz now has the option to produce and distribute Hatsune Miku merchandise in America but hasn’t yet announced any plans to do so. Any other American product manufacturer or advertiser that wishes to use the Hatsune Miku character now has to get authorization from Viz. But that also doesn’t ensure that a variety or number of American companies will suddenly wish to create Hatsune Miku products.

Hatsune Miku’s popularity in America is largely fueled by her Japanese popularity. The Vocaloid 02 software doesn’t have an official English langauge version, and there isn’t a large, active core of American fans creating original Hatsune Miku songs or videos. In fact, Hatsune Miku probably wouldn’t be popular or even known in America at all if she wasn’t such a big hit in Japan. The Vocaloid 02 Hatsune Miku software is specifically designed for compatibility with spoken Japanese language. The unambiguous, simple phonetic structure of Japanese language lends itself to voice synthisization better than English, which is full of tonal and pronunciation variables. Furthermore, the standard Hatsune Miku voice is very popular in Japan because it sounds nearly indistinguishable from the sweet, high-pitched tone of countless actual Japanese female pop vocalists. American female pop vocalists, however, don’t sound like Hatsune Miku. Artists like Taylor Swift, Rhianna, and Lady Gaga don’t have especially high-pitched, throaty voices. So while Hatsune Miku may sound familiar and natural, albeit just a bit stilted, to listeners used to Japanese pop vocalists, her songs will sound very foreign to Americans just because of the pitch of Hatsune Miku’s voice, to say nothing of the slightly artificial ring and the Japanese lyrics.

The sound of Hatsune Miku’s voice isn’t the only thing that makes Miku more accessible to Japanese than Americans. Miku is the latest evolutionary step in a long Japanese tradition that’s entirely foreign to Americans. Hatsune Miku is the latest human personification of technology. Japanese natives are simply more accustomed to intimately accepting technology than Americans are. In Japan, Astro Boy and the robot cat Doraemon are as familiar and beloved as Mickey Mouse. For fourty years Japanese children’s entertainment – anime – has introdoctinated generations of Japanese youth into thinking of robots as a familiar, albeit futurist, component of life. Giant robots may not exist. But generations of Japanese natives have grown up with the idea of coexisting with and utilizing robots. America simply doesn’t have that cultural awareness. America perceives robots as clunky, artificial boxes like Robby, C-3PO, and Number 5. For Americans, interactive technology exists in cars like KITT from Knight Rider and HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mainstream America has no context for accepting and adoring artificial, digital characters like Hatsune Miku. Thus Hatsune Miku is doomed to always be a technical novelty in the eyes of Americans; not a cute digital diva but a cultish phenonemon and a bizarre example of Japanese technological fetishism like bidet toilets and square watermelon.

I’m personally thrilled to see streaming commercials depicting Hatsune Miku driving a Toyoto Carolla. I think that an American company being selected to serve as a clearing house for domestic licensing is inevitable but also positive. I really can’t guess how much bigger Hatsune Miku will get in America, but I can’t avoid seeing her as America’s latest Apollo Smile, a novel minor-league celebrity unheard of and ignored by the majority of American pop culture.