The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon: More Than

a Virtual J-Pop Diva

KA YAN LAM

R
AISING THEIR COLOR-CHANGING GLOW STICKS ABOVE THEIR HEADS,
thousands of fans packed the stadium for an extraordinary
concert of lighting and animation. The crowd consisted of
many elaborately dressed supporters resembling their Japanese rock,
or J-rock, diva. As soon as the lights went out, they screamed syn-
chronously and waved their wands as if they were casting a magic
spell for the long-awaited entrance of their super idol. When the live
band struck the first chord of the opening song, a humanoid persona
popped up on the massive screen on the stage in her signature cos-
tume, a stylish school uniform with a neck tie. Thanks to advanced
projection technology, this computer-generated idol continues to fea-
ture the innovations of Vocaloids, a music composition software, in
live performances. The translucent image of the idol was holographi-
cally projected to support an impression of three dimensional realism.
She grabbed her virtual microphone and moved her long, greenish
ponytails along with the rhythm. She elevated the spirits of the
crowd with her super-high vocals and rapidly articulated syllables,
accompanied by her uninterrupted dancing sequences beyond the
ability of any real human performers. This live concert, held in
Shanghai in 2015, belonged to Hatsune Miku, the avatar icon of a
music creation technology that combines real voices with computer-
synthesized speech. Miku’s show was as entertaining as the popular
concerts with a live band of guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards. Hat-
sune Miku has gained international popularity through her highly
successful world tours, including the show in Shanghai. Miku’s per-
formances have postmodern and feminist implications that enhance
our understanding of the virtual celebrity phenomenon.

The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 49, No. 5, 2016

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

1107
1108 Ka Yan Lam

The virtual celebrity is a holographically simulated reproduction

of a music creation technology simulacrum. The lack of authenticity
and identity stem from the technology used to produce her music
and poses feminist questions related to the technically produced
iconography. The name of the sixteen-year-old idol-singer is Hatsune
Miku, literally meaning “the first sound from the future” (“Hatsune
Miku”). Hatsune Miku’s designer has explained that her school-uni-
form outfit and her blue-greenish pigtails, attached with floating
futuristic ribbons, gives her an android appearance (Anzai 60). Miku
carries and has reinforced conventional gender signs prominent in
Japanese popular culture. The Hatsune Miku phenomenon suggests
that the value of authenticity is lost and gendered stereotypes have
been essentialized in the pursuit of physical pleasure and virtual
entertainment.
Hatsune Miku was originally a software for music creation dis-
tributed by Crypton Future Media in 2004, which adopted the sing-
ing synthesis technology called Vocaloid.1 Using the Vocaloid
synthesizer, users are able to create their own music as the software
processes the musical notes and words and outputs the song in the
voice of their selected singer from the singer library.2 One unique
aspect of Vocaloid lies in the use of a human voice in the creation of
the singer library. In the case of Miku, Crypton used Fujita Saki as
the voice donor to create the singer library named Hatsune Miku for
the users to compose their original Vocaloid songs.
The Hatsune Miku phenomenon swept the world when users
began sharing their original Hatsune Miku Vocaloid creations on the
Internet, especially on the popular Japanese video site Nico Nico Doga.
One mesmerizing function of this Web site is that users can upload
their original video as a response to another one. Users can also
change the lyrics of the songs, remix the melodies, and repost their
videos in mashups. Those who are fond of the music can record them-
selves singing the lyrics, overlay commentaries on the videos, and
rank their favorites. James Verini has called this infinite production
and reproduction of content “niji sosaku,” or “secondary creativity”
(2). Such creativity fosters not only a highly participatory cyber-cul-
ture but also the formation of “Nth fanfiction,” with the “N” indicat-
ing the possibility for infinite fan-made reproductions (Kenmochi 3).
The upsurge in the quantity of Miku-related items on the Web site
(more than 300,000 items by July 2016) has successfully established
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1109

an expanding video-creating community entirely constructed by the

participants themselves. These creators take the roles of songwriters,
song creators, illustrators, and programmers, and they interact, coop-
erate, and compete with each other in their publications (Hamasaki
et al. 225). This style of collaboration reveals a self-generating net-
work of interactivity in a purely online environment. Henry Jenkins
characterizes fans as poachers, who take away things that they find
useful or pleasurable in a work of art, and as nomads, who move
across texts, including the original narrative (508). Miku’s fans
advance from video to video, appropriate new materials, and make
new meanings in their reproductions. By publishing their creative
productions, they circulate their own messages and values. Miku
organically grows through the Internet in the sense that the users
make their own music, and “once it’s theirs, it’s theirs” (Hutchison).
Their mutually supportive responses motivate them to continue their
sharing. The Internet fan has merged with the creator, formulating a
unique collaborative culture in digital contexts.
Miku-related production does not cease in the virtual world but
extends to consumer society in the form of a diversity of marketing
products. Miku has found her way into cosplay, video games, manga,
and collectible figurines, extending her appearance infinitely into
“Nth fanfiction.” Seeing the profit potential of compiling the music
created in the cyber-world, Crypton and other music distributors have
released Miku albums and even staged her first “live” concert for Ani-
melo Summer Live at the Saitama Super Arena (Anime News Net-
work), with subsequent “live” performances held in Singapore, the
United States, and different cities in Japan (“Hatsune Miku Expo”).
These popular so-called “live” performances are produced by project-
ing a 3D-animated Miku in the form of a hologram on the stage.
Even though Miku’s voice is basically a human one and the live musi-
cians are present on the stage, what the dedicated audience values is
the projected virtual image of Miku. In other words, it is primarily
virtuality and fantasy that render the performance an unusual one.

Authenticity and Reproduction

To develop a human-like singing voice for Miku, the Vocaloid devel-

opers digitized separable and transportable fragments of recorded
1110 Ka Yan Lam

voice and integrated them into a singer library. In the transmission of

these fragments to Miku’s voice, they were melodically modified and
integrated with Miku’s bodily expressions. Human voices are decom-
posed into binary codes and reassembled into the vocals of Hatsune
Miku to mimic the naturalness of real human voices. The developers of
the singing synthesis technology aims to generate the singing voice
that imitates a human singer and to provide what human ones cannot
do (Kenmochi 4). Underneath this imitation are inorganic computer-
ized notes and tunes. The primitive vocals are transfigured into bytes,
customized electronically, and then further calibrated into Miku’s
futuristic vocalizations that are devoid of originality. The quality of
the humanness is not intensified but depreciated. As Walter Benjamin
observes, the product of mechanical reproduction jeopardizes the
authority of the object. The unique presence in time and space of the
original rests on historical circumstances, or “the history to which it
was subject throughout the time of its existence” (220). However, the
act of reproduction obliterates such a unique existence. Since the origi-
nal is independent of the copy, what is absent in the reproduction is
the aura, the unique value of the authentic work. In other words, the
eliminated element in the copy disqualifies itself as authentic since the
presence of the original is the prerequisite. When the reproduced work
becomes something designed for reproducibility, it signifies the
instance of the inapplicability of the criterion of authenticity (224).
Instead of being a work of art, the Vocaloid singers are evidently prod-
ucts of reproduction meant for further reduplication. The aura is lost
when the human vocals are electronically coded and assembled into
Miku’s voice. As a product of reproduction, the copy possesses no aura
of the original. As a product for reproduction (the synthetic music cre-
ated by the software, the derivative creative activities following the
original videos, the karaoke songs sung by the fans and other market-
ing products), the cult value of the original is inevitably out of sight.
Therefore, the developer’s claim of authenticity imposed on Vocaloid
products seems questionable.
After the creation of Miku’s singing voice, the game of achieving
verisimilitude remained unsatisfactory to the developers, so they pro-
ceeded to create a human persona for Hatsune Miku, transcending
the synthesizer with a total spectacle. The imaginative representation
of digital femininity that Miku represents is known as the “pixel
vixen”: “computer-generated images of digital women who are young,
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1111

slim, fair-skinned, wide-eyed, and often scantily clad” (Matrix 8). As

Miku gains popularity among creative adapters, they confer further
aspects of personality and identity on the character. The dancing and
singing humanized image suggests a desperate attempt to give Hat-
sune Miku a human individuality, bolstered by her reproduction across
related commodities. More spectacular is that this virtual Miku is
brought to a further reality in “live” concerts with live performers for
live audiences. All the processes of reproduction—from the voice
donor’s contributions to the computer-processed singing voices of
Miku, from the humanlike vocals to the feminized iconography, and
from the commercial products to the “live” performances—aim to
reinforce the logic of authenticity that characterizes the technology.
This digital artifice, articulating authenticity, is a mystification that
seeks to persuade people of its human individuality, eschewing its
composition of phonetic signs, binary codes, and, in short, its virtual-
ity. The Hatsune Miku boom exemplifies the excessiveness of transfor-
mation and reproduction in the digital world. Certainly Crypton has
surpassed its initial goal of verisimilitude with the exhaustion of media
forms that heighten creativity, stimulating a new form of collabora-
tion. However, from the perspective of postmodern criticism, those
forms exceedingly serve as agents for the users to indulge in Miku
within the virtual space of fabricated authenticity and depthlessness.

Simulacra and Hyperreality

When the users compose their original Vocaloid music sung by Miku,
they continuously impose their own values and perceptions on the vir-
tual character. Since their experience of music composition is primarily
virtual, for instance, sharing videos and interacting with other users
online, the sensory stimulation that the live concerts offer becomes sig-
nificant in providing physical satisfaction. As previously mentioned,
the many varieties of Miku (whether it is the music composition tech-
nology, the virtual character itself, or the hologram on the stage) are
never authentic. Therefore, humanizing Vocaloid Miku forges ambigu-
ous identities for the character. The more the fans knit together the
sign of Miku and authenticity, the more unauthentic they render her.
This derivative character of pliability, immateriality, and empty refer-
ence has no personal history or lived experience. We can only identify
1112 Ka Yan Lam

Miku from signifier to signifier, for instance, as the name of the soft-
ware. But the signs are superficial in the sense that the signified or the
referent of the sign cannot be located in a single human body that pro-
duces sound. The identity of the voice is spread across a vast collection
of texts, codes, and images. Miku is nobody but software. “She” is a
sign, or more precisely, it is a pure data construct.
The endlessly reproduced images, videos, and products are a series
of simulacra. As Jean Baudrillard elaborates: “It is no longer a question
of imitation, nor of reduplication. . . It is a question of substituting
the signs of the real for the real” (2). The Vocaloid software synthesizes
Miku’s singing voices in the first phase of simulation, meaning that
Miku’s voice is reproduced from real human vocals. Then in the second
stage in order to enhance the humanness of the technology, human
dimensions are assigned to Miku, resulting in a human-form icon and
the production of other derivative commodities. Finally in the last
phase, the image is taken onto the stage and “materialized” in “live”
performances. As Baudrillard elucidates, “To simulate is to feign to
have what one doesn’t have.” When one tries to simulate, he might
produce in himself certain symptoms which originally do not exist.
Over time the fabricated symptoms might become “perfect simulacra”
(3–5). In the case of the live performances, even though the supporters
are aware that the Miku on stage is holographically projected, their
passion and participation reinforce Miku’s humanized identity. Hence,
the more they immerse themselves in these activities, the more they
believe in her authenticity. The phenomenon is suggestive of Jelena
Guga’s analysis of the Idoru construct, or “virtual celebrity character”
(103). Miku is a fundamentally empty signifier, so the boundaries
between reality and the imaginary have fallen apart. Despite the fact
that “she” is not flesh and blood, Miku and all the derivative characters
are both real and fictional. The Miku construct is “real in terms of hav-
ing material effects on people’s lives and playing a role in the forma-
tion of digital lifestyles, and it is fictional insofar as it operates in
conjunction with an elaborative fantasy narrative” (Matrix 106).

Hologram

The three-dimensional Miku is a product of 3D graphics and light

projection. During the production stage, coherent lights are put on a
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1113

human dancer on the stage to collect all-dimensional light reflection

data, which are later combined with the computer-generated anima-
tions of Miku’s performance. With this technology, the J-rock diva is
able to come to life as a realistic hologram projected on the massive
screen. This digital illusion, accompanying the computer-generated
vocals singing the catchy, super high-pitched songs, contributes to a
unique concert experience. Due to restrictions on the projection dis-
tance of holography, the movements of the holographic images have
to be confined within the screen area. The illusion might be shattered
if viewed from an unintelligent angle, for example, from below. The
intriguing relation between the reality and fantasy of holographic
objects has been discussed by Baudrillard, who points out that we all
have the passion to seize reality live, and so appropriate the real and
immobilize it by liquidating it to a holographic double (105). The
charm rests on the “dream of passing through ourselves and of find-
ing ourselves in the beyond” (105). But when the dream is realized,
its fascination will be lost. Passing through the unreal hologram will
simultaneously render us unreal. Therefore, we have a stake in main-
taining the imaginary aura of the double as a dream and never pass-
ing over to the other side (105–06). Miku’s fans can easily accept the
holographic sign because the music Miku performs is primarily their
creative compositions. While the imaginary aura bewitches them to
continue its existence, they are obliged to keep themselves away from
the hologram, preserving the miraculous supposition that Miku is
there on stage entertaining them. They do not attempt to shake
hands with Miku or come into contact with her (Agence France-
Presse). They never dispel the doubts over the artificiality of Miku,
but remain in their own fantasy.
Baudrillard refutes that the construction of the holographic double
has declared an end to the imaginary. The double is synthesized and
materialized as an abstract light of simulation. The third dimension
of the spectral image does not bring us closer to the real, but reveals
to us its hidden truth as an imaginary of a two-dimensional world
(106–07). The similitude between the object and the simulacrum
renders it more exact, so that “nothing resembles itself, and holo-
graphic reproduction. . . is already no longer real. . . [but] hyperreal”
and where truth value is absent and is replaced by simulation value
(108). The icon is a simulacrum and the projections in “live” shows
are nothing but hyperreal materializations. Reconstructing the idol as
1114 Ka Yan Lam

a hyperreal hologram is equivalent to murdering the original Miku

that exists in the software and in the creative videos the fans have
made. Hence, it is illegitimate to claim that the 3D image enhances
the authenticity of the graphical icon. It is also invalid to assert that
humanizing and sexualizing the synthesizer establishes a greater sense
of authenticity. It is a mockery that the more people are obsessed
with the simulacra, the more they distance themselves from the real.
It is the question not of distinguishing between the real and the vir-
tual, but of misrecognizing what looks like the real as the real.

Virtual Corporeality

Materializing a singing voice database by giving it a bodily form

gives visual pleasure to the users, but it also engenders virtual cor-
poreality. When Crypton decided to invent a human-form icon to
enhance the humanness of its product, they opted for a futuristic
image, an android instead of a complete human form. Unlike
cyborgs, the synthesis of machine and organism, androids are huma-
noid robots, resembling humans but fundamentally nonhuman
(Springer 19–20). Strictly speaking, Hatsune Miku falls into the
category of an android since physically “she” has a female human
appearance with some electronic components installed on her azure
hair. These nonhuman components are crucial to retaining the
charm of the cybernetic figure. Building a feminine icon that resem-
bles a real person will erase the fantasy that a virtual one provides,
but exaggerating digitality will expel the character completely out
of the realm of authenticity (Matrix 111–12). Therefore, the add-on
cybernetic qualities are the appeal of the digital artifice. On the
other hand, Miku is a nonorganic embodiment of an organic subjec-
tivity that is ultimately lost in the process of the construction of
the android. The sense of her corporeality is realized only if we con-
sider the role of the voice donor. Although the use of computers
has somewhat limited our physical movements as many tasks can be
done by a click of the mouse and sometimes allows us to escape
from the reality, the truth is that bodily forms are still prevalent in
the image-driven cyber culture. So, even in the virtual world, the
body can be where we have to turn to in order to seek pleasure and
feel erotic desire (Springer 50).
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1115

In addition to a pre-assigned gender and physical appearance, what

Vocaloid users find irresistible is the authority over their own cre-
ations of Miku. They breathe life into “her” by applying their ideas,
suppositions, and artistic talents to the figurations. Because the syn-
thetic voice lacks emotion, songwriters have to transmit their percep-
tions and feelings through the original melody and lyrics before the
song is sung in Miku’s distinctive voice. This is exactly what the
developer believes is the merit of using a substitute for human sing-
ers (Kenmochi 4). The satisfaction of escaping from physical reality
and achieving virtual empowerment is extended to the thrill of pro-
jecting desire onto Miku’s body. Psychoanalytically, the body serves
as a place of security, like the mother’s womb. The feeling of the
uncanny (das Unheimlich) generates both pleasure and dread (Freud
219–52), but the icon adequately minimizes the uncanniness of the
synthetic voice with which the users can easily identify. From this
perspective, the Vocaloid technology serves as the prosthesis of the
human body that is metaphorically displaced but indirectly material-
ized. What satisfies the Vocaloid users is when their subjectivities are
represented by the female corporeality indicative of the essential
objectification of sexuality. In another sense, the bodies are consumed
as commodities, and the users are manipulating the virtual constructs
in the formulation of their imaginary Miku consciousness.
The virtual corporeality is also a new mode of manifestation of
bodily pleasure. When we are overwhelmed by nonphysical bodily
experience in the contemporary moment, we are entangled in the
interactions between our bodily parts and virtual objects. Guga raises
her concern about the parameters of determining the value of the pro-
jection and the materiality of the body, and she proposes that the vir-
tual corporeality involved in digital interactions is an extended form
of its physical equivalent, because the biological body can remain
intact and its perceptual abilities enhanced via its virtual double
through a “happy violence” that enables multiple bodily experiences
but makes changes only on the body’s surface (102–03). In the con-
text of the body of the hologram, the users enjoy this violence in the
performances. It is as if Miku adopted their melodies and performed
their music on stage. Although there is minimal physical involve-
ment (no more than screen-mouse-keyboard interfaces, physical par-
ticipation in the concerts or even sexual associations), all forms of
bodily manifestations are extended to their virtual creations (the
1116 Ka Yan Lam

animated Miku in the videos and the hologram). When Miku per-
forms in public, the effect of the iconography on the audience can be
very powerful because her appearance is a result of collaboration and
recognition among the users.

Body without Organs

Juxtaposing William Gibson’s cyborg fiction Idoru with Vocaloids,

Guga boldly puts forward the proposition of Idoru constructs as a
materialization of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s notion of a
“body without organs,” both metaphorically and literally. In her
interpretation, the physical body is attached to and interacts with the
holographic projection, or the desiring-machine to the body without
organs (Guga 104). The hologram is a hollow body encoded by the
fluid processes of identification, with its meaning gained through
interactions with the human body. The hologram, with its unstable
and slippery surface, acquires meaning from the interactions with the
users, in the process generating an interplay of repulsion and attrac-
tion (Guga 104). Elaborating further on Guga’s argument, the physi-
cal world, as perceived by Deleuze and Guattari, is comprised of a
series of flows. They use the term “desiring-machines,” which are
empowered by desire that in turn causes the flows in the physical
world to move. Desiring-machines function by continually breaking
down and conflicting with the body without organs. The body with-
out organs is a body without organization, so desiring-production
happens when the body without organs engenders something into
being. However, when the desiring-machines attempt to graft onto
the body without organs, resistance couples with repulsion (Deleuze
and Guattari 10). In a nutshell, the body without organs is a “plane
of consistency” that provides the smooth space through which move-
ment of desire can occur.
The Vocaloid users inhabit the desiring-machine with their physi-
cal bodies composed of various coupling and interconnected organ-
machines. Their desire of creating music, reflecting their lived experi-
ence, exercising authority, and projecting erotic pleasure propels the
operation of the desiring-machines. In other words, by engaging in
collaborative activities in the network community and participating
in Miku-featured shows, they are assuming their subjectivities by
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1117

imposing their sign systems on Miku. The hollow bodies without

organs, the images, and the projections retain their malleable orga-
nization until various desiring-machines plug into them to produce
and make things happen. Even though the holographic construct is
granted an identity and associated features, it continues to be an
organless body. The body without organs possesses no fixed identity
so that every time an image is produced, it is immediately con-
sumed and immediately consummated, and subsequently these con-
sumptions are then reproduced. Hence, in the collaborative network,
everything is production: “production of productions, of actions and
of passions; productions of recording processes, of distributions. . .;
productions of consumptions, of sensual pleasures” (Deleuze and
Guattari 4). As the people involved celebrate the seeming material-
ization of virtuality and tend to confuse the real and the virtual,
they perceive the hologram as a unique entity for their production,
reproduction, and consumption. Here, the boundary between reality
and virtuality has melted down in the process of deterritorialization,
but the movement also captures the fruit of production. In conclu-
sion, the dynamics between the forces of repulsion and attraction (a
mixture of appreciation, criticism, and collaboration), propels the
operation of the Miku construct, which is the projected body or
body without organs produced through the experience of real and
virtual selves and the layering of the subjectivities onto Miku (Guga
104).

The Gendered Assumptions of Representations

Viewed in this context, the desiring-machines interrupt the flow of

the body without organs by imposing a female sexuality to fulfill the
erotic desire of the Vocaloid users. Like many characteristic anime
characters, Miku was granted an appearance popularly found in moee
or Japanese comic-style painting (Anzai 57–60). Although male sing-
ing voice databases are also produced by Vocaloid products, the
female ones—a conventional, girly image appealing to the general
public—far exceed their counterparts. Although it is generally agreed
that feminine representations seduce male users more effectively, ero-
tic desire might not be the motivation for some female consumers
who are more interested in music compositions (Anzai 59). Instead
1118 Ka Yan Lam

their engagement with the intangible iconography and the hologram

is attributed to the real seduction of the interface, the intrigue of the
collaborative activities, and the empowerment in having Miku under
their control (Matrix 128). The domination of singer libraries by
female Vocaloids reflects not only their popularity among the users
but also the tendency to associate technology with women. As Mary-
Anne Doane tells us, “when technology intersects with the body in
the realm of representation, the question of sexual difference is inevi-
tably involved” (20). Sharing a similar view, Claudia Springer
observes that cybernetic transformation heightens gender, instead of
relinquishing it. Although the virtual image is bereft of its physical-
ity, we are still preoccupied with sexual assumptions (140). In addi-
tion to Miku’s stereotyped femininity, gender differences are
particularly essential to the success of the Vocaloid constructs in the
sense that erotic desire stimulates the perceptions of human sexual
differences. Hence, Hatsune Miku is a product of sexual desire to
reproduce.
In Donna Haraway’s cyborg manifesto, she disputes the possibility
for women to return to nature given the fact that “we are cyborgs.”
She alternatively opts for affinity politics as a cyborg strategy and
favors the ideological image of a world of the “integrated circuit”
(190–233). Inconsistent with Haraway’s cyborg, Hatsune Miku as a
human-form robot-machine is incapable of deconstructing gendered
categories. The iconography instead objectifies and commodifies
women by associating the synthesizer with a heavily coded image.
People’s engagement in creating music videos continues to reproduce
the familiar and sexualized characteristics of masculinity and feminin-
ity. The gender boundaries are still in effect.
Haraway’s cyborg and the image of the virtual character are funda-
mentally different in nature. Although Haraway’s cyborg is revolu-
tionarily constructed upon a conceptualization of the characteristics of
the cyborg in the modern disciplines like modern medicine and war,
Miku is a fabricated and imagined body in the absence of theoretical
formulations and an ontological pedigree. More specifically, in visual-
izing a hypothetical existence, the adoption of a female sexuality
marks a significant relation among representation, gender, and tech-
nology. The implications of visual representations of cyborg bodies,
including their association with traditional gender and differences in
class and race, cannot be easily eradicated from the images, despite
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1119

the utopian presupposition that they can emancipate women from

binarisms as Haraway contends. Likewise Anna Balsamo recognizes
the traditional feminine stereotypes the female cyborgs generally rein-
force. Although in some cases technology liberates women from these
social constraints, it can also perpetuate their oppressive gender roles
(148–49). Since the cyborg image is often constructed by a patriar-
chal culture, anxiety and emotions are usually displaced onto the
woman figure. When visually representing technology is of necessity,
our hegemonic cultural logic seems to be naturally brought into play.
The female Vocaloid avatars guarantee the most profitable market in
gendered representations, and the entertaining function of the soft-
ware implicates the conventional role of women as playmates of their
opposite sex. Therefore, the totalizing gender stereotypes remains a
dominant practice.
For a feminist analysis, Miku can be profitably compared to other
virtual reality figures. One western virtual celebrity who achieved
popularity in the 1990s is the female heroine Lara Croft in the
computer game series Tomb Raider. Endowed with a pre-assigned
personal “history,” Lara Croft encourages more immersion from the
players through the gameplay narrative. This narrative potentiality
is less developed in the Hatsune Miku representation. Crypton
adopts a more feminine image for Miku, whereas Lara is endowed
an atypical personality for women. This female figure stimulates
male fantasy; Anne-Marie Schleiner suggest that Lara is a “fetish
object of the male gaze” because the player controls Lara’s move-
ment as a third party who seems to be voyeuristically fixated on her
body (222). Conversely, the charm of the game emphasizes a sexual-
ized heroine who possesses masculine attributes, contradicting with
the typical image of femininity. Thus, the game may appeal to
female players who imagine themselves as Lara, a brave, powerful,
and immortal adventurer. While some critics regard Lara as a threat
to the patriarchal order (Kennedy), others suggest that the game
breaks down rigid gender roles and allows the male player to put
on a feminine identity as a form of gender experimentation
(Schleiner 223). Although gender crossing is less prominent in
Miku’s case, feminine traits are indispensable in the success of these
two virtual characters, indicating the intimate relation between vir-
tuality and gender representation which is not exclusive in Japanese
popular culture.
1120 Ka Yan Lam

The Socio-Cultural Milieu

Sexualized assumptions persist in the historical and cultural traces of

the dialectics of sexuality, representation, and technology. Yet the
issues concerning virtual celebrity are most related to the socio-cul-
tural circumstances of contemporary Japanese society. No doubt Japa-
nese society is more complex and dynamic than any generalizations
about gender roles and technoculture. Although Japan is regarded as
a society emphasizing hierarchy and formality, where women are
expected to be submissive and traditional, there are certainly cases in
which women are associated with more masculine characteristics pos-
sessing dangerous powers (Napier 91–109). Considering the historical
and economic circumstances, the younger generation of Japanese men
and women have attempted to question and redefine traditional gen-
der roles, particularly after the burst of the economic bubble in the
1980s. Even though representations of women are changing, in cer-
tain arenas the practices that subjugate women and offer gendered
stereotypes persist. Hence, the gendered icon exemplifies this contin-
uing imposition of gender roles and objectification of women, coming
from the wider domain of popular culture and the larger hegemonic
discourse on gender.
In a consumer society inundated not only with pornographic
images of women but also commodities adorned with fanciful pack-
aging and ornamentation, the people in Japan engage in a life
fraught with super-technological gadgets and spend a tremendous
amount of time lingering in cyberspace. The Hatsune Miku phe-
nomenon precisely reveals this consumer culture: the software pur-
chased, the image consumed, the holographic concert attended, the
videos shared, and the marketing commodities manufactured.
Despite the possibly damaging impact of forging an intimate rela-
tionship with spectacles of imaginative forms, it is important not to
dismiss hi-tech aesthetics as unworthy of entertaining, inspiring,
and shaping the identities of consumers, or to underrate the merit
of allowing them to express themselves and connect with others via
social media, creating the online platform and the software as their
individualized space.
The Hatsune Miku Phenomenon 1121

Conclusion

Virtual celebrity can be understood within its socio-cultural condi-

tions. Although this study had focused on one individual Vocaloid
singer, the phenomenon is indicative of contemporary society
immersed in consumption, creative production, and intense involve-
ment with digital technologies. Furthermore, the femininity of the
visual representation implies the underlying and still reinstating ten-
dency for perpetuating female stereotypes. The essentializing of gen-
der has intensified with the reproduction of the videos and the
circulation of images, which is a way of popularizing, normalizing,
and naturalizing the prototypes of gender and the body.
Considering the function of technological advancements, when it
comes to developing innovations that attempt to simulate human
beings, what is the motivation of pursuing near-human authenticity
other than the ecstasy of technological breakthrough and technological
enchantment? When we have technologies that simulate our ways of
acting and perception and robots that imitate our physical appearance,
are we trying to make ourselves more indistinguishable from our
mechanical equivalents? From the perspective of the robot builders,
humanoid innovations are products of authentic engineering that
reconnects them to masculine identities through technology, in con-
trast with modern engineering that privileges rationality and pragma-
tism. This passion is seemingly associated with the national dreams of
the people in contemporary Japan (Hirofumi vi). These developments
bring us enthusiasm and benefits, though we may ponder the impacts
of developing technologies that imitate human beings.
While we are strenuously keeping up with emerging technologies,
we are deliberately or unconsciously preoccupied by the imaginary
world of reduplication which involves the interactivity of screens.
Even though attachment to cyberspace becomes more necessary and
indispensable, we can consider our positions in the virtual world in
connection with occurrences in the reality. Being obsessed with the
cyber-world is often suggestive of the distress and struggles in the
ordinary life: for instance, being marginalized or isolated. So it is of
major priority that we redirect our attention to reassessing our rela-
tionship with the marvelous world of networks and interpreting the
entire situation in a way that justifies our existence and relocates
1122 Ka Yan Lam

ourselves in reality. We should think different about “how virtuality

may affect our ideas of ourselves, bodies, gender, and sexuality”
(Matrix 134).
Despite progressive efforts made in achieving greater equality
between representations of men and women in a variety of arenas,
there are still occasions here and there rendering women as bearers of
gendered stereotypes. Acknowledging the difficulty in changing the
conformist culture in Japan, gendered representations are not easy to
be set free of social constraints. Thus, we have come to where we
began: the study of the Hatsune Miku phenomenon reflects a situa-
tion in which only by addressing the issues of totalizing gendered
expectations can the problems be given due deliberation and care,
and a better understanding of gender relations socio-culturally, sexu-
ally, and virtually be fostered.

Notes
1. The first version of Vocaloid was released in 2004 by Yamaha, which later licensed the tech-
nology to third-party developers. Vocaloid2 was released in 2007 and extensively developed
by more companies with twenty-one products in total, some of which attracted considerable
acceptance.
2. Initially, the Score Editor converts the lyrics the users have inputted to phonetic symbols of
the target language (both Japanese and other foreign languages are available), with the preci-
sion of the transmission achieved by the built-in dictionary of pronunciation and syllabifica-
tion. The Singer Library then collects the fragments of voices recorded from the voice donor
(mostly actual singers) for the Synthesis Engine to concatenate the melody and the lyrics
from the editor with the corresponding samples from the library (Kenmochi 2–3).

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Ka Yan Lam is a PhD candidate in Department of English at City Univer-

sity of Hong Kong. Her research interest includes cultural studies and com-
parative literary criticism.