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Hey there Vocaloid fans! Are you as bummed about the cancelation of Miku Expo 2020 USA & Canada as I am? Maybe you’re looking to build up your excitement ahead of Magical Mirai at the end of the year? Or maybe you just want to take a look back at a decade of live Miku music~

Starting tomorrow (October 10th, 2020) and for the next 20 WEEKENDS, Every Saturday at 4 PM (Chicago time) I will be hosting watch parties for concert movies and footage of Crypton’s official Hatsune Miku live shows. We’re gonna take a look back at a decade’s worth of Hatsune Miku concerts, watch them evolve over the years, compare the shows across different regions, and just have fun gushing over fun music, lights, and sets. I know an awful lot about these concerts, so I’ll be adding in a lot of history, behind-the-scenes info, trivia, and commentary as we watch. Most weekends I’ve planned two concerts per stream, with a few exceptions. Also, since this will overlap with ExtraLife a bit, these will be charity streams as well!

If that sounds like something you might be into, give me a follow over at twitch.tv/CloudyObsession and read below the page break for the schedule and more information!

Week 4 - Hatsune Appearance: Smaller Scale and Pre-Recorded Hatsune Appearance shows aren’t technically concerts, as they lack a live band or any live instrumentation whatsoever, but Angel Project’s touring pre-recorded live shows have been popular in Japan, springing up here and there over the years but notably in 2012 and 2013 with their Hatsune Appearance shows.  These were small-venue shows held every night over a period of a few weeks in the same location. They were animated using Miku Miku Dance, a freeware 3D animation software distributed by Crypton for creating 3D Vocaloid music videos (MMD has had a HUGE impact on the development of Vocaloid media, and is still in fairly active use today, taking on quite a life of its own beyond Vocaloid as one of the most accessible 3D modeling programs available). These sorts of performances were not especially new by 2012, having been seen at various Vocaloid fan events and conventions even over here in the US here and there, they were typically put on by fan groups with permission from, but little involvement by Crypton. The Hatsune Appearance shows, however, began life as part 39′s Caravan Summer Festival, a series of promotional events in August and September 2012 supporting the launch of Project Diva ƒ for the PS Vita.

This is another series I feel is under-apprecited by fans, even moreso than Snow Miku shows. I think this is largely due to the pre-recorded nature of the shows, on top of fans generally favoring the much larger-scale concerts. I’ll admit I was skeptical before I had seen one, but trust me, you won’t want to miss these. The big draw here, aside from seeing a number of songs performed that you just won’t hear in any of the live band shows, is the animation. Hatsune Appearance puts a lot more effects on the projection screen, and make heavy use of fairly tricky stage lighting and carefully-placed screens to create a unique experience that couldn’t be done with a live music show. Having the music entirely pre-recorded lends the animation and effects a level of precision you just can’t accomplish when working with live music, and that can make for a fun change of pace if that’s what you’re used to seeing. Plus, you don’t often get to see footage of smaller Vocaloid shows like these very often (despite the fact that they do still happen pretty frequently across Japan), even the Angel Project shows to follow in the ensuing years have pretty much no available footage circulating, let alone DVD or Blu-Ray releases, so these are some of the only glimpses into these events you can get without being there!

NOTE: Hatsune Appearance 2012 is a much shorter show than usual, only about 30 minutes long. Hatsune Appearance 2012 is 1 hour and 30 minutes long.

Hatsune Appearance 2012 was held every night from September 13th to the 23rd in Yokohama. There isn’t too much more to be said about this show that wasn’t introducing the series as a whole. Since this one only clocks in about a half-hour long, in a lot of ways it’s a preview for the much longer show to come in 2013, but it’s still a really fun little show to put on, and there’s only one or two songs that overlap between 2012 and 2013 so it makes it very worth it to watch both! One interesting thing to note about this show, the MMD model used for Miku, which they would also use for the 2013 show, was made publicly available in early 2013. Officially called “Appearance Miku” but commonly abbreviated as ApiMiku, it was a very popular 3D Miku model that remains in use today!

Hatsune Appearance 2013, full title: “Hatsune Appearance Natsu Matsuri Hatsune Kagami”, is the follow-up to the 2012 Angel Project show. Very little information can be found about this show (in English anyway), I’m not even able to find where it took place or the full range of dates that it spanned. The only concrete info I can seem to find is that the footage used for the DVD and Blu-Ray was recorded on August 20th, 2013. It seems as if this concert ran in the lead-up to the very first Magical Mirai, which was held August 30th 2013. Despite this, Hatsune Appearance 2013 remains among my favourites. These shows really demonstrate how much you can do with just a projection screen, stage lighting, and a good sound system. These smaller shows also just have an intimacy you don’t get in the giant concert halls and arenas, seeing Miku and the audience so close is honestly kinda special, and the projectors used do a fantastic job of making her seem convincingly on-stage, even at a much shorter distance.

Click Here For Full Schedule

“When it came to ordering the concerts, I tried to keep things in a loose chronological order while also offering a good variety from week to week, and pairing together concerts that compliment each other. Hopefully I’ve managed to string them together in a way that lets you observe how the concerts have changed and evolved over time, while not putting too many very similar shows back-to-back.”

Week 3 - 2012′s Legendary Double-Concert In 2012, Crypton held a double concert event over the evenings of March 8th and 9th, for a big two-night mega-show at Tokyo Dome. The night of the 8th a MikuPa concert was held, and the following night an entirely different concert, 39′s Giving Day 2012, was put on. The two shows compliment each other so well that I can’t help but watch them back-to-back.

MikuPa Tokyo 2012 marks the second year of Miku Live Party. Now with two domestic and two overseas concerts’ worth of experience, the MikuPa team (lead by Marza Animation Planet) provide an excellent successor to the previous year’s show. You can already see improvements in the projection and models, the set remains largely the same, the two-screen setup (with a secondary opaque projection screen sometimes lowered above the main glass screen) is pretty much a staple of the MikuPa shows now, with a majority of their sets iterating on that concept. This also marks the concert debut of KAITO, a long-overdue appearance from the first Vocaloid that CFM ever developed (although he was the second they released).

39′s Giving Day 2012, full title: “Miku no Hi Dai Kanshasai 39's Giving Day”, is the follow-up to Miku’s first concert in 2010 and the final 39′s Giving Day performance. Much like the 2010 39′s Giving Day, this concert held on 3/9 was intended to promote Project Diva, with SEGA handling the bulk of the models and animation (many of the models featured are the same used in Project Diva Arcade). This is often one of the best-remembered concerts, and for many years after was considered to be the best of the best by a large portion of fans. This concert is memorable for a reason: the setlist is killer, the live band is amazing (and includes, for the first time, a string and brass section), every element of this show comes together to give you the best Hatsune Miku experience 2012 had to offer. 39′s Giving Day 2012 marks the concert debut of MEIKO, the female counterpart to KAITO and the first Vocaloid that CFM released. This show used a modified (and in many ways, improved) version of the MikuPa 2012 set, with more band space to accommodate the extra musicians and more lighting elements. Amusingly some of those unique elements actually make an appearance during the encore of the previous night’s concert!

Click Here For Full Schedule Click Here For Week 4

“When it came to ordering the concerts, I tried to keep things in a loose chronological order while also offering a good variety from week to week, and pairing together concerts that compliment each other. Hopefully I’ve managed to string them together in a way that lets you observe how the concerts have changed and evolved over time, while not putting too many very similar shows back-to-back.”

“When it came to ordering the concerts, I tried to keep things in a loose chronological order while also offering a good variety from week to week, and pairing together concerts that compliment each other. Hopefully I’ve managed to string them together in a way that lets you observe how the concerts have changed and evolved over time, while not putting too many very similar shows back-to-back.”

Week 2 - Miku Concert Beginnings With my favourites out of the way, we’re gonna go aaaaaall the way back to the very beginning to start our journey proper.

39′s Giving Day 2010, full title: “Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day”, was a concert held on March 9th (3/9) to promote Project Diva 2nd for PSP. This was Miku’s first ever solo live performance and generally considered to be her live debut (she had appeared as a projection at a Miku-focused Nico Nico event the previous year, which we will check out on Week 19, but these were essentially screened music videos with no live accompaniment). Going from the remarkably high production values of the 2018 and 2019 the previous week, back to the very beginning is an amusing contrast, and will give you a great idea of just how far the shows have come. 39′s Giving Day 2010 may seem almost primitive to some, with much less lighting and set elements, and comparatively lower-quality projection technology, but there’s a lot here that makes this concert a delight to return to (it’s honestly one of my most-watched concerts). For one thing, it demonstrates that the live band has been killer right from the start and is the foundation of what makes these concerts so much fun. You also get to see some of the oldest 3D Miku models, including the chunky, lower-poly PSP models they bring out to do a Project Diva medley mid-show. There’s also a bunch of songs here that have long since dropped off the setlist for one reason or other.

MikuPa Sapporo 2011 represents the beginning of the Miku Live Party (MikuPa) series, CFM’s main Miku concert series until it ended with its final show in 2013, spanning several cities across Asia during its life. MikuPa shows had a different production crew than the 39′s Giving Day concerts and used a different set of models, models that you can occasionally still see at contemporary concerts, albeit touched up a fair amount. 39′s Giving Day 2010 established the baseline of what a Miku concert looks like, but a lot of the trends that have run throughout Miku concerts were established here, at the earliest Miku Live Parties. Sapporo 2011 is technically the second Miku Live Party, but the very first one in Tokyo used a standard opaque projection screen (one of the few ever to do this) rather than the glass screen we’ve come to expect, which makes it a bit of an outlier. We will be checking out MikuPa Tokyo 2011, but not until Week 19.

Click Here For Full Schedule Click Here For Week 3

This whole thing is something I’ve actually been wanting to do for a while, I’ve had the idea kicking around in my head ever since the initial postponement of Miku Expo USA & Canada, and have spent the months since mulling over how I might to about pulling it off. I’ve put a lot of thought into making these work, so I hope you’ll join me and have a good time <3

When it came to ordering the concerts, I tried to keep things in a loose chronological order while also offering a good variety from week to week, and pairing together concerts that compliment each other. Hopefully I’ve managed to string them together in a way that lets you observe how the concerts have changed and evolved over time, while not putting too many very similar shows back-to-back. Let’s take a more in-depth look at how I’ve planned them out, if you’re curious about what each weekend and each concert in particular entails! =D

Week 1 - My Favourite Concerts I figured to kick things off, I’d showcase what I think are the best of the best that Miku live shows have to offer. If you’re curious as to whether or not you might enjoy these concerts, this is a great way to see them at their best right as we start things off. Hopefully you’ll love these two shows as much as I do! Note: These two shows each appear a second time on the schedule, but muuuuuuuuch later on, not until next year. These are the only two repeats, you have to worry about.

Magical Mirai 2018 is absolute peak Miku live show for me, I dunno how much else there is to say about it. Coming just a year after the beloved 10th Anniversary show, MM2018 had a tough act to follow, but it managed to up the ante even further. 2019′s concert comes real close, but I think this one is still the best for me.

Snow Miku 2019 is honestly tied with 2018′s Snow Miku as far as quality in my opinion, but this was the one available on YT. Snow Miku shows are super underappreciated, they’re incredible concerts for how much smaller the venue is than for Magical Mirai. The sets always do a lot with the winter theme and there are unique outfits and performances here that you won’t see in any of the other concerts!

Click Here For Full Schedule

Hey folks!  I know it’s been a while, I don’t really use Tumblr much anymore, so sorry if you haven’t seen much of me lately.

Also sorry to come back to you guys like this, but I’m in a bit of a tight spot.  I have a big move coming up at the beginning of August, and that move comes with a lot of expenses attached that are putting a huge strain on my already-tight budget.  To make matters worse, my car suddenly needed about $900 in repairs that I couldn’t put off, because it wouldn’t move otherwise and there’s nowhere I could leave it indefinitely.  Having to dump that money right away has made the need for a little financial relief pretty urgent...

So, I’m asking if there’s any money you wouldn’t mind sparing me to help cover the costs of moving.  There’s no obligation, and anything you can spare at all would be a help and very much appreciated.

Unfortunately, I can’t use PayPal, which locks me out of using something like Ko-Fi as well.  However, you can send me money any of the following ways:

Google Pay: [email protected] Square Cash: $CloudyObsession Venmo: @CloudyObsession