Hatsune Miku figure museum

[The Complete Guide to Ichibankuji] by Good Luck Trip : https://www.gltjp.com/en/article/item/21141/

Personal note : I've often seen "kuji" or "ichiban kuji" in figurine deniminations and wondered what it is ; Ichiban Kuji (一番くじ, which can be translated to The Best Lottery) is a Lottery system created by BANDAI SPIRITS, similar to every lottery system except you'll always win a prize, and the prizes consist of original goods created in collaboration with popular entertainment franchises. Prizes come into categories, such as Prize A, Prize B, and also "Last One Prize" awarded to the person who draws the very last ticket in a store, which is a special item. In Japan, tickets can be boughts at official IchibanKuji shops, convenience stores, bookstores, hobby shops, among others. You may peel your ticket open instantly to reveal your prize category, and receive the corresponding prize immediately at the store where you drew the ticket. It's possible to check in advance what prizes are still available in which stores, and depending on the franchise, they may sell out fast. This Miku figurine is a The Last Prize, and a Regular color Ver. of it exists as well and could be won as "Prize A". It's designed by Nardack who also designed the Luka, Rin, Len, Kaito and Meiko figurines along with Miku for this precise Furyu Kuji Noodle Stopper series ! They also designed a few other official Miku figurines, and a Sailor Moon Garage kit.

Personal note : I've often seen "kuji" or "ichiban kuji" in figurine deniminations and wondered what it is ; Ichiban Kuji (一番くじ, which can be translated to The Best Lottery) is a Lottery system created by BANDAI SPIRITS, similar to every lottery system except you'll always win a prize, and the prizes consist of original goods created in collaboration with popular entertainment franchises. Prizes come into categories, such as Prize A, Prize B, and also "Last One Prize" awarded to the person who draws the very last ticket in a store, which is a special item. In Japan, tickets can be boughts at official IchibanKuji shops, convenience stores, bookstores, hobby shops, among others. You may peel your ticket open instantly to reveal your prize category, and receive the corresponding prize immediately at the store where you drew the ticket. It's possible to check in advance what prizes are still available in which stores, and depending on the franchise, they may sell out fast. This Miku figurine is a Prize A, and a Pearl Ver. of it exists as well and could be won as "Last One Prize". It's designed by Nardack who also designed the Luka, Rin, Len, Kaito and Meiko figurines along with Miku for this precise Furyu Kuji Noodle Stopper series ! They also designed a few other official Miku figurines, and a Sailor Moon Garage kit.

Personal note : Toonize is a collectible figure line by FuRyu, featuring characters from a few franchises, and often coming with two versions distinguised by their colour palette (sometimes just slightly different). In this case, there is a Basic Color. ver, and a Cartoon Color Ver (the Cartoon Color ver. being slightly more saturated than the Basic one). I had to compare pictures online as the version itself is not mentioned anywhere on the box, so I suppose I own the Cartoon Color Ver. (?). The illustrator Gashi Gashi designed most (or very probably all) of the Toonize figure line's figures. This figure is full of adorable details : the lashes in relief, the small swirls on the knees, the shading on the hair and the logo on the base. I am personnally particularly fond of Gashi Gashi's designs for the Vocaloids that got their Toonize figure as well (Luka, Rin and Len), and also their designs for FMAB and Chainsaw Man characters.

Personal note : Q Posket is a collectible figure line by Bandai Spirits, created by Banpresto, featuring many characters from many franchises, and often coming with two versions distinguised by their colour palette (sometimes just slightly different). In this case, the one with slightly darker colours is ver. A, and the lighter one is ver. B. The name Q Posket combines Q for "quality" and Posket which means "cheeks" in Finnish. A Q Posket of the V4X Miku also exists.

Personal note : Q Posket is a collectible figure line by Bandai Spirits, created by Banpresto, featuring many characters from many franchises, and often coming with two versions distinguised by their colour palette (sometimes just slightly different). In this case, the one with slightly darker colours is ver. A, and the lighter one is ver. B. The name Q Posket combines Q for "quality" and Posket which means "cheeks" in Finnish. A Q Posket of the V4X Miku also exists.

Personal note : Artist MasterPiece is a series of figures made by Taito, designed by different artists. While I could not find information about Saihate, the artist behind this figure's design, I found their original artwork (which was used as reference for the figure) on pixiv ( https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/111315780 ). The actual figure is a lot more stable than it looks, and by looking at the original artwork, I just realized that I placed the mic stand at an incredibly odd angle (sorry).

Personal note : This figure was sculpted by Miyagawa Takeshi, who also sculpted several hundred figures of many different characters, from Fate, Touhou, and more. Including both garage kits and official figures, more than 800 are listed in the website myfigurecollection.net as I write this. He sculpted a few other Miku figures, such as the Swimwear Mizutama Bikini outfit for Project Diva F, several Project Sekai: Colorful stage Miku figures (with Flashy Feline and Key to your heart outfits) and a 1/6 Romeo and Cinderella Garage Kit (among others). Also, T's system seems to be a collective of figure creactors, on the initiative of Takeshi Miyagawa himself, T being the initial of Takeshi. The collective website is available at http://www.tssystem.xii.jp/ . He have also repeatedly showcased his work at the Wonder Festival in Japan ( https://wonfes.jp/specialsite/en/ ), one of the world's largest festivals dedicated to figure modeling and sculpture, opened to progessional and amateur creators, showcasing garage kits for exhibition and sale and future releases by bigger toy companies.

Personal note : This figure also exists in two other versions ; light color ver. and pearl color ver. Originally, noodle stopper figures' are, as indicated in the name, designed to sit on the lid of instant cup noodles, keeping the lid closed to ensure that the contents are evenly cooking in hot water. The illustrator Kōhaku Kuroboshi (also known as izuka Takeshi), is also known for illustrating and being in charge of the character design for several light novels and series, including Fate/Grand Order (Original Character Design for Katsushika Hokusai, Abigail Williams, Yang Guifei and Jacques de Molay), Sky girls, Hololive English, and Kino's Journey. More information can be found on his Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouhaku_Kuroboshi . This figure is also widely known for its fragile twin tails hair pieces, which have a tendency to either fall or break, which lead to a fanart trend of people drawing this figurine with only one of her twin tails ! The broken figurine's picture comes from Vixiiart's Instagram (who is also the illustrator of the first fanart) and the illustrator for the second fanart example is Alyxionix (who can be found on Instagram as well). This trend also included, at different points in time, other figurines, since Miku figurines have a tendency of having unstable twin tails depending on the model (ᵕ ´ᗜ`) Also I bought this one second-hand so I don't have the original box and filmed her on another box (since she needed to be raised a bit for the picture) :3

Work has been keeping me from posting for a while, but I'm positive I'll continue searching for figurines info, updating existing posts and posting new figurines (I got a better camera now hurrayy). I'll very probably also extend this museum's repertoire to the fan merch I've been gathering from other artists and the standees I've been making for my siblings :3

Personal note : Mamama seems to have been creating custom Miku 3D models, and this figure is based on one of them, which can be downloaded from Piapro (a Virtual Studio Technology Instrument produced and developed by Crypton Future Media, to be used in a Digital Audio Workstation. It originally used Vocaloid as its core synthesising engine, but became its own independent software later). Mamama also made custom 3D models for Project Diva. However, it seems that SEGA isn't really tolerant on the creation and distrubution of custom models for their Project Diva games (or at least, not in this precise case) ; Mamama's download links for their 3D models were taken down, and it's theorized that Sega requested that Mamama quit distribution of the models.

Personal note : This figure also has been made into another version called HappyKuji Hatsune Miku 2014 Autumn Ver, manufactured by Good Smile Company and distributed by Family Mart starting October 4th 2014, where her clothes and base's colours are modified with halloween-like colours. She apparently was sold during the event Miku Love FamiMart Campaign 4th Happy Halloween Trick or Miku? (ミク LOVES ファミマ♪キャンペーン4th Happy Halloween★TRICK or MIKU？). Also (at least with the original Lat-type Ver.) She comes with little accessories, such as two different bases, two different mics, and the pair of glasses she's wearing on the picture which is the tiniest piece of metal I've ever seen ; it comes flat and you have to fold it and secure it on her head yourself :) Absolutely adorable.

Personal note : The little alien guy seems to be Kanzaki Hiro's signature creature. Kanzaki Hiro, also known as Hiroyuki Oda, HSP or Hanasoumen-P when producing music, is an animator and illustrator. I'll include some of his illustrations of Miku, as well as the illustration used as the reference for this figure. This is my favourite official Miku figure ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Personal note : This is one of the figures that used to be a garage kit sold by Company Tora Brindle, before being re-released as a prepainted prize figure. I found Kei's original illustration on the garage kit's figure web page on myfigurecollection . net , and noticed a tiny piece of paper (on a hair strand near her neck tie) that probably wasn't removed before scanning ? This illustration is actually pretty hard to find on the internet, and half of its appearances feature this piece of paper.

Personal note : This is one of the figures that used to be a garage kit sold by Company Tora Brindle, before being re-released as a prepainted prize figure.

Personal note : This figure was created to promote Project Diva Extend, an expansion to Project Diva 2nd (2010), which was first released on November 2011. The illustration used for the box art was done by KEI, I'll include a picture of the original art. Honestly though, the figure's head looks off and her right leg looks bad from absolutely every single angle. 10/10 least favourite Miku figure I own.