Hiroyuki Itoh speaks at Hatsune Miku Live (Encore) in San Francisco

Hatsune Miku Live in SF


As some of you may recall, Miku had her first ‘Live Concert’ in the US back in September. We, unfortunately, weren’t able to be present at the event.

However, the turnout for the concert was high enough that they scheduled an encore performance on the 11th of October, complete with a guest appearance by, as they put it, “The creator of Miku.”

We did manage to attend this event.

The CEO of Crypton Future Media, Inc., Hiroyuki Itoh, was the aforementioned “creator of Miku” and was present at the beginning of the encore concert to give a presentation about what Vocaloids were and how they’ve evolved. The presentation, to the best of my knowledge, is about the same as the one that was presented at the New York Comic Con/Anime Festival.

Prior to Mr. Itoh’s presentation, there was a short lead-in by the editor-in-chief of Tokyo Kawaii Magazine (an iPod/iPhone e-magazine), Toshihiro Fukuoka, during which he talked briefly about their upcoming, Hatsune Miku-centric, November issue.

As a number of Vocaloidism members were in attendance, we have a 5-part (shaky, phone-cam’d) recording of both the presentation and the lead-in, for your viewing pleasure:


Part 1 is embedded above

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

note: apologies for the shoddy camwork, silly comments, and loud laughter

While there was nothing altogether new in Mr. Itoh’s presentation, it was still a bit interesting to listen to. There was more mention of a possible English-speaking Hatsune Miku, as well as a US Vocaloid store.

Special guest speakers aside, there was also limited-run merchandise available at the concert, including the very difficult to obtain, life-size Project DIVA 2nd wall tapestries that were only available from Comiket 78 earlier this year. Other merchandise included $100 blu-rays (yes, one hundred dollars, though you got a free poster with it) and Hatsune Miku mugs.

At the end of the concert, there were also a few limited-run magazines (only 2000 were printed, apparently) raffled out, as well as sets of Project DIVA stickers. The event concluded with an autograph session from Hiroyuki Itoh, which was unexpected and fairly neat.

All in all, it was a fairly entertaining evening (especially when some of the younger audience members got up to dance to Popipo–it was horrifyingly cute), even though the ‘concert’ was nothing more than a live-screening of the 39’s Giving Day blu-ray. We weren’t really expecting much more than that, in any case.

note: there is no recording of the concert itself, as it’s nothing more than the blu-ray, which most folks can purchase online.
note 2: we’d like to point out that ‘ano gakki’ actually translates to ‘that instrument,’ rather than what the translator misheard it for in the presentation

About: Tari


4 thoughts on “Hiroyuki Itoh speaks at Hatsune Miku Live (Encore) in San Francisco”

  1. Oh wow, from NYC to SF just like that, huh? I saw the “concert” at New York Anime Festival on Saturday, the 9th, got to meet Itou afterwards. Too many people milling around to get an autograph, but I did get a photo with him, which was awesome. Unfortunately, not being able to speak Japanese, I couldn’t talk with him. But very nice guy and friendly. Was very welcoming of all the fans and photos, even though that wasn’t part of the event.

    And despite being just a screening, the fans definitely made the “concert” a rocking experience.

    1. The second concert in SF was definitely smaller than the first, so there was probably significantly less energy than there was at the NY screening (and the first SF one), but I was more than happy to have met Itoh. ๐Ÿ˜›

      I suppose the reason they did an autograph session afterwards was because of the marginally smaller crowd at the encore event.

  2. but that's not a concert, it's just the video of the concert held in japan, you know here in Argentina on a technology convention (not even anime convention) the hole miku concert was shown on a giant screen (just like that one), it was such a controversy no one knew who she was ๐Ÿ˜›

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