On_Da-style Miku: Miku 3D Models Coming Full Circle

Character models for MikuMikuDance seem to get constantly released, especially for the titular Miku, but one particular release on Christmas Eve of 2012 seemed to have a bit more interesting history behind it. On that day, 3D modeler On_Da released the “On-Da-style Miku” model, but that wasn’t the first time his handiwork had shown up in the Miku fan community. In fact, one could conceivably find a connection as far back as the early days after Miku’s release. So, let us now revisit the autumn of 2007…

As many people know, Hatsune Miku was released on August 31, 2007 by Crypton Future Media. Her reception on niconico helped propel her into later stardom. However, what most people don’t know is that on the same day, a different, less kosher product was also released — the Love Death 2 ~Realtime Lovers~, a 3D erotic game made by TEATIME. Although people mostly bought the game for the sex content, many people also found the 3D character generator very powerful and easy to use. And thus, not before long, someone released a mod converting one of the characters in the game into a Miku look-a-like, with the model being referred to as “Love Death-style Miku”. The following video demonstrates the modded Miku model in game. (Warning: contains Miku harassment and may not be suitable for children)

This would’ve been buried in history just like all the other random mods people made, if not for the fact that people then started using the game engine to help them make PVs of popular songs. From a PV of Time Limit (a bittersweet song about the expiration of Miku’s trial version) to a PV of Anata no Utahime and of course the all-popular Melt, many videos were made and uploaded on niconico.


However, it was quite difficult to actually make PVs this way, due to the limitations of the engine and what movements were possible. The fact that an erotic game was involved didn’t make it any more accessible, either. Eventually, people moved on once MikuMikuDance came out, as the latter was a much more accessible and easier way to make 3D PVs. Coincidentally, by late 2009, an MMD model inspired by Love Death-style Miku was also made, this time being called “Love-style Miku”, and it was used in many videos as well.

The story, however, didn’t end here. A couple years later, the original character designer and 3D modeler for Love Death 2, On_Da, ended up making his very own MMD model of Miku called “On_Da-style Miku”. She was released on Christmas Eve of 2012, and she looked very similar to the original Love Death Miku design, owing to being created by the same modeler. The latest release includes a ponytail version of Miku as well as a barefoot version. In addition to this model, he has also released a model titled “On_Da-style Mysterious Creature” which looks like a tiny Miku with cat ears. MMD creators who originally made videos with the Love-style Miku gobbled up the new model, creating new videos on the first day.

There is now a healthy fan community of several hundred niconico users revolving around the On_Da models, and this thread of fan collaboration is yet another interesting if not bizarre snippet of the Hatsune Miku phenomenon.


5 thoughts on “On_Da-style Miku: Miku 3D Models Coming Full Circle”

  1. Thanks for the insight, I was somewhat aware of the fact that this model came from an eroge but If this is really well documented, especially seeing that the original author of the models on デスラベ2 moved to MMD.
    I wish there was some tagging of the model used on NND, this way we could have an easy way to ranking them and a convenient way to discover new one.

  2. Today I learned something new about mmd stuff. Although I guess that explains why the mmd fandom consider lovedeath models rare I guess…

Leave a Reply to thatguy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *