Other Miku is getting her own animated series with direct input from CFM
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It's been 84 Years... I can't believe it's only now happening if you don't count the Black Rock Shooter OVA, which I kinda don't even tho its pretty good
That's quite something! I'm interested to see how they'll handle Miku having no canon personality...though if you've seen a concert, I think you can easily argue that she does have at least the outline of one established already.
Now people who think she's an anime character will finally be correct ;) .
Edit: I guess I forgot about the Shinkalion anime...not sure if that counts. If I recall/understood correctly, Miku wasn't appearing in a role as a singer, but I think they did use her name.
Now people who think she's an anime character will finally be correct ;) .
Edit: I guess I forgot about the Shinkalion anime...not sure if that counts. If I recall/understood correctly, Miku wasn't appearing in a role as a singer, but I think they did use her name.
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While the title of the tweet says it is an "animated series", the article actually clarifies it's a webtoon and comics. It goes on to say that fans will "enter the story of the 'Mikuverse'" and it combines live-action, animation, and music. It says the story is supposed to be modern and that Hatsune Miku is getting "an exciting new look".
(Personally, hearing "webtoon", "live-action", and "exciting new look" have me worried... I am wondering who they will get music from, since music licensing tends to be an issue with Miku activities like games/concerts.)
The two companies involved are Graphic India and Carlin West Agency. I will talk about each company.
Graphic India is led by Sharad Devarajan. They use graphic novels to develop into live-action movies, animation, and games. They focus on creating characters to spread the culture of India. Sharad has an education that focuses on technology, globalization and teaches. Working with Stan Lee, he helped create Chakra the Invincible for Cartoon Network. He has done other work relating to super heroes and comics in India. Graphic India features animation, comics, and motion comics that seem centered around the culture of India and heroes. You can read samples of their comics on the website (they look nice). Some companies they have worked with include Disney and Cartoon Network.
This is their Twitter account: https://twitter.com/GraphicIndia
Carlin West Agency is led by Carlin West. The company is based in New York and Carlin is a woman. She used to be the Executive Vice President at 4Kids Entertainment (western fans might be scared by this, haha). Carlin took care of brand acquisition, licensing, and PR for 4Kids and is responsible for Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, The Winx Club, and many more. Carlin West Agency focuses on licensing, branding, PR such as events, and trade shows. Their current list of associated brands includes Miraculous Ladybug, The Winx Club, neopets, and even Hatsune Miku is listed. Their social media appears to be less than 1 year old and does not have much activity on them (aka basically no posts and no followers).
(Personally, hearing "webtoon", "live-action", and "exciting new look" have me worried... I am wondering who they will get music from, since music licensing tends to be an issue with Miku activities like games/concerts.)
The two companies involved are Graphic India and Carlin West Agency. I will talk about each company.
Graphic India is led by Sharad Devarajan. They use graphic novels to develop into live-action movies, animation, and games. They focus on creating characters to spread the culture of India. Sharad has an education that focuses on technology, globalization and teaches. Working with Stan Lee, he helped create Chakra the Invincible for Cartoon Network. He has done other work relating to super heroes and comics in India. Graphic India features animation, comics, and motion comics that seem centered around the culture of India and heroes. You can read samples of their comics on the website (they look nice). Some companies they have worked with include Disney and Cartoon Network.
This is their Twitter account: https://twitter.com/GraphicIndia
Carlin West Agency is led by Carlin West. The company is based in New York and Carlin is a woman. She used to be the Executive Vice President at 4Kids Entertainment (western fans might be scared by this, haha). Carlin took care of brand acquisition, licensing, and PR for 4Kids and is responsible for Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, The Winx Club, and many more. Carlin West Agency focuses on licensing, branding, PR such as events, and trade shows. Their current list of associated brands includes Miraculous Ladybug, The Winx Club, neopets, and even Hatsune Miku is listed. Their social media appears to be less than 1 year old and does not have much activity on them (aka basically no posts and no followers).
This is the YouTube channel for Graphic India's motion comics (which are voiced) and animated series:
So I think we can either expect their motion comic quality...:
OR something a little more animation-ey like this:
So I think we can either expect their motion comic quality...:
OR something a little more animation-ey like this:
Mm, based at least on my recollection of song concert terms, CFM gets rights to perform the winners of such contests, so I suspect they have a group of songs they could potentially license...maybe. On the other hand, it doesn't seem impossible that new music could be made for the series, too. I mean, Graphic India could easily purchase a copy of Miku, make whatever of their own music they need to suit the plot, and license it for for-profit use with CFM.
If I were going to guess, since it's a combination of live action and animation...maybe there'll be live people with an animated Miku?
You might think I'd be excited for this, but I'm actually not. I googled some Graphic India's works and I got very worried. Looking at their other works I'm afraid they won't be able to pull off a fitting (or visually pleasing (in my personal opinion)) art style. Especially this sounds quite ominous:
But then again, the article was talking about webtoons, so it probably won't have that much of a presence/impact in the end. We're probably talking about something like max 12 short episodes kind of stuff.
What I find strange is that the management company is american (never a good sign), which implies it's probably aimed at international audience. But to my understanding Miku and co can only talk in Japanese at a decent level (or at least I've never heard them speaking English well).
I could be wrong, but we'll have to wait for some kind of teaser.
But then again, the article was talking about webtoons, so it probably won't have that much of a presence/impact in the end. We're probably talking about something like max 12 short episodes kind of stuff.
What I find strange is that the management company is american (never a good sign), which implies it's probably aimed at international audience. But to my understanding Miku and co can only talk in Japanese at a decent level (or at least I've never heard them speaking English well).
My theory is that there won't be a single "traditional" story arc, but rather that it's "spread out" more, similar to the story in Project Sekai.
They said they want to stay true to Miku being a "fan character", which to me implies they don't want to "pin her down" to a canon personality, and you can do that much better with a more open concept.
I wouldn't go too far on saying it's going to be terrible because of the animation studio. It's a valid point, but combining animation with live-action is something they haven't done before, so I don't think they'll necessarily stick to their style without adjusting it. Rooster Teeth made RWBY without having any experience in its style, and it also turned out well.
As I see it, this can really go anywhere from great to horrible right now, there's just too little information.
But I don't think the impact is going to be all that big. They don't seem to want to get the Japanese fandom into it, and there's so much Miku content, both official and unofficial, that I think it will just fade into obscurity if it turns out too bad.
They said they want to stay true to Miku being a "fan character", which to me implies they don't want to "pin her down" to a canon personality, and you can do that much better with a more open concept.
I wouldn't go too far on saying it's going to be terrible because of the animation studio. It's a valid point, but combining animation with live-action is something they haven't done before, so I don't think they'll necessarily stick to their style without adjusting it. Rooster Teeth made RWBY without having any experience in its style, and it also turned out well.
As I see it, this can really go anywhere from great to horrible right now, there's just too little information.
But I don't think the impact is going to be all that big. They don't seem to want to get the Japanese fandom into it, and there's so much Miku content, both official and unofficial, that I think it will just fade into obscurity if it turns out too bad.
I found an article by Carlin West from 2019 that says her company has worked with Graphic India in the past (it's in the last paragraph).
Personally, I would be surprised if Miku got her actual voice provider. I assume she might just sing and the live-action people/children will talk for her or something.
Also, for people being like really sad about this, remember that Hatsune Miku in Shinkalion exists and only Japanese fans care about her.
Personally, I would be surprised if Miku got her actual voice provider. I assume she might just sing and the live-action people/children will talk for her or something.
Also, for people being like really sad about this, remember that Hatsune Miku in Shinkalion exists and only Japanese fans care about her.
The end result of this will either unexpectedly please most fans, or be an absolute disaster. I can't see any in-between reactions.
I'm skeptical, but hoping for the bet! I just... I don't know how to feel about it overall, y'know? It's a tricky situation, and, like Blue said, I don't see it falling into anything other than extremes.
Personally, neither of these makes me too worried. I preferred Chakra, because it's about 4 minutes (whereas Astra Force was only about 1:30, being just an introduction, apparently), so it had more time to give a little context about who the characters are and why they're doing what they're doing. But I could see a cute/enjoyable production that includes Miku in either format.
If they keep to this length, I'd guess that there won't be any full-length songs in this new production. I'd guess they might be more like Hallmark-movie-length songs, which usually seem like about a verse and a chorus or so--usually just a few lines to give the idea of a song, rather than present the whole thing. That would leave time for the humans (The musicians/artists?) to have their part of the story within the 4-ish minute show.
Honestly, though, I don't think the thing needs to fall into being either awesome or awful. People are going to go to extremes, because that's just sort of how the internet is, but I wouldn't throw either of the above videos into the "awesome" or "awful" category. I mean, as far as I heard, people had their issues with the Shinkalion anime, mostly because they felt Miku 1) didn't sound good, or 2) because she was only in like 2 episodes and they wanted to see her more. But there wasn't really great approval or hatred for the thing, at least as far as I remember. Even if the new show turns out awful...unless it's somehow catastrophically bad, it's not like Miku fans will lose anything by its existence
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I'm a little surprised there's still no official announcement from any of the parties involved.
Part of me is kind of hoping this was an article scheduled for April fools day that got accidentally released.
After having a night's sleep my thoughts about this haven't really changed.
Probably the series won't do harm to Miku's public image (hopefully), I'm just afraid that it being seemingly aimed towards the western audience means it's going to be trash. It could end up being good, but I'm not having high hopes to be honest. At least Itoh is going to oversee things so the end result might not be as bad as it could otherwise be. But if it turns out to be the way I think it will, this thing will probably just fall into obscurity soon after release.
Personally I wasn't really interested in Shinkalion, because Miku made just relatively few appearances, and because the anime is aimed at children, so I didn't find the characters or storytelling to be that engaging/interesting to follow.
Part of me is kind of hoping this was an article scheduled for April fools day that got accidentally released.
After having a night's sleep my thoughts about this haven't really changed.
Probably the series won't do harm to Miku's public image (hopefully), I'm just afraid that it being seemingly aimed towards the western audience means it's going to be trash. It could end up being good, but I'm not having high hopes to be honest. At least Itoh is going to oversee things so the end result might not be as bad as it could otherwise be. But if it turns out to be the way I think it will, this thing will probably just fall into obscurity soon after release.
I think many people consider the Shinkalion Hatsune Miku (written as 発音ミク) to be more like a character inspired and voiced by the original Miku (初音ミク) rather than the virtual singer Miku herself.
Personally I wasn't really interested in Shinkalion, because Miku made just relatively few appearances, and because the anime is aimed at children, so I didn't find the characters or storytelling to be that engaging/interesting to follow.
I personally hope that if her design ends up being bad. They make it really awful and don't half ass it. They also better make mech for it because the idea of owning a figure of a really bad design of Miku makes me really exited to see what they come up with. I'll pre-order that shit the moment it goes live.