It’s hard to say if this was a good idea, but Toyota did it! They brought Miku to North America and her official car is the Corolla, yep you heard that right. Again was this a wise move? I have to say for one it was a bold move, and to me personally a good move. At first glance I hated the idea of Miku driving a Corolla, I always thought of her as a Yamaha girl, driving down the road on 2 wheels. Click HERE for the official website.
Well… so she’s here now and she has several commercials that are already drawing attention on both face book and Youtube. It seems like the majority of people posting hate her, but most of the people posting are trolls and lets face it they hate everything. Anime fans and Vocaloid fans seem to take sides on it, some being hipsters about Miku and others arguing that this is a bad representation of Miku, and other fans saying that this is a good thing. Gaming fans don’t seem to mind and many people are just plain confused as they have no idea who she is and what she does or where she came from? I for one wish that Toyota should have taken the time to introduce Miku, explain who what why and how. Learn more about Miku HERE.
I don’t like the fact that they are using Miku to drive a black car, If your going to use Miku to promote your car you should understand the fan base. That said I venture to say that black is probably the safe bet color of choice for North America and they are trying to change her image to a more accepted pop star image for North America. Understandable but they have no idea what kind of a beehive they have stepped on. Culture clash happens, the majority of Americans hate anime, the majority of Americans don’t care for JPoP, and further the current Fanbase of Volcaloids is small and very opinionated.
So basically Toyota will not be able to please everyone and they have accepted that fact and I respect them for doing that. The fact is that Toyota of America sees YOU ANIME FAN PEOPLE. They want to sell YOU a car and they know that YOU the ANIME FAN love Miku and love Compact that this makes the deal a Win Win situation. The age demographic is most like 15-25 both male and female who likes games, anime, digital music, and Miku. If you think about it its brilliant marketing if you view it as targeted marketing. My only concern is that the bible beaters and Xenophobes will be out spreading hate and lies in turn creating bad media image for poor little Miku who is just getting her shiny boots in the door. I want to see more marketing like this and America please don’t be shocked by this; Jeep the company that makes well Jeeps produced a Call of duty:Black opps edition Jeep and that Jeep was in the Game! Violent video games can sell Jeeps, but fun loving digital Divas can’t sell compacts? Come on America Embrace the Leek!
Click the Read more to see the Commercials.
Want to hear Miku Sing? Listen to This!
Thank you for this awesome post! I totally agree that they made a bold choice, and I do respect them for it. I used this as a way to tell my parents about Miku, and they love the idea (of Vocaloid, of a virtual idol, of open software, etc). I think it opens a lot of doors for non-otaku, and lets them see what Vocaloid is about (if they research, of course…). Vocaloid is such an awesome software, given that any old person can make any old song, and it can end up being in a concert! It’s an amazing invention, and because Miku’s getting an English vocal bank, maybe more people will catch on. I have high hopes~! And I pray that Miku will be happy here in America~ And I hope people treat her right! ^^
Another thing I’d like to say is that the fanbase for Vocaloid is not *that* small. :3 It’s in the hundreds and hundreds of millions, at least, and it’s spread all over the world (Cyrpton Media even said that most of the downloads for the Vocaloid songs in the iTunes store were from America!).
Also… I’m going to cosplay as Miku for Halloween, so maybe more people will recognize me? It’s a fun thought!
Maybe Vocaloid will take over the world someday! :’O I can see it being used by mainstream artists, given that all their singing is autotuned anyway. 😛
Good to hear Leah, One day I hope to see some Vocaloid Albums down at the old Best Buy. Getting people interested is the first step in any journey, I’ve seen the Concerts they had one in San Francisco, the English bank is the equivalent to a dub over I honestly like that they are expanding her banks to open her up but I hope they don’t re-do her current hits in English and then thats what we would get in America, Call me a bit of a hipster but I like my Miku Japanese. Halloween out here is always snowy (Colorado) so we have to invent costumes with coats lol, like a zombie ski bum.
Well keep spreading the word, thanks for Commenting.