Hatsune Miku Expo 2014 in Indonesia: Two-day Review & Impression

So, I figured it’s time for me to post my own experience regarding the first ever Hatsune Miku Expo in Indonesia! This event might as well be one of the most memorable Japanese pop culture events I’ve ever gone to in Indonesia — especially the concert, yep. Well then, without further ado, here we go!

Before the event, I have already done lots of preparations, from buying the ticket to calculating my possible expense while listing all of the merchandises that I must, may, and won’t buy at the event. I even created a rough estimate of my expenditure with Excel as you can see below, haha. Planning too far ahead? Maybe, lol. One of things that I missed though, was the registration of MikuPanel. For this, I asked my friend a̶n̶d̶ ̶f̶e̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶T̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶C̶h̶i̶t̶o̶g̶e̶  from REDSHiFT, Rikuu Saizen, to write a summary of the panel. I will provide the summary later in this post. The concert setlist is also available below.

Since I came on both Day 1 & Day 2, I’ll begin with the first day. I arrived at Jakarta Convention Center where the event was being held at approximately 4 PM — that was when I saw that the huge crowd was already there. Since I already bought a Silver ticket for the third concert on Day 2 with my friend though, I managed to get in faster than those people who need to line up and didn’t possess a concert ticket. ^^

After I entered the hall, I quickly lined up for the licensee goods booth to hunt some of the items I had planned to buy. Because I knew beforehand that the place will be so crowded that it wouldn’t be flexible for me to queue twice for both the licensee goods booth and the official goods booth, I asked one of my friends to buy some of the official goods from the neighboring booth for me, except the full-graphic T-shirt which I planned to buy on Day 2 by myself. 🙂

This turned out to be a wise choice, since most of the things that I successfully bought were subsequently sold out sooner (several hours after the event started) or later (Day 2). While queueing for the licensee goods, I’m accompanied by another of my friends who bought the concert ticket with me; later on, I became acquainted with some people I met in the line who turned out to be someone from my university — albeit from a different faculty. We decided to combine our purchase for the sake of efficiency. =))

After successfully completing my first mission (lol), I started moving around the various booths in the expo while also taking photos. The first booth I saw was the Photo Stage in which you can take photo with Miku in the background. In Day 2, the booth would also be used as the exhibition stage for Vocaloid cosplayers.

After that, I moved on the nearby booth which was the origami booth, where you can learn how to create a crane AND Miku using the origami that you can buy from the licensee booth (which I had already bought earlier =P). The Miku origami is really cute and easy to make!

Next to the origami booth was the nail-polishing booth, where lots of girls were showing their eagerness to have their fingernails painted with the colors of the favorite Vocaloid!

The next thing in line is the Piapro Wall! here, all the visitors of Hatsune Miku Expo 2013 in Indonesia can voice their messages to Miku by writing on this wall. I managed to secure a place for mine, of course. ^^

Moving on, I started circling the expo and took pictures of the illustrations placed on the wall, until I reached the… life-size Wing MIKU figure! The great detail and 1:1 scale, not to mention the wings attached to her back, were enough to attract lots of visitors to take a photo with her.

Hatsune Miku Expo 2014 in Indonesia also provided a special space to introduce KarenT, the independent record label owned by Crypton Future Media to publish and sell songs created using Crypton Vocaloids; until now, there are already more than 4500 songs there — including songs created by Indonesian Vocaloid producers.

Next to KarenT was the Vocaloid Software space which showcased Miku V3, KAITO V3, and MEIKO V3! There was also a special LCD monitor displaying the tutorial to use Vocaloid and more explanations about the relation between DTM (Desktop Music; specific term to refer to computer music in Japan) and voice synthesizers like Vocaloid.

Another interesting addition to the expo is the history of Vocaloid, provided through a timeline detailing the journey of Vocaloid development in various sectors from 2007 until 2014, accompanied by various Vocaloid-related items showcased inside a glass counter.

Miku Expo also let Indonesian fans become the first overseas Vocaloid fans to be able to try the mobile game featuring Hatsune Miku that has been garnering popularity in Japan: Hatsune Miku Graphy Collection! Everyone who came to the booth may try the game directly using the demo phones provided. From what I heard from one of the staffs, the game will be available worldwide next year, so stay tune for further update.

For trading card game players, specifically Weiss Schwarz, Bushiroad also opened a booth here in Miku Expo. There were also a free teaching session using free cards provided by the booth for people interested in trying the TCG.

I also visited Tokyo Otaku Mode’s booth, where they sold various Miku posters, T-shirts, and tapestries with a special promo for anyone who were willing to sign up with their Facebook account. Not only that, they also distributed flyers which included special code that can be redeemed to get special discount on the TOM Premium Shop before June 30, 2014.

After hanging around and taking more photos for a while, I decided to call it a go for Day 1 and went home to prepare for Day 2. For Day 2, I came at 9 AM because there will be considerably more crowd compared to Day 1 — even for ticket holders.

When I finally got in, my first priority was to buy the event’s official full-graphic T-shirt; however, after I got an info from my friends that supercell and Hachiouji-P’s albums were also available in the same booth, I also bought both of the album. Not only that, I also decided to buy the hooded towel — which wasn’t originally included in the list of items on the official website — because of its higher quality compared to the Japanesque towel I bought yesterday. Besides that, I also found out that several items have already been sold out, including the largely sought Nendoroid Snow Miku 2014 which was also sold out quickly on Day 1.

Finishing my business in the official goods booth, I decided to meet up with some circles that I’m in, like Nendonesia. Oh, and that reminds me; I ended drawing this on the Priapro Wall together with another friend of mine from Nendonesia. (>o<)v

After a while, I took my time waiting for the concert by trying my luck — through queueing for the restock of Nendoroid Snow Miku 2014 with my fellow Nendonesian buddies. Too bad, it was all fruitless. Then, I walked around for a bit and took some more photos from the whole exhibition hall and some others of myself before meeting up again with my friends who will watch the last concert together. :>

Just like what I told you above, I didn’t attend the panel — partly because I hadn’t managed to register for the admission and partly because I prefer waiting for the concert to get the best spot. =)) Well then, here is the summary of the panel, provided by REDSHiFT’s Rikuu Saizen. 🙂

Chain of Creation — MikuPanel @ Hatsune Miku Expo 2014 in Indonesia by Hiroyuki Itoh (CEO of Crypton Future Media)

Chain of Creation is the term used by Crypton to describe the phenomenon of the Vocaloid development. Starting from a singing synthesizer software and then becoming a music genre, illustrations, promotional videos, figures, and many more. Holding on the motto “everyone is a creator”, every creation related to Vocaloid is created with the mindset of “you as the audience and you as the producer.”

 

1. The history of Vocaloid

It all begins when Crypton created the Vocaloid KAITO and MEIKO which was not too famous at that time. The first appearance of Character Vocal Series: 01 Hatsune Miku on August 31, 2007 which overturned the world and showed that vocal parts can be replaced by a voice synthesizer. The following Character Vocal Series: 02 & 03, Kagamine Rin-Len and Megurine Luka expanded on the creativity of the creators.

2. How to market your creation? 

Crypton provides some means to market the creators’ works to be known by the world. One of the examples includes Piapro and KarenT. Piapro is a website that collects all the creations from all Vocaloid-related fields, such as video, music, anime, illustration, 3D model, figure, lyrics, etc. KarenT is a music label and a subsidiary of Crypton which provides the means of marketing every song from the creator officially and it can be sold in various online shops like iTunes. The music database owned by KarenT equals more than 4500 songs since 2008.

3. Merchandises of Vocaloid

There are lots of merchandises related to Vocaloid, but only a few are mentioned here, such as figure, racing itasha, and joint projects with other companies. There are plenty of released Vocaloid figures, such as Snow Miku 2014 which was sold out at the Miku Expo’s Day 1 in only 15 minutes. Racing itasha is collaboration project between Crypton, Good Smile Company, and BMW Racing Team, employing a race car with Racing Miku as its decal; this year, GSC Miku Racing Team won the championship.

4. Rhythm Game: Project Diva Series, a project of SEGA and Piapro

All the sources of the music and illustrations in the game is obtained from Piapro’s database, selected from the best of the best.

5. Vocaloid Concert  

Beginning in 2009, Vocaloid concerts are always held annualy and even more than one concert in the same year. The motto that is always held dear is “every song is composed by fans, then performed by Miku; you as the audience and you as the producer.”

6. Art x Miku  

A collaboration has been held between museum in Japan and Miku titled “Love Exhibition” in Mori Art Museum, Japan.

7. Orchestra x Miku

An orchestra by Isao Tomita, the father of snthesizer.

8. Theater x Miku 

A theather titled “The End” which was held in Paris.

9. Technology x Miku

MikuMikuDance is a 3D modelling software used to create 3D models of Miku. MMD Cup is a MMD Video Competition; 12 competitions were held with different themes. The 12th MMD Cup had  more than 740 videos registered. New music instrument is used in the PV of “Innocence” by Kazu-P featuring Hatsune Miku. 30 (san-zero) System is a new concert system developed by Crypton that was used on Lady Gaga’s Concert Tour. Regarding the software itself, Crypton is planning to release Megurine Luka V3 at Q3 2014 and Kagamine Rin-Len V3 at 2015.

10. The reason why Indonesia got the first chance to held Miku Expo

Hiroyuki Itoh-san: “These are the reasons why we held Miku Expo at Indonesia:

• Facebook “likes” from everywhere in the world, which means ther are so many Miku fans outside of Japan.
• Everyday, we got many requests for concerts in many countries.
• Honestly, the truth is Crypton ALWAYS got deficit when they held concert OUTSIDE of Japan; but, it does not prevent Crypton to satisfy the desire of Miku fans all over the world.
• That is why we make we make “Let Us Find You!” campaign to know how many Miku fans in a country so we can compress the defisit; then, Jakarta have the most vote for this campaign.
• The other reason is Indonesia has many Vocaloid creators and we know the talent of this country to make a great fanbase of Vocaloid.”

Q&A

1. Q : I made a song and I want to release it via KarenT, what should I do?

A : You can contact Crypton via email (intlbiz@crypton.co.jp) to ask for sigingn up. Please use English.

2. Q : I have a dream to make an Indonesian Vocaloid. Could you tell me how to make a Vocaloid?

A : Actually, I am rather vague regarding how to make Vocaloid itself (laughs); and basically, it is our company secrets. So, I can’t tell you the detail.

3. Q : Is there any plan in Crypton to release a new V3 Vocaloid?

A : For now, we are focusing to expand our Vocaloid into much, much better and humanized. So, no, we don’t have a plan to release new Vocaloid.

4. Q : Will Miku Expo be held in the next few years, and will there be Miku Expo Indonesia 2015?

A : I really want to held MikuExpo in Indonesia and other countries, but with so much defisit, we can’t make it regularly.

So, those are the overall summary of the panel. 🙂 Next, I’ll be moving directly to the most important part of the event, which is the concert. 🙂

After waiting for 3 hours, I finally entered the concert hall as the first person in the Silver ticket line, and managed to secure the best seat I can get for a Silver ticket — the center front seat. It also turned out that the gap between the silver and gold seat was not far, so I can still see the stage clearly without much difference compared to the back-row gold seat. 🙂

After waiting for an hour, the concert finally starts! The sound system used in this concert was comparatively higher than the one used in AFAID Anisong concerts — and of course, Miku’s 3D holograms are really smooth! Not to mention, the euphoria of everyone inside the concert hall including me successfully turned the bland room into a massive parade. The Indonesian Miku fans showed their spirit by cheering and shouting in enthusiasm, further making the night one to remember. (ﾉ≧∀≦)ﾉ

Here is the setlist of the concert that I wrote:

Hatsune Miku Expo 2014 in Indonesia

Band Members:

• Ayoichi “Kiku” Kikushima (Drum)
• Tabokun (Bass)
• Jun Imai (Keyboard)
• Masaru Teramae (Guitar)

Setlist:

1. Senbonzakura – Kurousa-P feat. Hatsune Miku
2. Kocchi Muite Baby – ryo(supercell) feat. Hatsune Miku
3. Marginal – OSTER project feat. Hatsune Miku
4. *Introduction by Hatsune Miku
5. Koiiro Byoutou – OSTER project feat. Hatsune Miku
6. Colorful x Melody – Team MOER feat. Hatsune Miku & Kagamine Rin
7. Fire◎Flower – halyosy feat. Kagamine Len
8. Migikata no Chou – Nori-P feat. Kagamine Len
9. Melancholic – Junky feat. Kagamine Rin
10. Kokoro – Travolta-P feat. Kagamine Rin
11. Torinoko City – 40mP feat. Hatsune Miku
12. Musunde Hiraite Rasetsu to Mukuro – Hachi feat. Hatsune MIku
13. Romeo to Cinderella – doriko feat. Hatsune Miku
14. Piano x Forte x Scandal – OSTER project feat. MEIKO
15. Pane dhiria – Shinjou-P feat. KAITO
16.  Sennen no Dokusou ka – yanagi-P feat. Kaito
17. PoPiPo – Lamaze-P feat. Hatsune Miku
18. Shiroi Yuki no Purinsesu wa – Noboru↑-P feat. Hatsune Miku
19. *MC Talk in Indonesian by Hatsune Miku
20. Venus di Ujung Jari – mohax_2000 feat. Hatsune Miku
21. Double Lariat – Agoaniki-P feat. Megurine Luka
22. Luka Luka★Night Fever – samfree feat. Megurine Luka
23. *Band Member Introduction
24. Himitsu Keisatsu – Buriru-P feat. Hatsune Miku
25. Yellow – kz(livetune) feat. Hatsune Miku
26. Hatsune Miku no Gekishou – cosMo@Bousou-P feat. Hatsune Miku
27. Melt – ryo(supercell) feat. Hatsune Miku
28. *Encore Call
29. Tell Your World – kz(livetune) feat. Hatsune Miku
30. Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru – ika feat. Hatsune Miku
31. letter song – doriko feat. Hatsune Miku

Impression:

In my opinion, the concert, and the event as a whole is one of the best Japanese concerts I have ever watched in my life, and certainly one that will always stay in an irreplaceable place inside my heart. Although there are certainly several problems, both inside and outside the event (including unnecessary drama in the social media), I sincerely believe that this whole event was a success. 🙂 Even so, I was actually expecting more booths and special activities like Vocaloid workshop or Vocaloid music CD booth; I am hoping that those things will be added in the future Miku Expo and a larger venue with a lot more booths and stage events will be able to be implemented. I also think that despite the improvement of the sound system compared to the one in AFAID Anisong concerts, there is still room for improvement here. 😀

Before ending this post, here are some of the loots I accumulated from this event. Oh, and nope, that pillow is NOT included. :p

Thank you so much, Miku. Please come back to Indonesia soon! ヾ(＾-＾)ノ