The one and only Hatsune Miku is back with a new art exhibition at Tokyo’s Shinagawa City! Titled Hatsune Miku Chronicle, it takes visitors through our favorite virtual diva’s history with exclusive illustrations and throwbacks to iconic songs.
Of course, it can be hard to get to Japan (let alone Tokyo) these days, so we headed over to give all you Miku fans a peek inside! Although we can’t include every single detail in this report, we promise that there’s still plenty to enjoy.
First, we made sure to get set up with our very own AR guide who would pop up whenever we scanned special barcodes around the exhibits.
Miku welcomed us alongside some very familiar faces at the entrance to the main exhibition.
We went in to find a timeline chronicling the biggest events in the history of Miku, as well as her developer, Crypton Future Media, Inc. It’s mind-blowing to realize it’s almost been 15 years since she was first released. Here’s to many more years of Miku!
Another highlight is these lovely pieces created specially for Hatsune Miku Chronicle by well-known illustrator Rella. Even if you haven’t heard of her name, you may recognize her fresh yet magical art style from other Miku-related projects, like this year’s Symphony Ihatov vinyl record release.
Equally amazing artists nekosumi and iXima also contributed their adorable takes on the Vocaloid family just for this exhibition!
If you’re feeling some major deja vu, don’t worry – it’s literally a life sized recreation of Rella’s enchanting illustration from just then! AR Miku was pretty eager to show herself off too, and for good reason.
We had some more AR fun by simply looking upwards to see lyrics from a few of Miku’s hits! Do you know which songs these are from?
What if Hatsune Miku didn’t have her iconic twintails? Another creative exhibit showed us the possibilities of an alternate reality – one where Miku didn’t have the striking look we all know and love. Aptly named “Hatsune Miku if,” it featured a different Miku illustrated by Kei (the creator of her original design). While we can’t reveal the full exhibit here, you can see his alternate Miku right below!
To make things even more surreal, this Miku even has a Nendoroid! Of course, it was created by the folks at Good Smile Company, who also had a section showing Miku’s history as part of the Nendoroid lineup.
To round off this report, here’s an exhibit dedicated to Miku’s countless events around the world! Events and concerts right now may be quite different than what we’re hoping for, but at least there’s still plenty of Miku to enjoy while we’re safe at home.
As we mentioned before, there’s still more to see, so we do encourage any Miku fans reading this to visit if you can do so safely! The exhibition is set to run until August 22 at The Grand Hall in Shinagawa, and more info can be found at the official website.
All this Miku has us way too excited, so we’d like to give you an update on our very own upcoming Miku project. A while ago, we announced a brand-new figure and MA-1 jacket based on an awesome visual by LAM. Now, we’re proud to reveal the official prototype for the figure!
Both are currently in production, but they’ll be up for preorder from August 30 at the TOM Shop. We’re looking forward to giving you further updates, so in the meantime, get ready for more Miku goodness!
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article with photography by S. Takemori.