With the coming of The Wolverine, the next chapter of the Marvel Comics X-Men break-out star continues in Japan with a trailer released this week. This movie is set to take the role continued with Hugh Jackman back into his past – as all good Wolverine stories do. Here with the newest two-minute and fourty-one
It’ll be several more months until this film will be able to be seen in full, but here the film 300: Rise of an Empire begins its march with a full-length trailer. No teaser trailer, no news release for a teaser – straight into a two minute and thirty second epic. Here we’ll have essentially
If you planned on getting your fair share of your favorite television show courtesy of the folks at Time Warner this upcoming entertainment season, you’d better guess again. According to sources speaking with Bloomberg – the anonymous type – Time Warner is offering incentives to media companies to keep their content away from the web.
Surprise! There are a lot of things out there that we don’t know–and this video will cover a wide range of topics, with links to other videos that will delve even deeper into each mystery…
The highly-anticipated biopic on the late Steve Jobs will see a nationwide theatrical release on August 16. JOBS, as it’s called, was initially shown at the Sundance Film Festival back in January with a release date later in April. However, the film was eventually delayed with no rescheduled date disclosed. However, it seems we’ll finally
Comcast has announced the next generation of the Comcast X1, its entertainment platform. According to the provider, this new version offers a “personalized experience” that not only allows users to customize their dashboard, but also keeps an eye on the user’s preferences and uses that information to adapt. The platform will be rolling out to
The upcoming Star Wars film seems to be all set to go, with director JJ Abrams saying that production for the new film will “most likely” begin its preparation stages “at the end of the year.” This means that production for Star Wars: Episode VII could officially begin at some point early next year. Abrams
Since Crypton Future Media first released their vocal synthesiser application and its associated anime character way back in 2006, Hatsune Miku has become an iconic figure in both otaku and mainstream pop culture. If collaborations with Family Mart, Google Chrome, Dominos, and Louis Vuitton, numerous live concerts and even an “opera” performance are anything to go by, it seems as if interest in Hatsune Miku is still going strong.
Tokyo City View in Roppongi is featuring a pop up Hatsune Miku Cafe that celebrates both the character and the fan-created songs and videos that made her famous.
Operating under the theme ‘Hatsune Miku with LOVE’, the space features a mini exhibition of famous illustrations, screenings of Vocaloid Cinema Party, as well as a life-sized model of the Vocaloid star herself. One corner of the cafe also has an video and audio archive of Hatsune Miku-related media for both customers and passer-bys to access.
The cafe also features a huge wall full of teal and white heart-shaped sticky notes that previous customers have written messages and drawn pictures on.
Next door, there is a special gift shop stocked with Hatsune Miku merchandise.
Of course the cafe also offers a thoroughly themed menu, complete with Hatsune Miku-shaped rice and curry, leek soba, and an assortment of vividly coloured drinks named after songs that were composed with Vocaloid software by fans.
While Vocaloid started out as a production tool that pieced together sounds to create a realistic “singing” voice, having Hatsune Miku associated with the software created a character that viewers could associate with and use to create a variety of complementary media, from 3D animated music videos to illustrations.
Cross-promotion and marketing of products and animated characters across a different range of services and media platforms in Japan is nothing new, but the cultural impact that Hatsune Miku has had because of the involvement of fan-created content is an interesting development. Without the creative input of fans and their creation of songs, videos and illustrations, Hatsune Miku would arguably not have been as big an icon as she is now, nor would the character have generated the same amount of economic value for the Vocaloid franchise.
How corporations and marketing expertise is adapting to a changing media environment where audiences have the ability to both create their own content as well as share it with others almost as easily as major content producers is something that will be interesting to consider in the future. One thing is for sure, there will probably be many more collaborations to come – we definitely aren’t the only ones who can’t get enough of Hatsune Miku!
I think we all know that inventors are awesome. Even when their inventions don’t work, they still show an incredible amount of creativity that many people don’t possess. I’m one of those people that can’t think that far out of the box to create something (other than art and fiction, that is). This video is a salute to inventors–and it’s pretty funny as well.
Attaching oneself to the popularity of a current cultural phenomenon is a tried
and true promotional tactic used as far back by ad execs, the likes of
Don Draper and the Mad Men. So, it didn’t come as any surprise
when someone in the social media space would seize the opportunity to
tag on to one of the most popular TV dramas of the day: Game of Thrones.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
