Mikupa!

I swear it hasn't been a year already since the last big Miku concert - although maybe that's just because the blu-ray took ages to be released and hasn't actually been out for that long. Either way, this'll be Miku's third dedicated concert that I'm aware of and I've got high hopes for it. A brief timeline:

• 2009/08/22 - first 'live' appearance at Animelo Summer Live, only performed two songs
• 2009/08/31 - MikuFES, her first dedicated concert marking her 2nd anniversary
• 2009/11/21 - apparently her first overseas concert in Singapore but I don't know if it was 'live' or just old footage
• 2010/03/09 - 39's Giving Day concert. Almost 2 hours long with performances by Miku, Luka, Rin and Len

And exactly year later it will be time to see a 2.5D Miku take to the stage again. It should be interesting to see what sort of advancements in the projection technology will be seen over the year since the last concert.

Left: MikuFES (2009), right: 39's Giving Day (2010)

Ok so the comparison images I used aren't great, and a still image can't convey the huge improvements in motion, but anyone who's seen the two concerts will appreciate how much of an improvement the second one was.

The guest performers that have been announced are: 164, 40mP, buzzG, DECO*27, doriko and OSTER project. The same names keep popping up for these big Vocaloid events but since I like most of them it's really nothing to complain about. As far as I'm aware there hasn't been any mention of what songs or Vocaloids will be playing, although songs by each of the guest performers is pretty much guaranteed. I'm expecting the Vocaloids to be the same as last time: mainly Miku with appearances by Luka, Rin and Len. As much as I'd love to see Gumi (Miki, Yuki or Teto would be fine too) appear and prove me wrong, Crypton is a sponsor and I can't see them being too eager to feature competitors' products.

As far as watching it goes, you can either pay 2000 yen for a ticket to see it live on NND or, like me, you can scour the web on the night desperately looking for someone that's restreaming it. Apparently NND will be showing 'some parts' for free but what that includes is anyone's guess. Fuck, I'm just reading further down the page that NND is encouraging people to report any restreams. Oh well, I'll just have to hope I get lucky on the night.

At least the times work well for me - one of the perks of living in Australia. It starts in Japan at 7pm on the 9th of March, which is 8pm for me. Convenient! Now back to playing Project Diva (as opposed to doing my damn assignments already) in preparation.