Fanthropological

Our fandom journey this season takes us all the way to Japan to talk about fans of the world's most famous _virtual_ pop idol: Hatsune Miku! How did such a relatively niche thing become a global phenomenon? And who is pulling the strings?? Next week, we're off to Mexico to talk about fans of that exciting sport: Lucha Libre! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts **Origins:** Hatsune Miku is a VOCALOID. What is a VOCALOID? A VOCALOID is a singing synthesizer application developed by YAMAHA. It was an international effort to create a synthesizer to act as a replacement singer. The original VOCALOID engine was release in 2004. Hatsune Miku was the second VOCALOID released as part of the VOCALOID2 engine and the first member of the Character Vocal Series created by Crypton Future Media Inc. Her name literally means "the first sound from the future." She is also a humanoid persona: a 16-year-old girl with long turquoise twintails and her voice is modelled after Saki Fujita. In September of 2007, Amazon.co.jp r