Right on the tail of Kadokawa Shoten canning the distribution of doujin games featuring their characters, Crypton Future Media has relented upon the doujin game community.
Robots make everything better!
According to Ejin Kenkyuusho, the developer of the doujin game that received a cease and desist from Crypton, they received an approval from the company to resume distribution the game. The catch? The name of the game has been changed from "Tatakae! Ore no Hatsune Miku!"(戦え！オレの初音ミク; Fight! My Hatsune Miku) to "Ike! Miku to Miku Robo no Kenkyuusho" (行け！ミクとミクロボの研究所; Go! Miku and Miku Robos Laboratory).

From the information provided and the letter that Ejin Kenkyuusho received, it seems like the original cease and desist was an attempt to prevent the doujin game producer from diluting and misrepresenting Cryptons properties. The letter states that Crypton had reviewed the game and found no problems with it. They only requested that the name be changed so that there is no misunderstanding with consumers that this is an unofficial title.

In addition to this, Crypton has made changes to their Piapro FAQ such that they no longer explicitly forbid the release of fan made games using their products. It now states that unofficial doujin games based off the Hatsune Miku family set of characters have no specific restrictions other than that the game does not damage the image of Cryptons products and follows their EULA.

However, the restrictions on the ero dakimakura still stand. orz

Via Anime News Network

You heard right! Thanks to Cospa, the overpriced otaku goods store, you can purchase some nifty Vocaloid2 apparel and goods to flesh out your collection!

Cospa will be offering 8 items at their booth: 4 T-shirts, 1 tote bag, 1 shoulder bag, 1 mug, and 1 wallet chain. Pictures after the break.

Via 初音ミクみく

Seems like Miku-tan has finally hit the mainstream press for all Japanophiles... well, at least the tabloids.

While doing my daily checks for updates on the Kagamine Rin page, I finally noticed the little "Illustrated by" mark underneath the pictures. The character designs for both Miku and Rin are done by KEI, an illustrator who has done work for a variety of productions including Dengeki HP, "How to Create Characters" (CG Coloring), and the jacket design for Hardcore Syndrome.

Check out more of his work at his site by clicking the banner, or at his Web Clap.

Yes, I know I have the alignment all off. I should stop posting stuff at work.

So I'm just sitting at home after a much needed few hours of sleep due to my all nighter to get into Frys during their 5am opening time this Black Friday when I have the following conversation with Tony:

Thank you Tony. Thank you Danny. And thank you Good Smile Company. You all make my money want to walk away from me to prevent me from spending it.

Yes, that mockup that I posted a while back seems to be actually coming true. And considering that this information is coming to us from Danny Choo and that there's an Amazon.jp listing for it, I doubt it's false. More images after the break.

First of all as of 11/16/2007 the Kagamine Rin site is finally up. I don't know how I missed that, but I can probably blame Vegas. It describes Rin with the following traits:

• Age: 14 years old

• Height: 152 cm (~5 feet)
• Weight: 43kg

She excels at:
• Genres: Rock-style Pop / Pop Songs ~ Enka-style Pop
• Song Tempos: 85-175BPM
• Ranges: F#3～C#5

There have been no changes or clarifications to her release date, which is still set for December 2007. Voice samples are also still under preparation.

Her age finally confirms what we all were thinking: that she really is Miku's 妹 (Miku is 16). You know what that means... Hawt sister duets (and other more suspicious doujinshi... Unfortunately they probably won't feature Symmetrical Docking though).

In Hatsune Miku news, it has apparently been announced that the theme song of Nippon Ichi Software's new title Tori no Hoshi ~Aerial Planet~ (トリノホシ ~Aerial Planet~) will be sung by Miku. (Via ミクミク)

Frankly I'm not sure how to feel about this announcement. While I'm ecstatic that Miku will be getting a large amount of publicity for this, I also used to work for the US branch of the company. Disillusionment with the gaming industry, I suppose.

Anyway, some Nico Miku links after the break.

No... but I wish. I'd be on these figures like Takeru Kobayashi on a pile of hot dogs.

Source: Moetto Web|Moe Style (Via Danny Choo)

As teh_dave said, I am going through another big Hatsune Miku phase. The last one ended fairly abruptly after I picked up a copy of the actual software and tried to do anything with it. My god, these people must have tons of time on their hands to create anything that doesn't make their ears bleed.

Anyway, in Vocaloid2 news, Crypton has finally announced the face and voice behind their second character in the character series. The cute loli-ko on the left will be known as Kagamine Rin (鏡音リン). Much like her older sister, whose voice was created by sampling voice actress Saki Fujita's voice, Rin is "voiced" by another no name voice actress Asami Shimoda.

Anyway, you can find out more about it at DarkMirage.

To supplement Jason's new-found addiction to Hatsune Miku.

Found this via Danny Choo, which had an RSS feed for Anime Blog ga Arimasu.

For those of you who have been stuck under a rock for the past few weeks/months, another one of Japans latest crazes has been Hatsune Miku (初音ミク), which is the latest in a series of Japanese voice synth projects from Yamaha and Crypton Future Media. The line of products is called "Vocaloid2," and is Miku is the first in the series of 3 character voices.

Anyway, Miku has been taking Nico Video and Youtube by storm, with a variety of covers and original songs.

And now, newest to the fans is the Miku Clock.

Click on her to have her say the time!

Via Danny Choo