ミクパ? Don't break out your dictionaries. It's not in there. "Mikupa" refers to Hatsune Miku's Live Party that went on last night in Tokyo. SEGA rented a giant expo hall, hired a band, coded some dance moves, and had Miku go to work on her special day.
First, a little background about this event. The full name of "Mikupa" is "ミクの日感謝祭 39's Giving Day". If you translate it directly, it's "Miku's Thanksgiving Day Thank You's Giving Day". 39 reads san-kyuu, or thank you. A bit redundant for a title, but whatever. It's easy to remember- every year on 3/9, SEGA and its affiliates put on a giant Hatsune Miku concert in Tokyo and also stream it to movie theaters and computer screens across Japan live. For $20-80, you too can watch it unfold live in physical or digital form.
I learned about 39's Giving Day long, long ago through this video and was determined to get tickets at any cost. However, as my time in Japan passed Miku slipped my mind. It took a trip to a Book Off here in Yokaichi to remind me (thanks random window TV!). After that I searched around for tickets immediately, and to my horror, the live performance was sold out. D E P R E S S I O N. But then CJ found posters for live broadcast tickets at Family Mart. Hope had returned!
Flash-forward to last night at the event. We arrived in Kyoto's MOVIX 20 minutes before the event and scrambled to navigate the confusing map layouts to find the correct theater (a topic in and of itself...). Lo and behold, there were groups of otaku-looking guys and girls to follow straight to the honeypot. Bingo.
As we filed in, we were passed Mikupa burlap bags and a (surprisingly luminous) green glowstick. Pity they didn't give us the 3-piece connectors to make them glow-negis like they do for the Tokyo performance. We took our seats, and it began. 2.5 hours later, it ended. I sat there in my seat, still pretty overwhelmed. I was finally there for it, man! Then my brain started picking the event apart.
I was scanning 2chan for the set list late last night and came upon 3 1000-comment threads about the lead-up and post-analysis of the event. Here were the recurring comments:
- Hatsune Miku's outfit was totally off compared to next year. Where was her skirt strap? Why was her skirt glitching?
- Why, for the love of god, did they put her in a black box instead of a holographic screen?
- The image quality this year was terrible. TERRIBLE. I could feel the jagged edges cutting me through my screen.
- Did anyone even know these songs? I got like 5. Anyone else?
- Someone should apologize to foreigners for this. (Follow-up comment: "They should apologize to more than just foreigners!")
- The band last year was transcended human abilities. This year's was pretty uninspired.
- They sure branded this event. They had Hatsune Miku bags, Miku Melon Soda... hell, even the straws had logos on them. ...But of course I bought the melon soda, lol.
- They gave Miku too many power-ups.
- I got to sit next to some very hot cosplay chicks. Oh god they were hot. I took some pictures with my phone. I am in heaven.
I actually indentified with all the above points. While this year's Mikupa was great, I have to wonder how much of it was my fanboyism being let loose and overlooking the shortcomings of this year's performance relative to last year's.
Their decision to put Miku in a big black box turned it from an crisp digital performance to a blurry 3D TV show. Yes, they might want to insinuate she "lives" in that box, but the hologram worked much better (even if reflections marred the image).
The songs were pretty unknown unless you followed the Hatsune Miku scene fanatically. You know when people on 2chan don't know the songs you've waded too deep. I could pick out a good 8 or so of the 30+ songs played. Looking back on it, I was really disappointed they sped through a lot of the crowd favorites. Luka got the shaft last night in that regard- all of her good songs played for about 20 seconds.
There were a lot of things that, once the wax sheen washed away, left me yearning for a Mikupa more like last year's. Last year they played popular trademark Miku songs almost every other song. The holographic image was beautiful, and the image quality was lightyears ahead of this year's black box. If it wasn't for the fact Miku has so many great songs and the crowd was extremely into the performance (despite watching from a movie theater), I think I would've walked out this year feeling quite differently.
This was still a great event, but I'm looking to next year with hopes they'll tweak what needs tweaking. Let's hope SEGA reads 2chan and changes are made so Miku's appeal can spread. God knows she can use royalty money for more costumes.
