Akita Neru

Gender: ♀
Age: 17
Height: 150cm
Weigh: 38kg
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Series Type: Derivate
Ownership: Smith Hioka
Illustrator: Smith Hioka
Affilation: Crypton Future Media Inc. , SEGA

Akita Neru (亞北ネル Neru Akita) is an officially recognized derivative. Her name is a play on words: Akita (亞北) is taken from "飽きた" or "get bored" while Neru (ネル) is from "寝る" or "go to bed".　She has a younger brother, Nero.

The term "Derivative" is used here to describe a fanmade VOCALOID character that is based on an already existing character.

On October 14 of 2007, when the Miku movement was on the rise beyond expectations, a Japanese TV station suddenly broadcasted a program that stereotyped Miku users as "anime freaks without stable work experience". Three days later Miku's pictures became unsearchable on main search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Japan, and in the following two days, Miku's article was deleted from the Japanese Wikipedia.

This news became widespread or "flamed up (炎上した)" on 2ch bulletin boards with the rumor that an advertising agency which had a strong influence in the Japanese music industry was behind the series of "anti-Miku negative campaign" in an attempt to purge Miku and indie musicians from the music trend. Then numerous comments were posted which denied the rumor or "put off the fire (消火する)" followed by the phrases "飽きた、寝る。 (Got bored. Going to bed.)" or "寝る、お前らも寝ろよ。 (Gonna go to bed. Follow me, y'all!). Yet those comments drew nothing but negative responses from 2ch netizens. The contributors were branded as "puppets of the agency". The netizens joked about the "puppets" and made a spoof character for these posts as "Akita Neru". Later Smith Hioka, an illustrator, finalized the concept art of Neru. She came to represent the tsundere culture of VOCALOID.

Google and Yahoo! Japan announced that the search failure was a technical problem and had nothing to do with the advertising agency or the TV program. The Wikipedia page removal was the result of copyright violation, which also had no relation to the agency.[1] Still the rumor about the "Miku-hating agency" persists within the Japanese fandom presently.

On April 1 2008, Crypton adopted Neru as an official derivative character of Miku.[2]

Due to Neru proving to be one of the more popular Fanmades, appearances of her have warranted some consideration for promotion.