Meiko

Gender: ♀
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Company: Crypton Future Media
Distributor: Crypton Future Media
Voice provider: Meiko Haigo
Illustartor: Wasshi (Original/2004)
Reduced no.: CRV1
Affilation: YAMAHA, SEGA

MEIKO is a Vocaloid DTM (Desktop Music) software created by Crypton Future Media. She is the first Japanese Vocaloid and first Japanese female Vocaloid. She utilizes the Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. Her voice is provided by the Japanese female singer Meiko Haigō (拝郷 メイコ Haigō Meiko). The illustration was done by Shogo Washizu, often called わっしー(Wasshi), who was once a member of Crypton.[1][2]

Crypton placed this product on the market with a box art that depicted a female anime character. This character had nothing to do with the singer's image, but her appearance appealed to the mainstream audience and the software sold well. Wat even stated how different the intention of the CV series and KAITO/MEIKO were during the development of KAITO V3. This even led to the direction of the updates leading a totally different course of development compared to the Appends of Miku, Len, Rin and Luka.

Because MEIKO's boxart hides the front of her jacket, it is difficult to tell what design it has. Because of this, there are many different designs, even on official artwork.[3]

Her age was never given. In Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix she is usually portrayed as a middle aged woman by KEI, however, as he mentioned in a magazine interview, what he depicts in the comic is not official.[4]

Spurned on by the items held by Hatsune Miku and KAITO, it became popular to feature MEIKO with One Cup Ozeki (Sake).

Putting a character on the boxart proved to be a successful marketing strategy. It influenced the development and art style of other Vocaloids such as Kaito and Miku Hatsune. Of the Crypton Future Media Vocaloids, while she has a significant amount of merchandise, Meiko is often less likely to be promoted than some of the other Vocaloids. Overall she has less merchandise based on her than other Crypton Vocaloids.

Meiko was well received and sold well compared to her counterpart Kaito, becoming the most popular of the two. For a long time, she was the best selling Crypton Future Media Vocaloid, until the release of Hatsune Miku.

After revived interest began to occur in her counterpart Kaito after Miku's release, Meiko users also attempted to revive the interest in Meiko as well. The Japanese fandom has taken great measures to push her voice to its limits. This is demonstrated by the fanmade derivative "Sakine Meiko" which was the product of producers testing Meiko's capabilities to produce a much younger sounding voice. Though this involves heavy investment of time to make such a big adjustment to her vocals, it does highlight the overall potential of the Vocaloid era voicebanks, as the same techniques have also from time to time been applied to others of the same software with the same level of results.

However, despite the producers' efforts, by 2010 while Kaito appeared in the Crypton ranking of their best selling products, Meiko had fallen from popularity, getting the least amount of attention of the Crypton Vocaloids overall. In 2010, Meiko was ranked as the 7th most popular Vocaloid product they sold and the least popular of Crypton Future Media's own Vocaloids.[13] On 12/10/2011 Meiko, along with the Kagamine append, was the only Vocaloid software package not on the top ten list.

An independent Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1st and December 15th, 2011. Meiko, however, did manage to be the 2nd most popular Vocaloid when a mean count was done with 423 views and 21 mylists.[14]