Japan's habit of city mascots is nothing new, but what make Sapporo City's 100th Anniversary special is having Hatsune Miku, the queen of vocaloid, as the PR mascot for the city's anniversary event. Along with being featured in promotional material, Hatsune Miku is also featured on original frame stamps in her Snow Miku that are limited to 1,000 sheets produced, and are sold for 1,000 yen (7.22 USD) as of last Friday.Hatsune Miku although most often refers to the character associated with the program, is actually a computer software voicebank that can be used to composed artificial vocals for digital music. The character has had live concerts via hologram, videogames, and has been featured in music by international artists such as Pharrel Williams and was even invited to Coachella 2020, albeit the event was canceled due to the pandemic. Now the digital star is representing the largest city in Hokkaido, and will help the city celebrate the anniversary of the enforcement of the municipal organization. Below is the tweet displaying the limited-edition stamp frames.
Japan is not a stranger to mascots, since the popularity of Hikoyon, the mascot for Hikone, in 2007 increasing tourism in time for the 400th anniversary of the Hikone Castle. The popularity of mascots instantly shot up, creating its own otaku subculture obsessing over city and event mascots even to this day. Even the Tokyo Olympics had mascots, along with inspiring an entire Grand Prix of mascot design. Some characters like Domo-Kun, a fuzzy brown rectangle with teeth and beloved mascot of the NHK, have grown in popularity even among people who know nothing about Japanese mascots.
But what makes Hatsune Miku so special as a mascot? Well, she is an existing character. Hatsune Miku has sung her way into otaku hearts since 2007, and isn't original to Sapporo. Although another popular character in otaku culture, Pikachu, has been featured as a mascot for an event previously, it is interesting to note this trend stepping outside of Pokémon. Pokémon is often used to promote tourism, most recently in a scanger-hunt-inspired event with manhole covers around Tokyo changed to have Pokemon art on them, but a vocaloid? It begs the question of whether anime characters or other otaku symbols will become mascots in the future as anime, manga, and the like become more mainstream.
Source: Crunchyroll