What’s all the rage in nerdland? This. That is a clip of “Cute Pop Idol” Miku Hatsune (ミク初音), who’s name means “Future” (ミク=未来=Miku) “First Sound” (初=hatsu=first 音＝ne＝sound). She is a hugely popular character in Yamaha’s singing synthesiser application Vocaloid2. Here’s the interesting bit: The vocal software is tweaked especially for J-pop anime-type songs. The software is apparently way easier to learn than stuff pros use, so otaku are easily able to create things like the this melody from THE iDOLM@STER, Super Mario RPG, Megaman, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Haruhi and Lucky Star. Epic. Thanks, Miki for the tip!