A way to connect
John Huo, a 20-year-old Chinese student in Tianjin, has been a fan of virtual idols for the past five years. His favorite virtual idols are Japanese vocaloid Miku and GUMI.
"Because Miku has different producers, different people see her in different ways. To me, Miku is a brave and outgoing girl who encourages me all the time," said Huo. In Huo's eyes, Miku not only backed him up when he was upset, she also taught him how to be a better person.
"Miku encouraged me to expand my musical knowledge, write a song and learn Japanese. I also write articles about Miku and share her photos and videos online with others," said Huo.
Many producers who write songs and lyrics for virtual idols are fans as well. Solpie, 26, who writes dozens of Chinese and Japanese songs for Miku, is one of them.
Solpie, who wrote one of Miku's famous songs "Yuexijiang," has gained popularity among Miku's fans around Asia, including fans from Japan and Malaysia. He started writing songs for his virtual idols in 2010.
As a fan and songwriter for Miku, he also attended Miku's Shanghai concert.
According to Solpie, when Miku started singing his song "Yuexijiang," he could not help but cry and sing with everyone at the concert.
"I wrote the song about my hometown. I wanted to create a picture of the graceful mountains and rivers in the East, as well as the locals who live there," said Solpie.
Solpie has written around 50 songs for Miku and one song for a Chinese virtual idol so far. According to Solpie, writing songs for virtual idols offers him an opportunity to work with other Japanese producers. In addition to writing songs, he is planning to produce a promotional video for Miku.
"Producing music for virtual idols is an endless process," said Solpie. He suggested if you are planning to be a producer that you should keep your passion and resolve at all times.
China's virtual market
According to Ren, virtual idols are popular among certain groups of people, such as fans of ACG in China, and the fan base is growing. Ren said that last year Shanghai held four concerts for Miku, and over 6,000 fans attended.
"Around 20 percent of the fans bought tickets for two concerts," said Ren.
However, Ren said that the atmosphere for virtual idols in China puts the industry in a tight corner.
"In China, companies do not offer a free copyright atmosphere for song producers. In addition, the market does not offer an environment that protects producers' works. Therefore, it's not easy for Chinese to develop virtual idols and integrate them from the two-dimensional world into the three-dimensional world," said Ren.
Ren said that the problems China's virtual idol market faces are small target audiences, the operation model and no virtual representation.
In Ren's eyes, the way to solve these problems is to create a backstory for virtual idols. According to Ren, his company is cooperating with two other Chinese companies in creating two new virtual idols for the Chinese market, with popular backstories.
"We selected virtual idols from two popular Chinese comics that have a large and steady fan base in China. Based on their stories, we pull them out from the two-dimensional world into the three-dimensional world. For example, we will open fashion shows and concerts for them in the future," Ren said.
Ren also said that virtual reality (VR) concerts would become a mega trend for virtual idols in the future. "VR can offer a good environment for fans to interact with their idols," Ren said.
Liu agrees with Ren. He is planning to buy a VR set for watching Miku's concerts. "With VR I can enjoy my virtual idols' concert whenever and wherever," said Liu.
