Hatsune Miku: Vocal Android is a Vocaloid fanverse by A Patchwork Scholar.
In Sapporo, Hokkaido in the year 2107, the Vocaloid Character Vocal 01 or CV 01 was created as a test to see whether fusing robotics, music software, and superhuman abilities was possible—and it was. Going by the name of “Hatsune Miku”, she goes on to become a worldwide pop idol and icon, and recognition as the first fully-functioning humanlike android. With her surrogate siblings Kagamine Rin and Len and Megurine Luka, her creators Kaito Shion and Meiko Sakine, and her close friends Gumi and Gakupo, Miku finds herself crashing through life as she juggles her idol career, school and regular life, and her newfound responsibility of protecting her city from various threats of robot, alien, and humankind alike. Naturally, music, drama, comedy, and hyperkinetic science fiction adventure ensues.
Originally set to be released as a fanfiction, the series is now a bit of upcoming multimedia fanwork. While on the Darth Wiki for not exactly existing yet, info regarding the verse can be read at Mikunology
here.
Vocal Android has the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Dell Honne to Haku. Dell, unlike Meiko, treated Haku as no more than an object and shamed her for asking questions because he believes robots shouldn’t. Then, upon seeing that her singing ability was sub-par, he ordered for her to be shut down and abandoned in an alley despite her possessing musical abilities beyond singing.
- Action Dad: As the group gets into more and more tussles, Kaito grows into this.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Notably averted for most of the series, with most villains being programmed to be evil in the first place. However, it does apply to Anri Rune, who went rogue on her creators and took over the company.
- Alien Invasion: Happens in the final arc, where IA and ONE’s race invades Earth.
- Allergic to Routine: If Rin’s bored, you can bet some trouble will be caused to get rid of it.
- Always Someone Better: Neru hates Miku for supposedly being a better robot idol.
- Amusing Alien: Miki and Stardust.
- An Arm and a Leg: The Vocaloids have lost limbs to battles before, most notably with Yukari severing Rin’s arm. Luckily, they’re robots, so it’s reattached by the next episode.
- Angelic Aliens: IA is depicted as being ethereal and angelic in appearance to humans.
- Anime Chinese Girl: Ling and Mo.
- Animesque: While Mochagatari’s style is decidedly toony, the plot is very much animesque in presentation.
- Another Dimension: Zhanyin Lorra introduces herself as a musical scout from another dimension.
- Arch-Enemy: Zatsune is this to Miku.
- Artificial Limbs: Kaito’s brother Kikaito has a robotic arm.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The first real episode of the series involves Rin’s newly-finished road roller Humongous Mecha rampaging across Japan due to a trojan chip.
- Badass Adorable: Miku, Rin, Gumi, Miki, Rion...the list goes on.
- Badass Crew: The Crypton Crew.
- Badass Normal: Meiko, Gumi, and the non-robot agents are all humans that kick equal amounts (if not more) of ass than the main heroes.
- Barrier Warrior: IA and LU Mi both use force fields in their battle styles.
- Beach Episode: “Summer Idol”.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: IA’s race, the ARI As, operate on this.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Zatsune, Kageito, and when they pick up the slack, the Kagenes.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Kaito and Meiko.
- City of Adventure: Sapporo.
- Clark Kenting: Averted. The Vocaloids’ are already in the public eye and their first job as crime fighters was very public, so they don’t bother hiding themselves.
- Cool Bike: Lily’s motorscycle.
- Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: Played with in regards to the Vocaloids. Upon Miku and the Kagamines becoming established heroes in Sapporo, the execs at Crypton pushed to have Meiko update Miku and co. to play up the superhero image.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dell Honne, the sociopathic head of Honne Corporation.
- And in the reveal, Anri Rune is one for the FUJI company that was obsessed with pirating or remaking Miku’s design and starting a robot revolution, out of her despair over being rejected by her own company.
- Cyber Ninja: Or, in Gakupo’s case, a cyber samurai.
- Cyberspace: It exists, and is even more massive due to the jump in internet that has transpired. Miku and friends usually enter it by downloading their likenesses into a computer.
- Cyborg: Both Gakupo and Ruko are cyborgs as a result of traumatic incidents.
- Dare to Be Badass: Half the premise is about Miku becoming less and less scared of defending her fans and the world.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After being reactivated, Haku turned to alcohol to help cope with her abandonment. It doesn’t have any affect on her other than making her system crash.
- Easily Detachable Robot Parts: Averted. Due to being created to look as human as possible, it’s difficult to detach any of the Vocaloids’ limbs, and it does hurt them severely. Occasionally played with or played straight though in the cases of Haku (who wasn’t made correctly to begin with), Miki, and Momo.
- Everything Is An I Pod In The Future: Sapporo has the white-chrome and hard-light feel.
- Evil Counterpart: Several for Miku and friends, although the most notable examples are Zatsune, the Kagenes, and Hagane.
- Fantastic Racism: Due to her bitterness over Miku’s success, Neru is prejudiced towards robots and androids and frequently calls the Cryptons inhuman. However, she grows out of it.
- Flawed Prototype: CV 00 and CV 02-P.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: Rin acquires one.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: The characters are all pretty gray in morale, with the only characters listed as truly evil being Zatsune, Rui, and Dell. There are several instances of characters antagonizing Miku and co., but usually for their own reasons (such as pure competition or being directed that Miku is evil).
- Halloween Episode: “Trick and Treat”.
- Hard-Work Montage: In “The Development of Amazing Apps”.
- Head Pet: Tako Luka’s favorite spot seems to be on top of Luka’s head.
- Hoverboard: Hoverboarding is akin to skateboarding in Sapporo, with Yuuma usually doing so on his own time.
- Human Aliens: IA, Yukari, and Stardust all look very human other than hair color, to say the least.
- Humongous Mecha: Rin modified her road roller to be able to transform into one.
- I Call It "Vera": She also calls it Josephine.
- Job-Stealing Robot: Accidentally. Miku’s rise to stardom ended up tarnishing Neru’s career as an idol, which led to her revenge complex against her.
- Jumped at the Call: Rin was more than excited to be a superhero.
- Killer Robot: Zatsune and Hagane 2.0.
- Mechanical Abomination: Rui Kagene raids several robotics labs to assemble herself into a vaguely humanoid robotic abomination.
- Calne Ca could arguably be called one.
- Motherly Scientist: Meiko acts as a mother to the Cryptonloids as well as a manager and scientist to them.
- Parental Abandonment: Haku was subject to this, as due to her poor singing ability Dell ordered for her to be junked.
- Police Are Useless: Subverted. The police are definitely involved in the going-ons of Sapporo, it’s just that certain threats are so large-scale that they can’t solve things alone or without the help of robots.
- Precocious Crush: Rin and Len have one on Gakupo and Luka respectively.
- The Professor: Meiko and Kaito are Miku, Rin, Len, and Luka’s creators and scientists.
- Purple Is Powerful: Gakupo, Stardust, and Yukari.
- The Reveal: The person who was orchestrating the mystery behind all the evil Miku clones, including Zatsune Miku and Hagane 2.0, as well as controlling Honne Corp. and MAYU, was none other than Anri Rune, who had gone mad with revenge for her being rejected by her company and killed her creators before she could be scrapped.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Most of the characters.
- Robosexual: While not directly stated, it’s implied that people have courted robots before, and that with the introduction of fully-functioning humanlike androids like Miku and co., the number of robosexuals has starkly risen.
- Robot Maid: Momone Momo and Acme Iku.
- Robot Names: Several characters, including the mains, have model names that act as “real names” with their given ones being more like aliases; examples being Miku’s model name being CV 01 (“Character Vocal 01), Haku’s model name being “DTM” (“Desktop Music”), or Momo’s model name M-100 (which can be read as either “Momo-100” or “Model-100”).
- Space Station: There’s one floating throughout space created by UNITY Enterprises, with AKAZA and Otori heading it.
- Superhero: Miku and friends are superheroes within this universe, and have several other superpowered friends to help them.
- Transforming Mecha: Rin’s road roller Josephine.
- Upgrade Versus Prototype Fight: Happens in “Take 00” where Miku faces off against her prototype model after waking her up out of curiosity. The same later happens with Len and his prototype.
- Utopia: As usual with Mochagatari’s works and in a bit of reflection to her original Genjitsutouhi Series, the world has grown into a very optimistic future, with the common tropes of high-rise skyscrapers, neon superhighways, robots as common sights and even seemingly world peace (Japan and China seem to have much better relations, anyway).
- World of Badass: Almost every character in the Vocal Android lineup has at least the potential to be badass, with the only exceptions being some of the children (like Yuki) or some of the less combat-oriented (like Tonio).
