Kagamine Rin and Len 13th Anniversary News Round-up
Another year has flown by, and that means that we’ve seen celebrations for nearly all of our favourite vocal synths for 2020! December means that we’re able to celebrate the release of Kagamine Rin and Len act 1, which happened 13 whole years ago on December 27th 2007! And funnily enough, their Append version shares this same birthdate, having been released officially on December 27th 2010 – three years later! December truly is the month of Kagamine, and we’ve seen fans pouring out their affection for this funky duo as early as December 3rd, which has been dubbed the unofficial “Len day” (given this name because originally, the Kagamine voicebank was only supposed to be made up of one female vocal – Rin. But on that fateful December 3rd 2007, Rin’s mirror image vocal was unveiled, and thus… Len was born!)
We’ve seen throngs of people posting fanarts and cosplay honouring the Kagamine’s, and here I’ve got a small round-up of some of the announcements (both official and fan-driven) related to their 13th anniversary! If you’d like to see more Kagamine Birthday stuff, feel free to check out the following hashtags on social media:
#鏡音誕生祭2020
#鏡音生誕祭2020
#鏡音13周年
※Header art is by iXima
KARENT Kagamine Compilation
Official music label for Crypton Future Media, KARENT released a crossfade for their “Kagamine RIN/LEN 13th Anniversary” songs compilation, which is now available on iTunes! The compilation features 14 different songs from a variety of producers. You can check out the crossfade here:
- 『クーロンズ・ホテル』/ Kowloon’s Hotel by てにをは / Teniwoha
- 『ワンルームの模範囚』/ One room Mohanshuu (Model Prisoner) by 錦 / Nishiki
- 『宴の皿』/ Utake no Sara (The Banquet Platter) by oQ
- 『咒（まじない）』 / Majinai (Curse/spell) by oQ
- 『昆虫図鑑』/ Konchuu Zukan (Encyclopedia of Insects) by oQ
- 『炉心融解 / DIVELA REMIX』(Meltdown DIVELA REMIX ver.) by DIVELA
- 『alive』by 市瀬るぽ / Ichinose LUPO (this song is actually featured in the game Project SEKAI Colorful Stage feat. Hatsune Miku!
- 『Asteroid』 by キッドP / KID P
- 『新しい青春様式』/ Atarashii Seishun Youshiki (New Normal of Youth) by 雲丹 / Uni
- 『楽園のラグナレク』/ Rakuen no Ragnarock (Ideal world / Ragnarok) by As’257G
- 『ヤマアラシ』/ Yamaarashi (Porcupine) by U-ta/ウタP
- 『レインドロップにサヨナラを』/ Goodbye to Raindrops by AETA(イータ)
- 『そこに無いなら無いですね』/ Soko ni nai desu ne (naimon wa nai!) by オワタP / OwataP
- 『リンのささやき！！』/ Rin no Sasayaki (Rin’s whisper) by ジェバンニP / JevanniP
The full video for DIVELA’s remixed version of Meltdown has also been uploaded to the official Hatsune Miku YouTube channel! Feel free to check it out here:
Art by なぎみそ / Nagimiso
The Original : iroha(sasaki)
Music : iroha(sasaki)
Arrangement: DIVELA
Lyrics: kuma(alfred)
Len Vocal Edit : BIGHEAD
If you like the sound of the album, definitely try to support the artists by purchasing the track!
Kagamine Party Mexico artbook
One of the fantastic fan-driven projects celebrating the Kagamine’s 13th anniversary was fronted by Kagamine Party Mexico. This year’s project lead them to create a fantastic artbook, showcasing works from a variety of illustrators. Said artbook is available to view for free by following this link here. (we reccomend checking it out on mobile for the best interactive experience!).
I have to say, the use of an interactive flipbook-style pdf format is a really amazing, intuitive way to present such a stunning array of artworks to people! Thanks so much to everyone for all of their hard work.
In order of appearance, here’s the list of talented illustrators who have helped to make this project a success:
>> Cover – いちやぼし / Ichiyaboshi – @ichiya_append
>> Eima J. – @kodokunoakashi
>> Fuwofumi – @fuwofuwouwu
In- flipbook message:
Fear Garden was one of the first songs from Rin that I found. I really like this song.
>> なっつ / Nattu – @nattu518
In- flipbook message:
Congtrats on your 13th anniversary! Please keep on letting us hear loads of fantastic songs in the future! I love you both! ーーー!!!(● ´ ▽ ` ●)
Tweet message:
I participated in this project!!!
Happy birthday Rin and Lenー!!!!!!!!!!!! *kiss kiss kiss*
There are loads of other super cute Kagamine artworks, so please check them out hereー!
>> Dai002 – @Dai_kyun002
>> Ridasu – @floofities
>> いちやぼし / Ichiyaboshi – @ichiya_append
Tweet message:
This time I was able to contribute to this Kagamine illustration project because of @Dai_kyun002.
It was an honour to be able to design the illustration for the cover, but I wonder if my image was good enough among so many talented artworks… Thank you so much.
Congratulations, Rin and Len
>> Cami / Peachy Demon – @Cami_Arriaga_C
>> 叶那音/かなうさぎ (Kana usagi) – @kanato_1227
Tweet message:
I want to watch the Kagamine’s nestling close to each other… with their fingers linked.
The second illustration here I drew about 3 months in advance of the #KagamineParty2020 illustration project! It’s a shame that I couldn’t draw another one because there wasn’t enough time… but it became a very valuable experience.
Here’s the link to where you can see all of the other amazing Kagamine arts from the other participants.
>> Rin – @rinjkk
In-flipbook message:
Happy birthday and happy Halloween to Rin and Len! These are the two things I love in the world the most.
>> リンリン (Lin) – @linkaimane
In- flipbook message:
Thank you so much for coming into my life!
>> Ryuzaki236 – @Ryuzaki236
>> Shibi artwork – @shibiartwork
In- flipbook messages:
Congratulations to our brightest stars [Rin and Len].
For all of the amazing songs we’ve had from you, and to all the new songs we’ll hear in the future…
>> Naomi Sunny – @NaomiSunny121
In- flipbook message:
You’ve been giving joy to others for 13 years already. I hope that you and your music can keep evolving into the future.
Well done to all of the featured artists! We truly do love your work you’ve put forward here, and we hope to see more of it in the near future!
Kagamine Rin and Len’s Anniversary in Project SEKAI
As with any of the character birthdays in the game, we were also treated to Kagamine Rin and Len’s individual Live shows on the 27th December!
For anyone who participated in their lives, you’d receive a banner for your profile and crystals too. As well as this, you could also buy Rin and Len costumes for your avatars, to use when viewing any virtual Lives!
And the official Project SEKAI Twitter released a 4koma (four panel vertical comic) about their anniversary live. You can see it and read the translation here:
We hope everyone enjoyed the live shows in-game! Rin, Len and the other piapro characters looked as cute as ever, naturally.
100 Kagamine Collab
In other news, the regular 100 Kagamine Collaboration took place again this year! The aim of this fan project is for artists to submit artworks of Rin and Len, often representing various songs (e.g. via their modules from the Project DIVA franchise, or by depicting their outfits shown in official art/videos for songs etc.). This time, the intention was for every participant to draw Rin and Len’s default design in their own style! You can see the compilation of all 100 artworks here:
We strongly encourage anyone who likes the art shown above to go and give the various talented illustrators a follow on their social media pages too! You can find a spreadsheet with all contributing artists here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ouQc-pMs_roVFal0KrD9Wu3SXAn6prpU5sARJp_tzdE/edit#gid=0
It’s been a pleasure seeing your incredible initiative blossom into such a beautiful compilation piece! If you’d like to see the artists’ individual illustrations of the pair, please check out the official hashtag for the collab: #100kagacollab2020
Thank you so much to everyone featured in this article, and also to everyone who helped celebrate the Kagamine’s 13th anniversary by posting to social media! It’s been really fun seeing everyone excited about their birthday and working together to create such fantastic group initiatives. Here’s to many more years with the Kagamine’s by our side!
~Tanudama
Links
Hatsune Miku and KarenT
- Special Kagamine 13th Anniversary Album page on KARENT
- Official Hatsune Miku YouTube channel
- Official KarenTCrypton YouTube Channel
Kagamine Party Mexico
Project SEKAI Colorful Stage! feat. Hatsune Miku
- Download the game on Android or iOS
- Official site
- Official Twitter
100 Kagamine Collaboration
