I think it's really fun that it has all these analog-horror inspired glitches/uncanny elements but never actually... goes in for the kill, so to say. You're just kind of left to sit in the unease of this nostalgia-Miku being not just a SCARY HAUNTED KIDS MEDIA!!!, but, like, desperate for attention, and to not be left behind, and for "the good ol days" to continue forever in a very human way.
If there's any full fledged "creepy nostalgia" project I can compare the use of analog horror and nostalgia horror elements to, it's probably:
Angel Hare, which also invokes analog horror tropes/imagery but ultimately has its media-possessing entity be sympathetic (though the notion of her being dangerous is dangled to the audience early on).
Mr. Samuel's Teatime Stories for Good Kids & Confused Adults, where the framing of an uncannily empty children's TV show is pretty obviously more about the elderly host's struggles with loneliness and dementia than it is about Evil Television Gonna Getcha.
Also, there's a bunch of hidden frames in the video, which some people have suggested implies the children's show that the music video seems to take place in originally had a larger cast of characters than just Miku. The colors obviously correspond to the six color tones on a TV broadcast test card, but it is a funny coincidence that you could also correlate those colors to the five Crypton Vocaloid products (Meiko red, Kaito blue, Miku cyan, Luka pink, the Rin/Len yellow) and Gumi (green, made by a different company but often treated as an honorary member of the Crypton set by both official media and fandom). If one really wanted to treat the children's show as a metaphor for Miku's own fandom, then the "cast members" could easily be the rest of the Crypton family and Gumi - who are no longer as popular as voicebanks or fictional characters as they were in the initial height of Vocaloid fan culture.
During the chorus some of the frames where she's looking directly at the viewer show a nervous expression on her face. She even pulls the same expression when she's dancing during "So just don't touch the dial and stay here a while with me" ;______; It kinda makes you think that she must be forcing herself to smile and come off as carefree, when she's really so scared deep down. Performance and anxiety and maybe feeling like if she's vulnerable, well, she'll be sad and therefore won't be entertaining anymore and the viewer will definitely change channels. I'm sad for her, doubly so because this version of Miku is peak cute.
"I want to be wanted. Is that so wrong?" [I sob violently] No, Miku, it's not wrong of you to feel that way.
Oh I like that analysis, esp since it's true that it seems like not many people know about the other charatcers/singers aside from Miku herself these days </3 I wonder if that context then, some of that fuels her loneliness and desperation? Or she might be grieving her friends being "written out" so to speak.
(You're really articulate and good at whipping up quick analysis and essays? How'd you get so good?)
Yea it's... I think a lot about how a lot of people's initial reaction seeing her eyes opened in the song is to be scared or creeped out by how her eyes look, and find her threatening. Outside of the fiction of the music video, this was absolutely intentionally designed by ricedeity, who did the character design and animation. On a meta-level, the "uncanny" look of her with her mask down, and the way we're trained to be even more suspicious of those slips by the use of analog horror conventions, serves to validate her fears that people won't like and stay with her if her cheery kid's-show-host act slips...
It's interesting - a lot of English-language comments that seem to be from younger fans ask "oh, does red represent Teto?" because they see Miku repeatedly interacting with the red objects, and Miku/Teto as an inseparable pair thanks to "Mesmerizer" and its impact... ignoring that there's like, four other recurring colors in these shots (and six Mikus dancing at the bottom of the screen during the chorus), and there aren't any major current or historical "sets" of vocal synth characters-as-ensemble (at least, that I know of) that contain Miku, Teto, and four other characters that properly correspond to the colors shown...
Thank you! Um... I just really overthink things a lot. I also used to read a lot as a kid, and spend a lot of time walking circles in my back yard (then and now) ruminating on some topic on my mind for hours on end. Sometimes it was fantasy worldbuilding built off of facts about biology, geology, or mythology that'd caught my interest... other times, it was analyzing what interested me about a work of fiction, coalescing themes and symbolism in my head, and if it was ongoing speculating about where it would go next.
Oh yeah tbh I think if one is gonna pull in color symbolism, then the reading that all the colors are a reference to Miku's friends is stronger than just the color red being significant because it's only about Teto.
I guess what I mean is writing it out too... You seem really good at just doing that on the fly. Organizing it and stuff, is what I mean.
Yea - I love Teto, but I just don't think the evidence for her being relevant to this song is strong. (Wondering if fan-designs of Static!Miku's Missing Friends™ are ever going to crop up, ala the Micchi's "the yellow one who wasn't in Mesmerizer" fan-design for Neru that went viral and became fanon.)
Huh! Nice to know I'm good at that - sometimes I worry I'm not articulating my ideas well enough. Guess I just have a good intuition for it, then?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2025-05-25 04:04 am (UTC)I was so ready for a jumpscare
no subject
Date: 2025-05-25 06:21 pm (UTC)I think it's really fun that it has all these analog-horror inspired glitches/uncanny elements but never actually... goes in for the kill, so to say. You're just kind of left to sit in the unease of this nostalgia-Miku being not just a SCARY HAUNTED KIDS MEDIA!!!, but, like, desperate for attention, and to not be left behind, and for "the good ol days" to continue forever in a very human way.
If there's any full fledged "creepy nostalgia" project I can compare the use of analog horror and nostalgia horror elements to, it's probably:
Also, there's a bunch of hidden frames in the video, which some people have suggested implies the children's show that the music video seems to take place in originally had a larger cast of characters than just Miku. The colors obviously correspond to the six color tones on a TV broadcast test card, but it is a funny coincidence that you could also correlate those colors to the five Crypton Vocaloid products (Meiko red, Kaito blue, Miku cyan, Luka pink, the Rin/Len yellow) and Gumi (green, made by a different company but often treated as an honorary member of the Crypton set by both official media and fandom). If one really wanted to treat the children's show as a metaphor for Miku's own fandom, then the "cast members" could easily be the rest of the Crypton family and Gumi - who are no longer as popular as voicebanks or fictional characters as they were in the initial height of Vocaloid fan culture.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-26 04:01 am (UTC)"I want to be wanted. Is that so wrong?"
[I sob violently] No, Miku, it's not wrong of you to feel that way.
Oh I like that analysis, esp since it's true that it seems like not many people know about the other charatcers/singers aside from Miku herself these days </3 I wonder if that context then, some of that fuels her loneliness and desperation? Or she might be grieving her friends being "written out" so to speak. (You're really articulate and good at whipping up quick analysis and essays? How'd you get so good?)
no subject
Date: 2025-05-26 04:50 pm (UTC)Yea it's... I think a lot about how a lot of people's initial reaction seeing her eyes opened in the song is to be scared or creeped out by how her eyes look, and find her threatening. Outside of the fiction of the music video, this was absolutely intentionally designed by ricedeity, who did the character design and animation. On a meta-level, the "uncanny" look of her with her mask down, and the way we're trained to be even more suspicious of those slips by the use of analog horror conventions, serves to validate her fears that people won't like and stay with her if her cheery kid's-show-host act slips...
It's interesting - a lot of English-language comments that seem to be from younger fans ask "oh, does red represent Teto?" because they see Miku repeatedly interacting with the red objects, and Miku/Teto as an inseparable pair thanks to "Mesmerizer" and its impact... ignoring that there's like, four other recurring colors in these shots (and six Mikus dancing at the bottom of the screen during the chorus), and there aren't any major current or historical "sets" of vocal synth characters-as-ensemble (at least, that I know of) that contain Miku, Teto, and four other characters that properly correspond to the colors shown...
Thank you! Um... I just really overthink things a lot. I also used to read a lot as a kid, and spend a lot of time walking circles in my back yard (then and now) ruminating on some topic on my mind for hours on end. Sometimes it was fantasy worldbuilding built off of facts about biology, geology, or mythology that'd caught my interest... other times, it was analyzing what interested me about a work of fiction, coalescing themes and symbolism in my head, and if it was ongoing speculating about where it would go next.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-27 07:37 pm (UTC)I guess what I mean is writing it out too... You seem really good at just doing that on the fly. Organizing it and stuff, is what I mean.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-27 08:20 pm (UTC)Yea - I love Teto, but I just don't think the evidence for her being relevant to this song is strong. (Wondering if fan-designs of Static!Miku's Missing Friends™ are ever going to crop up, ala the Micchi's "the yellow one who wasn't in Mesmerizer" fan-design for Neru that went viral and became fanon.)
Huh! Nice to know I'm good at that - sometimes I worry I'm not articulating my ideas well enough. Guess I just have a good intuition for it, then?