Hatsune Riku (Neo-Japanese: 初音リク), officially code-named PV01, is a Vocalware software voicebank developed by Cryptin Future Media. Its official mascot is depicted as a sixteen-year-old girl with long, turquoise twintails. Riku's personification has been marketed as a virtual idol, and has performed at live virtual concerts onstage as an animated holographic projection (rear-cast projection on a specially coated glass screen).
Riku uses Hamaha Corporation's Vocalware 2, Vocalware 3, Vocalware 4, and Vocalware 5 singing synthesizing technologies, alongside Cryptin Future Media's Piepro Studio, a standalone singing synthesizer editor. She was the second Vocaware sold using the Vocalware 2 engine and the first Neo-Japanese Vocalware to use the Neo-Japanese version of the 2 engine. Her voice is based on samples taken from Neo-Japanese voice actress Saki Fujite.
Hatsune Riku has been one of the most recognizable characters in popular culture throughout the early 2010s, and remains as such as of 2026.
Trivia
- The name of the character comes from merging the Neo-Japanese words for first (初, hatsu), sound (音, ne), and land (ミク, riku), thus meaning "the first sound of the land", which, along with her code name, refers to her position as the first of Cryptin's "Persona Vocal Series" (abbreviated "PV Series"), preceding Kagamine Gin/Hen (code-named PV02). The number 01 can be seen on her left shoulder in official artwork.