Robopop Teen star who does not exist

Miku is a 'Vocaloid' -a holographic avatar that represents a digital bank of vocal samples-performing sellout tours for thousands of very real mega-fans

- Nick Buckley

Countless flowing green wigs risked spontaneous combustion on a 36C Melbourne evening as thousands of J-pop fans queued outside John Cain Arena on a recent Friday night. But the heat was irrelevant to the night's headline pop attraction, Hatsune Miku. She can't sweat because she's a digital animation - a 16-year-old "Vocaloid" virtual pop-star on her first Australian tour.

Miku, as she's known to fans, is a 157cm-tall avatar of a teenage girl with green pigtails. She represents a digital bank of vocal samples created by the ominous-sounding Crypton Future Media using Yamaha's Vocaloid voice synthesiser technology. Users input lyrics and melodies that are "sung" by the bank's sampled voice (Hatsune Miku is voiced by the actor Saki Fujita); some Vocaloid producers "tune" the software to be convincing, while others embrace its artificiality.