Hallo everyone! Given this is a digital and cyberculture page, I figured that nothing could suit it more than Vocaloid music. I personally do enjoy Vocaloid music on the whole, but admittedly it isn't easy to get used to [or wasn't for me].
Even if you don't enjoy the music, it is still interesting to consider from the Digital Cyberculture perspective. For those unfamiliar with Vocaloid, it's a technology which essentially boils down to capturing every conceivable syllable of a language and recording them in a 'voicebank', then using that recorded voicebank to create music; if you have a band and no singer, then Vocaloid will sing for you. As to the character mascots, there are many of varying popularity with Hatsune Miku, the twin-tailed girl produced for the second generation Vocaloid2 and marketed as 'virtual idol', being the most popular.
The scale of her popularity along with the other most well known Vocaloid characters [or just Vocaloids] is apparent just from the size and enthusiasm of the crowds who turn out to their concerts. For reference, this concert took place in Taiwan in 2012. That isn't even a Japanese crowd and they're going berserk.
Why has this technology not received an English-language version? Well, I would posit that amongst other things about marketability and suchlike, it's probably just harder to capture an English voicebank than a Japanese one given Japanese is a completely syllabic language and English is not
This little piece below provides some interesting food for thought on the subject of Hatsune Miku as a posthuman female icon, though I'm going to say that I actually disagree with most of it.
http://www.mtviggy.com/articles/im-every-woman-hatsune-miku-beyonce-and-digital-girl-power/