KaiMiku

KaiMiku is the het ship between Hatsune Miku and KAITO from the Vocaloid and Project SEKAI fandoms.

Canon
Miku and KAITO are characters from the vocal synthesizer application VOCALOID, and this does not have any official relationship, personalities, or backgrounds; so, most of their characterization is left to songs and semi-official materials such as video games.

Songs
The KaiMiku ship has been used in a variety of ways, including multiple romantic songs, like Cantarella, where Kaito has a obsessive incestuous crush with Miku who is depicted as his sibling and drugs her in order to make her his only to stop himself through guilt, and Cendrillon, where Miku is forced by a fairy godmother to kill Kaito at 12:00, but end up falling in love with him after dancing together, and after she stabbed Kaito at the end, she can still feel him with her, and muses on how they want the moment to last forever. In the song Catastrophe serves as an alternate ending where Miku doesn't kill Kaito but they run away together. There have even been songs involving them in a love triangle with multiple other characters, like ACUTE, where Kaito has a love triangle with Miku and Luka, and Miku, feeling pulled, tries to kill Luka, but Kaito sacrifices himself for her and gets wounded in the process. "Morning Call", is a Kaito original song, but the official PV about the song is depicting his relationship with Miku. In the song, Kaito and Miku are portrayed as a couple, and Kaito receives morning calls from her, later in the PV they get into an argument and the two aren't on speaking terms; no longer having Miku to call and wake him up, Kaito is now waken by his alarm clock which he finds bothersome. However, both apologize and reconcile and continue with their morning calls. "Knight of Light" Kaito sings about how Miku is his hope and that he wants to protect her, and share her pain with him. At the end of the song, Miku thanks Kaito and says meeting him was a miracle.

Another Songs
KaiMiku also has a few share of "another" songs. "Another" are songs that are originally sung by Miku, and put into another (male) perspective, and Kaito is the most notable male vocal for these covers. For example, one of Hatsune Miku's most well known songs, "World is Mine" is about a spoiled girl who wants to be treated like a princess by the boy she likes. In "World is Mine: Another", which is Kaito's perspective, Kaito is portrayed as the boy trying to serve Miku's every demand. "Deep Sea Girl: Another" is about the story of Deep Sea Girl told in the boy's POV. In this version, The boy (KAITO) goes into the ocean to save the girl (Miku), but when he reaches her she turns her back and rejects his help, and the boy submits to helplessness and succumbs to the darkness. Worried that he no longer follows, the girl turns back to save him and the two swim back to the shore happily.

Other Media
The KaiMiku songs listed above became so popular that they were was adapted into other media like manga and light novels (though have yet to receive full english translation). The "Cantarella: Poison of Blue" manga was written by the song writer Kurosa-P, is a historical romance that portrays Kaito and Miku as Cesare and Lucrezia respectively from the Borgia family. Cesare has a sister he's never met before named Lucrezia, and the story unfolds after the two meet. The song, "Cendrillon" was adapted into a light novel. In this story, Cendrillon (Miku), is raised by a group of assassins and due to political reasons, is sent to infiltrate the masquerade ball to kill Prince Charles (Kaito). A couple Kaito/Miku duets have even gotten live performances at ''Miku Magical Mirai. "Ohedo-Julia Night" was performed live by Kaito and Miku during Magical Mirai in 2019 and the aforementioned song "Cendrillon''" was performed at Magical Mirai 2021.

Project Diva
In the Project Diva series, they have plenty of interactions. Typically, they are shown as friends. However, Project Diva has included plenty of songs involving them in romantic songs. As an example, Cendrillion by Signal Pis by far the most well-known romantic song between the two in the Project Diva series. Even songs that don't feature the two of them in a duet together, Project Diva has songs that will recommend matching modules of the two of them (Paris Movie Girl by apfel note as an example).

In Project Diva X, the only game in the series with a story mode, despite having no duets together in-game, Miku and Kaito are the most prominent vocals in the cute cloud, and interactions are focused mainly on them. In order to restore the cuteness prism, both work together to figure out what makes idols cute. When discussing about to give off a cute aura Kaito suggests to smile like they mean it. They compliment each other's smiles, Kaito stating Miku's was angelic and Miku commenting Kaito's smile suits him. After restoring the cute prism's power, Kaito suggests to finish up with a tribute to the cute cloud by striking adorable idol poses. Miku was taken aback but nonetheless agress and both strike thier adorable poses.

Project Sekai
In the Wonderland Sekai Kaito is a troupe leader an do a lot of extravagant shows together with plushies and help the WonderlansxShowtime crew to find their true feelings. Miku often compares him with a kind of mother who cares about the plushies and the younger members.

Fanon
KaiMiku is an extremely popular ship and it is considered one of the first, it it isn't the first ship in the Vocaloid fanbase. Fans fell in love with how well their voices mixed together. Along with their voices sounding well blended together, their designs also match due to them both having blue hair. Since their first duet, fanfiction, doujin, and plenty of fanart has been created for the two. The ship is also really popular in the Japanese fandom and KaiMiku day is celebrated January 23 (1/23).

The ship lost some popularity due the huge amount of rival ships, like MikuRin, MikuLen, Negitoro, KaiMei, KaiLen, and GakuKai (which are all more popular in AO3), but it is the 4th most popular ship for both Kaito and Miku in AO3 and it is the 8th most popular Vocaloid ship in general.

Controversy
Despite Kaito not having official age, many people realized that he could be an adult because of his voice and design, and in the unoffical manga, Hatsune Mix, Kei protrays him and Meiko as middle aged people, while Miku is 16. That made the ship pretty controversial in the Vocaloid fandom, even though there are some ships like LuMiku and LeKai with a similar age gap that don't get the same amount of hate. Anyways, many people thing that Kaito's age is still up to interpretation since Hatsune Mix isn't official and you can ship him with whoever you want, other people just don't care about the ages and only care about how nice they look and sound together.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Miku/Kaito tag on FanFiction.net
 * Miku/Kaito tag on FanFiction.net

FAN ART

TWITTER

Trivia

 * Their Kizuna Rank titles are: "The Cold Singers", "The Two Magicians" and "It Begins Beecause it Ends".
 * In the game 3DS game Project Mirai DX, Miku and Kaito have special costumes dressed as characters from the Puyo Puyo series, "Arle" & "Dark Prince" respectively.
 * Funnily enough, in the Puyo series, Dark Prince, the main antagonist of the aforementioned series is in love with Arle, the protagonist.
 * Naoto Fuuga, KAITO's voice provider, retweeted KaiMiku fanart with the caption "I'm a little surprised to see my son, who I thought was still a child, entering puberty, but I'm a little happy".

Variations

 * Big 8 refers to the ship between the two, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, MEIKO, GUMI and Kamui Gakupo
 * Cryptonloid Gang refers to the ship between the two, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka and MEIKO
 * KaiKuLuka refers to the ship between the two and Megurine Luka
 * KaiKuo refers to the ship between Kaito and Mikuo
 * KaiLenKu refers to the ship between the two and Kagamine Len
 * KaiMeiMiku refers to the ship between the two and MEIKO
 * KuoKaiko refers to the ship between their Gender Bends, Mikuo and Kaiko