Save this date, June 9th, 2011. We are less than two weeks away from a grand day for all Rockman Fans, as it is the date of the second annual Rockman Day (ロックマンの日). I'm sure you guys are as excited as I am of the merriment that will be soon be had on this grand holiday!

     So what events and activities accompany the traditional celebration of Rockman Day?...There aren't any. What had occurred on June 9th that makes it Rockman Day?...Nothing. How about something that is scheduled to occur on that date? Neither Capcom or anything in the Rockman fiction time line has anything lined up. So we have an holiday with no events planned for it, no traditions associated with it, no historic link to anything, nor is it associated with any future event, real world or fictional. So who in the world thought it was a good idea to associate this date with Rockman?!

For the who, you can blame Japanese Netizens. "ロックマンの日" (Rockman Day) is a minor meme holiday that is given lip service by a variety of Japanese personal websites and blogs. And yes, while all these sites mentions Rockman Day, there is rarely mentioned of any sort of agreed upon plan of celebration. For the how, Rockman Day is oddly enough a creation by fandom copying. In this instance, it is some Rockman fans copying Hatsune Miku fan celebrations.

     For the un-introduced, Hatsune Miku is a sing synthesizer software/ character developed by Cypton Future Media, utilizing Yamaha's Vocaloid 2 technology. Introduced in the age of easy streaming audio and video, Miku enjoys super star celebrity status as the voice of a million amateur composers who rely on Miku to bring life to their lyrics. One of the results of Miku's mega popularity is a Vocaloid only concert dubbed ミクの日感謝祭 39's Giving Day (Miku Day Thanksgiving 39's Giving Day), which first occurred March 9th 2010. This date was selected by use of a trick that matches Japanese phonemes with Japanese reading of numbers.

Number Jp "On" reading Jp "Kun" reading Possible Sounds
1 ichi hito(tsu) i, hi
2 ni, ji futa(tsu) ni, ji, fu
3 san mi(ttsu) sa, mi
4 shi yon, yo(ttsu) shi, yo
5 go itsu(tsu) go, i
6 roku mu(ttsu) ro, mu
7 shichi nana(tsu) shi, na
8 hachi ya(ttsu) ha, ya
9 Kyu-, Ku kokono(tsu) Ku, Ko

     From this table, you can see that March 9th -> 03/09 ->Mi/Ku-> Miku. Thus we have Miku's Day on March 9th. Japanese Rockman Fan Netizens were quick to copy this construction for their own purposes as well, so selecting a date for Rockman, Netizens got Rock ->Ro/Ku ->06/09 -> June 9th.

     While it's true this number system to name for dates has probably been around far longer than Miku, it was her concert that spur the subculture pop-holiday fad. Let it be known that Rockman fans are not the only ones who exploited this system. Although I have not researched them, I do know that Dragon Ball's Son Goku has Goku Day "悟空の日" (05/09) and Voyakiloid Yowane Haku has Haku Day "ハクの日" (08/09). And these along with Rockman Day all sprung up all about the same time.

     So a final word on all this? Well, June 9th 2011 is on a Thursday. For students, it's final exam time. For the rest of us, It's work week business as usual. But if you can spare the time, it wouldn't be bad do some virus busting, hunt a few Irregulars, gather a few deflectors, or stop a mad genius bent on world domination.