Magical Mirai 2026 Programming Contest publishes after-report and winners

Crypton Future Media has published an after-report on the Hatsune Miku “Magical Mirai 2026” Programming Contest, the seventh time the contest has been held as part of Magical Mirai. This year’s brief asked for lyric apps—web applications whose visuals move in time with lyrics—built with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) JavaScript library TextAlive App API. Entries were accepted from March 27, 2026 through noon on June 29, 2026 (JST). Works could focus on one of the six Magical Mirai 2026 song-contest winners or support all six tracks. Judges reviewed every submission against creativity, innovation, and technical completeness, then named ten selected works. Those ten were posted on the contest site at 9:00 JST on July 24, 2026, and demo videos were shown on monitors in the HAMAMATSU exhibition area. A TextAlive lecture and selected-works presentation followed on the HAMAMATSU exhibition stage at 14:30 JST on July 25; Crypton’s official YouTube channel Piapro TV streamed the stage and kept an archive. Public voting on the official Mikunavi app ran from 9:00 JST on July 24 through noon on August 18. Final awards were first announced at the TOKYO exhibition stage, then published on the contest site; that stage is also archived on Piapro TV. Grand Prize went to entry No. 1, “Penlight as Takt,” by Team AHEAD (Sarashina, Argynnini, and まいち～). The app treats a Magical Mirai penlight as a conductor’s baton through a custom object-detection model and stages each song with live-style cues such as mirror balls and streamers. Excellence Awards went to entry No. 7, “湖の歌姫,” by 16えんだま (けろろん and きりたん); entry No. 9, “へのへのもじ絵,” by inmare; and entry No. 10, “Lyricaqua(歌う湖),” by スフレ. Organizers received 168 works, about 1.7 times the previous year, with domestic and international entries split almost evenly. Selected and winning lyric apps can still be tried on the contest pages, and the report says the programming contest is planned again next year. Contest hub: https://magicalmirai.com/2026/procon/ Selected works: https://magicalmirai.com/2026/procon/entry.html Awarded works: https://magicalmirai.com/2026/procon/result.html TextAlive: https://textalive.jp/ Source: Hatsune Miku official X account @cfm_miku and the official Hatsune Miku blog.