HAKUMEI

well this is an unusual concept. VY1 (I'm not sure if I mentioned this before) is a characterless vocaloid, therefore does not have its own icon. Supposedly its supposed to be genderless too (ie can be male or female). When it first came out, I (and probably many other people) listened to a few songs but were pretty disappointed; I basically thought it was pretty much a miku clone.

I canNOT say the same for this song.

There is still some semblance to Miku, but definitely whoever made this song put out the full potential of VY1, which is supposed to be a "professional" VOCALOID (not that the others aren't professional... well, whatever that word means anyway). Props to convincing us the potential of VY1, just like MeltDown presented the potential of Rin (which, btw, I am not very satisfied with any other Rin song beside that one, which is really disappointing).

Also, this song has been going up the charts slowly and surely, which is actually kind of neat. Sort of like, the underdog pushing through the chart full of Mikus? :V

EDIT: I need to make an additional comment about the character presented in this song "Oniko". Apparently its a supposed moe representation of the Chinese insult "Japanese Devils", which is the otaku counter to the growing Chinese/Japanese tensions. :/ While I do appreciate the song itself to be quite a masterpiece, I don't think the Japanese fanbase should take something like this in such a light fashion, especially since there's a reason why Chinese are typically so rather hateful to the Japanese with references to the past. Perhaps I am just young and not understanding, but I can say "bygones be bygones" and acknowledge what happened in the past, yet also acknowledge what is different now. However, people like these really need to learn WHY such a statement came up to being in the first place (it might be more of a government censoring problem though) and not just make a play on words on such sensitive topics.

On the other hand, the Chinese might need to loosen up their hatred, since hatred really doesn't get anywhere imo. I think the Chinese have been doing that already though I can't say for sure.

Although... if China Extremists are going to hate Japan, don't freakin fall through your devotion just because a 14 year old girl with larger-than-usual chests was crying, "Don't hate Japan ;o;". Which happened. That in itself gives them an excuse to make something like this. -_-;;

tl;dr song is nice content is questionable.

EDIT2: additional info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinomoto_Oniko

Rin and Len append

http://www.vocaloidism.com/2010/08/19/kagamine-len-append-update-rins-append-sweet-revealed/

Looks like this is going to be a trend! I actually hope they come up with another original costume design instead of just ripping off miku append's design.

Oh, if they move on to Luka I think her append version might turn out to be pretty good. Assuming they do a good job.

(Vocaloid miki) More Proof that...

It's the producers that make a song sound good, not necessarily the Vocaloid (which in this respect, is more like an instrument than anything else).

I think I stated before that I thought miki wasn't a very good vocaloid, because she sounded too much like Miku. But, there have been (as I posted before) many good Miku songs, therefore there's no reason that miki wouldn't have any good songs either! (And not just with the help of Yuki and Miku in one other very other good song...)

Consequently, this means of course that even the 1st generation vocaloids can sound good under the right producer... which, maybe, they can, although I still think those are significantly poorer in quality than the more modern vocaloids. That, and Ren for whatever reason I have never heard a really good song with him... WELL IT COULD JUST BE MY FEMALE PREFERENCE BIAS, I SUPPOSE.

...:V

Niconico Medley

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10111236

K-ON!!!!

AIR!!!

MIKU'S CHAIN GIRL!!!

KAGUYA'S THEME!!!

BAKEMONOGATARI!!!

...but dude WTF, still no GUMI? щ(ﾟДﾟщ)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yuu Asakawa

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-03-04/anime-expo-to-host-voice-actress-yuu-asakawa

LUKA-SAN AT AX

Not exactly GUMI, but a vocaloid nonetheless!!

But because its not Megumi I'm not going out of my way just to buy Vocaloid Luka version and hope to get it signed by her. >.>

February Wallpaper

I kind of made a new wall paper but not really, all I did was took a (cool!) Miku "Chain Girl" image from pixiv and expanded the edges a little through smudging(horizontal pixel size was 1220, my screen size is 1280, dude wtf!!). For that reason I won't go posting it on facebook or anywhere else claiming its mine because I didn't actually do anything...

But I post it here for two reasons:

1. This is a cool wallpaper based off a cool song that Miku did. See previous "Miku Spree" topic.
2. THIS IS A SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION OF MY LAPTOP RIGHT NOW. At least until I get my new laptop. As you can see, my laptop is an innocent little girl that is very sad and struggling desperately just to open programs for me. For the record it took me almost 30 minutes to take a screenshot, save it, and post it on this blog.

...ITS NOT THE LAPTOP'S FAULT, POOR LAPTOP IS LIKE POOR MIKU, ALL CHAINED UP (most likely with junk that I keep on this computer >.>). At the very least my laptop has a cool wallpaper for now. :(

Miku Spree

Not a lot of (good) GUMI videos have been coming out lately, so I've been cheating on her watching some Miku videos instead. I'll list here a few I liked. (Or rather here is the list of songs people did karaoke on NicoNico on save the first one, since that's a good classification of whether a song got popular or not. I'm not shifting through 3 million mediocre Miku videos just to find the ones that I like)

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/1264787550 << Piano Girl

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6666016 << "Romeo and Cinderella"...? Is that the title? ...or is it... TSUNDERELLA???... ok I think its Cinderella, too much "Otome wa boku ni koishiteru" for me...

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm8619805 << Chain Girl

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm8139134 << Puzzle

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm5524166 << "初めての恋が終わる時" I'm not translating that. This is another one of supercell's works, albeit not as good as some of their other works, imo. Moetron has a translation of this song somewhere on their website, if I can remember.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm6971638 << 1/6. Not too bad, but not as good as the other songs I've heard above either.

EDIT: I THINK ITS IMPORTANT TO NOTE (ok not really, I'm just justifying my Miku spree) that most of these songs are good alone, with Miku not being necessarily the best vocalist for them. In some cases, a human singer or even GUMI would be better.

Angel Vocaloids

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9490064

UNDOUBTEDLY THE BEST YUKI (and Miki) VIDEO OUT SO FAR


...sorry no Gumi :( ;o;

(unnecessary) EDIT: THIS IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Vocaloids and Visual Novels

I think there's been other VNs that have been using Vocaloid to sing their theme songs but THIS ONE IS DONE BY YUKI

YUKI WHICH EVERYONE ABANDONED AFTER LIKE A WEEK D: D: D:

BUT I'D TOTALLY SHOW MY SUPPORT TOWARDS THIS GROUP! :V

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9265641

I'd write maybe a longer entry on VNs and Vocaloid but I have to leave to catch my bus... right now. :V

miki's "Milky Milky"

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm9121230

I've stated before that I didn't really like miki's voice becaus it was too much like Miku's voice, but this video I think proves me wrong. I think there's still reminants of Miku's voice lying in there, but either the producer of this song did a REALLY good job at changing miki's settings, or did a very nice job of using the music to cover up her bad parts. I get the sense its mostly the latter, because I believe the strength of the beat and the other "accessory" sounds around miki's voice actually helps suppress some of her less desirable voice traits. I'd have to listen to a version with her voice only to be absolutely sure, though. Still nevertheless, cheers! Looks like I was too quick to judge you, miki.

Eternal Snow

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm8990537

by Luka.

After hearing a few of her good songs more recently, I think Luka is indeed much better than just a lower-keyed version of Miku. I think she still has her areas (especially seen in this Luka version of the ending to "Full Moon wo Sagashite") where her "artificiality" comes out, but she really is a good vocaloid. I still think she's one step (maybe a small step) behind GUMI in that GUMI has something in all of her voices that adds to her realism (except in parts where they purposely remove it), but right now I think that can be up in the air in terms of whether that's just my personal preference rather than an actual fact.

Regardless, cheers for reminding me of my past early days when I first got into anime! And did a significant commentary about FMWS because I thought it was so good... >.>

New Vocaloids

General overview/opinion:

miki: Sounds a lot like Miku. Maybe too much like Miku. There is a VERY slight difference... I can't quite describe it, I think its like miki maybe has more of a sore throat than Miku...? o_O Well she IS a robot so perhaps the artificial sound is supposed to be her appeal. I don't quite like it though, I'm rather disappointed.
Sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVv_fWJF64
(I like this miki song actually its pretty fun, but doesn't this seem REMARKABLY FAMILIAR TO ANOTHER GUMI SONG I'VE SEEN BEFORE...????)

Yuki: Excellent, she pretty much sounds like a younger version of GUMI. Her voice is very cute, and she can even do normal speech rather well (hence her currently most popular song, a upbeat rap-like song). I'm quite impressed with her, even her character design is pretty awesome. I believe she has a lot of potential.
I don't really like this song too much since its more rap-style but it definitely shows her potential.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEAn01oNxRA

Kiyo: Eeeeh... well, I THINK he's better than the other Vocaloids, but... still not up to par with the girls. Except that I think the way he sings makes him sound like a girl, his voice range seems too high. Well, I guess its progress, but IMHO the male vocaloids still need a lot of work. I think though, in terms of quality of voice, Kiyo is to the rest of the male vocaloids (so far) in how Miku was to the previous vocaloids of her generation: more higher pitched, but noticably better quality, even if its still not quite there yet. I doubt Kiyo will be getting as much popularity as Miku though. :V

At least I think his char design is cool!

EDIT2: For Kiyo, since I didn't have a sample for him I liked at first, I have this one. His voice again isn't the best but I like this song. :V
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm8998660

EDIT: FOR MY OWN FUTURE REFERENCE THE JAPANESE NAME FOR YUKI: 歌愛ユキ

UTAAUUUUUU

A Utau is fine, too.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm8157801

On the topic of Utaus, Teto sounds pretty bad but actually one Utau (Hiyori) is a REALLY good singer. I think I put that on my facebook but didn't make any mention on my blog. Too bad she doesn't get a long of songs produced. :(