#piko miki 101

[pikidotexe-ask]

Dear English fans,

Utatane Piko and SF-A2 Miki are NOT siblings!

Here’s what I mean:

(I just discovered this misinformation spread because of an old talkloid shitpost on YouTube and I’m responding to this from the perspective of the Japanese fandom. These two are not well known overseas but on Nico Nico Douga, 9 times out of 10, they’re often shipped together. Gobou-P and Mahiruno-P are great examples. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with it; it’s a cute headcannon for them to be brother and sister, but it’s typically unusual. Allow me to explain for the sake of my talkloid series and in general.)

Yes, Utatane Piko and SF-A2 Miki were owned initially by the same company called HEARTFAST back in 2008-2009. This company went bankrupt and the site no longer exists. That much is true.

Miku and Luka are siblings in the sense that they’re both from Crypton and were also originally meant to be counterparts, but those two are completely different and are not “blood related”.

Miki’s quality took a hit from the lack of funding hence her infamous pitching (ta, wa, etc.) and volume issues (soft a, i, loud o, e), even though at the time she had a wider range than Miku and was among one of the most realistic banks. I think Miki tuners should take pride; because if you can tune her, then it’s very worth it and it makes using newer banks feel like cakewalk.

Piko got luckier with quality but he also suffers some phoneme clipping issues, like the N\ squeak or his dampened “da” and “ga”.

It was an awful shame they got split up and overshadowed by other releases. I don’t know if we could petition AHS to purchase Piko from Sony today but we could try. His provider is still active and well, and survived a kidney transplant thanks to his mother.

The Voice Providers:

Miki Furukawa from the band Supercar and later LAMA is from Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture. (That’s in northern Japan just under the shores of Hokkaido.) She was born February 19th, 1979. Her signature bass guitar is the rare Yamaha SBV-800MF (SB-5a/7a and SBV-550) in blue.

Piko, on the other hand, is from Kobe, in the Kansai region just south of Tokyo (yes, he has the accent!). He was born March 11th, 1988. His start to fame was covering classic vocaloid songs since supecell’s “Love is War” on Nico Nico Douga and the amazing fact that he could sing as both genders with his best friend Sekihan (who has his own band). He’s physically very attractive and is still mistaken for a girl in short glimpses (to his amusement), but he has made it clear he is not gay and likes women (in fact, he’s very quick to remove a heavy wig). If he does “drag” then I’ve noticed it’s usually in a funny trolling sense or as a talent.

I’ve been listening these two practically my whole life along with Yuri Masada and Fukase from Sekai no Owari, because I’m a music junky, and they’re absolutely worth looking into.

Piko and Miki are almost a decade and half a nation apart, they were only under the same music label Ki/oon Records for a while. They’ve most likely never even met.

If they have met, I’ve rarely if ever heard Piko speak of his bank, let alone Miki. I know he has a copy of his own bank, and he's made music with Miku, Gumi, Rin and Len before (Chuutoro-P). Piko is still doing music work, streams, and YouTube now. Miki’s getting her SynthV release in December 2024 and she is doing quiet live shows and fashion work.

(In my series I decided to make them 1 year apart similar to their release dates.)

Their Designs:

While they are counterparts, no part of them is essentially “blood related”.

Piko’s iconic hair is the same as his mother’s to honour her, Utatane’s cowlick is just to differentiate.

Vocaloid Miki was about to have the similar short hair as in real life. I know this because I bought her artbook with KYMG’s concept designs. Supercar made a lot of laid back rock and almost meditative, space-like/romantic songs you could groove out/fall asleep to, hence her space theme. Furukawa has a cover of Saihate so you could tell she enjoyed Miku’s kz/Livetune era with songs like “Light Song” and “Packaged” (2008).

Piko’s entire design is specifically based on the discontinued (sigh) Yamaha RGX-A2 electric guitar in aircraft grey (other colours red, black, and dark blue), the aux jack to usb tail on the hem of his outfit falls with the computer instrument metaphor. It makes sense the two would be guitar and bass, since Miki is primarily a bassist who can sing and use a keyboard.

These two also have the same robotic joint markings, Piko’s are just harder to see because of his black sleeves and because his legs are covered, but people forget the elbow areas on the sleeves are actually transparent.

In conclusion:

Yamaha (I believe) wanted to launch an “Artist Edition” series at the time based on real musicians. The voices were Miki (Furukawa), Piko, Gakupo Kamui (Gakt), and Lily (Yuri Masada). If there were others, I don’t remember, but the “development code” thing was likely Heartfast’s idea pertaining to this theme by giving the two prototype sci-fi joints.

If the western fandom’s definition of “siblings” is by same company umbrella, then I accept that. Otherwise, I personally ship them very hard here because they’re totally unrelated and my goal is to give them the love they deserved and spread the word.

I hope this rant was educational.

Cheers!