#who were big into all the big vocaloid producers

[unendingphantasm]

i need to sleep but im thinking about what would’ve happened if prsk and the miku coachella appearance actually went through. like, would that have pushed vocaloid into the mainstream? idk. i think about it a lot

[westvocap-ocbracket]

just wanted to say that i really love this tournament because it lets people discover more criminally underrated artists and support them. i love listening to this small genre(?) or corner of the vocaloid fandom and knowing that there are other people who love it just as much as me makes me so happy :)

That makes me extremely happy to hear, because this was why I wanted this blog to be made too. Outside of polls just being fun, western vocaloid producers are generally very underrated and its somewhat obscure (though it has gotten more popular in recent years), my goal is to help spread awareness about lesser known producers and get more people supporting them too, among their cool characters! I'm glad it makes you happy because it makes me happy too and I have the same feelings as you do about this tournament and west vocaloid.

[fakecats]

i’m so sad kamiboku just. does not sound the same anymore like i get music and bands change but now it’s just anime op music

[odysseyeurobeat]

Literally just me gushing about eurobeat

Y'know what? Tumblr, you get a little treat. I don't have much better of a place to post something long-winded like this, so here we are.

I love eurobeat music. Big surprise from the girl with it in her handle, right? But I don't just love one kind of eurobeat. No, I'd go so far as to say I love it all. This genre becomes an absolute buffet of delightful, energetic, silly fun when you forget about trying to look for ways it "doesn't count", and try to look for the ways it does.

I love early eurobeat! I love the stuff that's indistinguishable from early Italo Disco, the formative things where the tempo was still low and the disco vibes were still high! That's Eurobeat and the first few volumes of Super Eurobeat are great for this!

I love later eurobeat, too! Even if some of the sounds aren't always my favorites, I love that folks were trying new things and dabbling with new sounds, experimenting in ways that in previous years seemed prohibited! Comparing some aliases who have been going for multiple decades from this period to when they started is also super fun!

I love traditional eurobeat, if I could pick a name for it! Faster, more rave-influenced, whether or not it's still got some disco elements in it, themes about nightclubs and love and loss and betrayal and that ever-ubiquitous fire! Maharajah Night has some great examples, leading into the bulk of pre-200 Super Eurobeat volumes!

I love J-Euro! It turns out, folks in Japan have different ideas and tastes and approach the genre VERY differently than the folks in Italy do, and I love how it sounds! I love how the sound design is so different and the speed jumps a little higher!

I love indie eurobeat! I love hearing how new and amateur producers take a crack at the sound, and seeing what folks do as the tools for making it grow and evolve! Even virtual versions of the synths the masters used to use are available now, and it's fantastic to hear how those things sound in new hands! I love the ways indie producers bend, break, and work around the rules of the genre and still deliver a uniquely "eurobeat" experience! Without this category, I would never have found DJ Command, DJ Bouche, Turbo, Vikas Beatbox, the Galaxian Recordings crew, and so, so many more!

I love happy eurobeat! The nature of the genre makes it so straightforward to pair its signature energy with joy, delight, empowerment!

I love sad eurobeat! That very same energy that powers joy and happiness can be just as powerful for driving home sorrow and sadness, and some lyrics even carry strong emotional weight (we're well past the days of eurobeat being only about Burning Love Car Baby Fire Desire Tonight Drift Tokyo, y'know)!

I love fandom eurobeat! Yup! Vocaloid, Touhou, MLP:FiM, Vtubers; whatever you may be a fan of, chances are good there's a eurobeat remix out there (or even an original) that suits your fancy!

I love Initial D eurobeat! How could I not, right? The classics are classics for a reason, and eurobeat and drift racing are a uniquely fantastic pair. Of all the things eurobeat could be about, it's one of a few that really knock it out of the park!

I love feminine eurobeat! Masculine eurobeat is great too, but it already gets a lot of love in the other categories, so I want to celebrate those eurobeat songs that feel quite the opposite while still being perfectly eurobeat! Eurobeat is broad enough to express feelings like this, too!

I love songs that aren't quite eurobeat, but have elements of it! And I love eurobeat songs that heavily include elements from other genres, too! Eurobeat is like any other genre-- it has not always had the same chances to rub shoulders with other sounds in the dance space, but when it does, some wonderful things happen! And the whole music world is enriched for that cross-pollenation!

I love the songs I used to dislike! To think I'd go from vastly disliking Norma Sheffield's discography, to adoring it so fully! Disliking "Higher Higher More and More" to seeking it out from time to time! Not being fond of SAIFAM/BBB's style, to knowing some of its songs by heart!

And most of all, I love that I get to MAKE this stuff for a living! I do not take the fact that this could've not worked out trivially, and I hope I've rewarded your patiences well with a lot of new favorites and starting points for diving deeper into the genre over the last... almost 20 years, now!

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! I understand some eurobeat isn't to everyone's taste, but I think if you haven't tasted all that there is out there, you owe it to yourself to see how you feel about it. You might be pleasantly surprised!

[priscirat]

It’s the prsk only anon. Oh yeah I did see there was an anime! I just have to make time for that lol. But I was thinking you could make it easier for other people like me who aren’t familiar with both yet. Can you explain or summarize what the similarities and differences are between prsk and Bandori stories?

OFC !!

biggest difference you had in early bandori and early prsk is that the event stories in bandori feel way more 'one shot' like than prsk. the character development still happen and the past events are still referenced ofc but in comparison the events Suffice in themselves. best Counter example with prsk is the first leoneed arc from unit story to resonating with you. all the events specifically build up to this etc. currently i feel like the tendency is actually being reversed on both sides which is nice to see !!

bandori also got a WIDE cast of characters. 45 whole girlies to enjoy. so you are Bound to find one that you enjoy following in their story and character development. also each group got their Own specific visuals and Type as one does in that genre. theres a Lot of cross bands friendships and connections that are so so fun to follow thru and also nice to see how it impacts the story

bandori actually now got 10 girlies in college ! we had a huge pre graduation arc that touched onto all the subjects that what graduation Mean to those characters. some were excited. some were so so scared (imai lisa <3). and now the stories do take into account that change. as well as the fact that a LOT of other girls are now in their last year of highschool. which is not something that prsk has touched upon yet so it feels nice to see !!

i think that prsk often made a name for itself for having 'heavier' themes and writing but as someone who has read a fair share of both that both share the same tone and type of writing while being very distinct from each other. maybe that bandori is a bit more Subtexty in its heavier themes earlier on but they exist and are actually very much portrayed in the mygo anime and in more events going forward.

now that we got the big broad strokes of the Writing and story. the Actual goal of those two franchises. music. which is both so so great

while all of bandori music is made with 'it must sounds like a band is actually playing it' in mind (compared to prsk units who are Less limited by that in some way) All the bands have a Very distinctive sounds and genre of band music. no matter which band you love the most you will Always want to check what the others are doing and it wont feel repetitive in the slightest

prsk is SO good to make you discover producers, their style of music and their discography. which is so great to me who never got to deep dive into vocaloid music until i got into prsk. bandoris music will often have the same ppl working on it (unless mygo and avemuji who got Separated music production which is Great) so it doesnt have that kind of reach

i will say it. it is FUN to compare when both franchise got covers in common when ppl Arent being disingenuous about the quality of each (prsk violently shaking you to fix your mixing on some covers PLEASE) and to see why and how they both make it work !!!

LIVE PERFORMANCES. both got their own brand performances ofc. prsk more in line with what vocaloid concerts are like. adore seeing them. but ooh bandori. the whole goal of the franchise was to put on concerts and by god they succeeded. 6 out of the 9 bands got live concerts fully performed by the seiyuu. and it is SO so great to see them progress when you know that a GOOD bunch of them picked up their instruments just for that role. cant recommend to watch bandori concerts enough. if anything.

i will stop there for now but those are my personal important points !!!

[orange-frog]

This post is making me mad and I've seen it twice now so I guess I'll comment

Mostly this is. Not technically wrong but the way everything is phrased is annoying.

"The projectors were replaced with LEDs and the organizers told no one, still charged ppl for the projectors." True but just saying LEDs is odd. There have been miku concerts before on LED monitors instead of the usual hologram projection that have looked fine. The problem is this was a single LED monitor and it was poorly staged, making it so the fact this was just a screen was obvious. It's not just "oh vocaloid fans are just mad they didn't get to see their video in a specific way" it's that the production was noticeablely worse than previous tours

"Someone stole the miku Canada cutout" this makes it sound like someone just stole a official cutout, which like who cares. Not what happened. Someone stole a fanmade cutout, AND staff were awful to said fan trying to get the cutout back. There's a whole lot more about the staff being awful to this fan that I'm not gonna summarize but you can read their thread abt it here

"Vocaloid producers are mad attendees are mad" this is just. Nonsense? I don't know where op is getting this. From what I know the only producer that has said anything remotely similar (and similar here is doing legwork) is the winner of the 10th anni miku expo song contest, SAWTOWNE. What they were ACTUALLY saying is that it sucks that their big break, their song being featured at miku expo, is being overshadowed by all the negative press around the tour. Which is pretty understandable to me lol. You can read their words yourself here. Such a bad faith reading of this thread

The glowstick thing is true and some bullshit, though it's even more because it's not just they overcharged for the lightsticks it that they completely understocked them too along with all the other merch. The car crash is real and ppl are saying the pee is alleged so idk.

Mostly just the bit about the producers pissed me off so bad. Vocaloid is and always has been run mainly by fans outside of official concerts like this so to just casually throw ""producers"" under the bus for crypton and crunchyrols failings is wack as fuck. That's all

[danganronpa96]

Hi Lenn! According to you, who would each DR69 and DR96 character listen to (musically speaking)? Who would be their favourite artist/favourite song? (just a silly question to distract me from chapter 4) (you guys need to pay my therapy/j)

Btw, thanks a lot, both to you and Rexx, for everything you do for the fic! I love your writing and also the amazing art!🫠❤️ We’ll patiently wait for chapter 5, but I’m sure it will be FANTASTIC, as always🥹 love ya🫶🏻

It’s funny how I received two similar music asks in a row, but because this one is actually a different question on the topic, I can answer this one separately!

However, since even the last music post had me in agony (/j), I don’t think I’m going to go through every single character’s individual favourite song and artist, and moreso just their music taste (especially since some characters would canonically listen to music from cultures or genres I don’t listen to or know much about myself).

DR96

Hayasaka - most people would say classical, but my big brain (/lh) has bestowed the headcanon ever: vocaloid. I think it would be funny if this man had a secret love for the music, walking to work listening to the most depressing or cutesy song known to Earth. His favourite producer would probably be wowaka (rip) or 40mp.

Kurumada - that kind of grunge, heavy beat, but sort of depressing music? Not trap per say, but like r&b and rap. Or whatever is playing at the gym at the time, sometimes a song will get added to his workout playlist if it sounds good enough.

Mai - she’s that kind of pop girl, but also likes some more sombre songs here and there. Definitely indulges in songs with playful and or sensual lyrics.

Walter - (this is where my disclosure starts to show) Like classic, 50-80s songs. Jazz and blues, or something he can sing along to on the radio.

Jesse - hip-hop, trap, some heavy metal, rock, techno and house music. Anything with a stanky-ass beat (/lh) and Jesse will probably listen to it.

Saiki - I’ve given him the headcanon that he listens to hyperpop, speedcore and breakcore. I got the idea from another tumblr post that said he’d use loud, scratchy music to try and block out the thoughts of other people. It’s implied that’s what he was listening to during chapter 3 as well!

Kaidou - what we all listened to when we were 13 and wanted to be edgy. Also fandom songs (I know this isn’t nationally accurate unless there are hardcore jp fandom song fans lol), and video game OSTs that make him feel powerful.

Retsuko - heavy metal, obviously. But, I think she also likes pop and idol music, considering her history with that, hehe

Natsuki - vocaloid hardcore to the max (some favourite producers be like deco*27 and syudou). Also J-pop/idol music (and some video game OSTs).

Yuri - now I think she would like some classical music, considering her whole elegant aesthetic. I think she’d personally like piano and violin arrangements though, since they are relaxing to listen to while reading. I think she would be convinced to listen to some J-pop after Natsuki begs encourages her.

Hiroshi - he would be a classical guy too, but he would also enjoy some video game OSTs (since he’s kind of a certified gamer if you consider the novels and that chibi anime thingy).

Brian - anything past 1996 would be periodically inaccurate, but I feel like he’s the type of guy who’d try to listen to anything if someone recommended it to him. I think he’d enjoy new-age, or something relaxing on par with the vibes of his game’s OST (synth… rock? I’m not a genres expert).

Bojack - it’s either something really depressing or really sexual and there is just that scale and nothing else

Latte - canonically, folk and symphony since I think that’s the sort of music Parfaedia has. Although, she’d also listen to jazz and dance (she that type of teacher to play music in class all the students try to grin and bare because no one listens to it anymore /lh)

L - whatever music is scientifically proven to enhance focus. Classical? Some jazz? I feel like L likes to work in silence, but with music on the bare occasion.

Ena - something that we would not be able to comprehend if we heard it. Lyrics that sound like 14 different languages all mashed up together. Instruments that shouldn’t exist. Voices that shouldn’t exist. The same song that runs for 4 minutes on the first play, 15 seconds on the second, and 2 hours on the third. Or just webcore/weirdcore instrumental music lmao

DR69

Luigi - calm jazz and swing, I also think he be into acoustic arrangements.

Mario - I think he’d listen to energetic music to get himself pumped up. But also enjoys the folk music of the mushroom kingdom.

Peter - I would say 50-90s songs, ranging from classic hits to goofy ass songs (like the Rock Lobster bit)

Brian - I think he’s into ska, jazz, and blues. Also very pretentious with his music taste lol

Miku - Pop, dance, techno and electronica are her mains, but she can dabble into any genre. Likes to support and listen to her other fellow voice synth’s music.

Teto - rock, but also some dance/pop. Secretly enjoys listening to Miku’s songs (as long as she’s not around)

Nagito - nicher artists of alt and synth. I don’t think he’d be into mainstream music. Also depressing lyrics are his go-to lol

Sans - ironically, the stankiest beat you’ve ever heard and penis music (rubber band). Unironically, some smooth tunes akin to Nastablook’s music taste.

Parappa - rap, hip-hop, r&b and dance. Could unironically make a great rap over the instrumentals of ‘A Pimp Named Slickback’.

Fluttershy - Equestria folk music, acapella and that musical-type genre they have in the show’s music.

Ayano - whatever her Senpai is listening to. So, I would assume the latest trending J-pop mostly.

Ashley - rock and alt. Emo type beat. Mainly female vocals. One or two heavy metal songs. Any other warioware cast member will die upon listening to any of it lol

2D - his favourite band is canonically The Human League, so other new wave and synth-pop stuff too.

Mr. Krabs - sea shanties, unironically. He probably sang a lot of them while on the navy.

Dedede - (I have no Kirby lore but I must scream) I feel like he’d play classical music in his castle to give off those regal king vibes. But he’d also enjoy energetic music like his boss battle themes.

The Conductor - western and western movie soundtracks. Also some smooth jazz and soul. I like to think he likes the sounds of the piano the most, from the ‘heart to heart’ OST

Also, TYSM for the lovely words!! I’m so happy to hear how much you’ve enjoyed the fic so far! 😭❤️

[nanjokei]

same anon here, incredibly interested in the history from someone who lived through it

ok!

here's my own rundown on why the vocaloid bubble burst in the mid 2010s!

almost irreversibly! (don't worry— this story has a happy ending)

if anyone is wondering, yes, you can reblog this! i only say this because this took a lot of work to write so if anyone feels compelled, yes, stroke my ego a bit, i allow such a thing. now, i might get snippy here and there, but i'm not serious at all. my sense of humor is pretty tsukkomi-ish and it shows up in how i describe things. <-disclaimer for if this post breaks containment because i know fandom types don't like my sense of humor if they're not given the context that i LOVE what i'm talking about and rib on it out of utmost adoration

as a disclaimer, i do lightly look things up to check on stuff timeline wise and its validity, but this is from my own point of view and memory and a personal retelling, so if you have a different take on it then i'm sure our viewpoints can co-exist. also, i speak about utaite from the point of view of someone who respects their existence but does not participate. so if a few facts are off... i am speaking only from the aspect of what relates to what i'm talking about. also if there are any typos i stopped being thorough with my checking and editing like 4k words in since i am not being paid to write this, it is just for fun. anyways~

so where we wanna start here is before the big bubble era. i think most people would agree that it was in full swing around mid 2012, but i'll set the date at september 23, 2011. the posting of the song kagerou daze (by the way, as a testament to how much of a boomer i am, despite being an kagepro fan from the start i find myself still using the "kagerou days" romanization by accident every time). by the way, senbonzakura, one of the biggest vocaloid songs ever for the longest time, was posted only a few days earlier. just to paint a picture. but that's not the only thing... i think what we want to look at especially is the end of the vocaloid2 era and what was going on during and before. the final vocaloid2 product, vy2, was released on april 25th, 2011. in this timeline, there are a few angles i wanna focus on. the state of the culture, its spread, utaite and producers. by the way, if i had to date when i met vocaloid, it was around 2008. right before gakupo came out, maybe.

around this time, the culture of vocaloid-ke (vocaloid family) type secondary works were falling out of fashion. 2010 and before, i feel that vocaloid had a strong image of nico nico douga especially— not that it didn't during the bubble era. but i mean the people participating. when miku came out, people viewed her as a novelty while still thinking to themselves they had stumbled across something special. there was no subculture like that before, and the closest counterpart to this was idolmaster. now, many know this is the origin of the -P suffix came from. it's a tossed around factoid now but people should know that it was certainly a phenomena back then. and a LOT of early miku adopters (like 80% were either already in the doujin music scene, the DTM (desktop music) scene, trained musicians or even some industry pros. and a lot of these people were nerdy and geeky and loved anime and games and manga so of course their first point of reference for building vocaloid's identity was idolmaster. touhou, idolmaster's next door neighbor, also had a lot of influence given many of the music people in its scene dabbled in vocaloid early on. so naturally the fans that were attracted to vocaloid were also nerds. at first there were only cryptonloids, but gakupo quickly followed (and continuing in the trend of heavy nnd association— kentaro miura (RIP), a big fan of nnd and especially idolmaster— designed and drew his art 100% pro bono out of love for the site and its culture). luka came out... i think gumi was the first shift. gumi just felt, different. i personally owe it to her being modeled after ranka lee, the iconic role of her voice provider, megumi nakajima— ranka lee was the underdog character in her source macross frontier's love triangle. so i feel like that image somewhat imprinted itself on gumi. gumi was not popular at first at all. her release came and went with not much fanfare. ironically the aspect of rivalry would come back under stuff like the miku vs gumi debate. this is probably the first real demonstration of "it doesn't matter how good the voice is, it matters who uses it and how that propagates the voice".

and so i arrive at the producers of the time, maybe late 2008 early to mid 2009, the newcomers. the ones that weren't necessarily otaku through and through, but more on the "teenagers who like vocaloid and/or don't have a singer to sing for them, and want to make music". i will be specific and say it is people like wowaka (RIP), deco*27 and hachi/kenshi yonezu specifically. wowaka for example had a very fresh take— his pvs deemphasized the vocaloid, but it also inspired many fan pvs because of it. i will not go into how it became ironic that he quit due to the attribution to the voice. but his moody lyrics captured a lot of hearts and his style carried a youth to it. hachi did a lot of his own artsy pvs. deco*27 was very unpolished and amateur but his music was VERY of the times. the synths, the guitar, very youthful. aside from wowaka, whose comeup immediately led to him getting signed quickly (and the guy himself just walked and i don't blame him) i think what made these guys (deco and hachi) stand out from the rest in the end is one thing: they picked up gumi. and this set them apart from the old and dusted otaku who didn't pick gumi up, or those who picked her up thinking of her only as ranka lee. mozaik role (still deco's most viewed song on nnd btw, with no sign of stopping. and he is clearly PISSED about it). matryoshka. all that kibs of noise. by the way, matryoshka's stint in the vocaloid rankings went unchallenged until it was finally killed by senbonzakura. that's a good two years of dominance!! a lot of the breakout stars or people who got more popular during 2010 used gumi, i'm talking your 40mPs, your sasakure.UKs, your buzzGs. incidentally, a lot of these people got signed... most for their vocaloid stuff. 40mP, sasakure, deco, kous and others were signed under label split-offs like U/M/A/A. wowaka and hachi... were signed for themselves. specifically, wowaka and his band hitorie, and hachi as himself kenshi yonezu.

but producers were not the only ones being signed. utaite, who had been a thing before even vocaloid was a thing, found themselves growing rapidly due to them increasingly participating in the culture as both fans and beneficiaries. personally, i split off utaites eras as "before piko and akiakane" and "after piko and akiakane". the before era included people who either started very early on when vocaloid became a thing on nnd, or started before it (participating in chorus medleys or posting utattemita videos of anison for example, like gero). it was all amateur and everyone was doing it for fun... but the record companies doth lurk around the vocaloid scene at this rate. akiakane and piko i pick specifically because they were the first utaite who were very publically signed. piko was signed under sony's ki/oon records! akiakane had two or three big albums under the subsidary of VAP, toy's factory (if you wanna have fun take a look at the list of talent they rep). piko is especially important— as he had a vocaloid made of him. this marked first big interest of corporations and large record companies to actually enter the vocaloid space— in the most direct way possible. btw, the reason piko the vocaloid is dead is because piko the person is no longer signed under sony. it's not outright confirmed, but piko the guy stopped tweeting about utatane piko the second he transferred labels. he is stuck in a weird catch 22 he probably will never be free of, though yamaha is doing some insane moves lately, i wonder if they'd ever try to buy the character out and revive him as a stunt. (they are doing many funny stunts lately. but a subject for another time.)

finally, my last point in this preamble is the interest in telling stories through vocaloid had only continued to grow. i think the two biggest early examples were the prisoner series by shujinP and the ever so infamous evillious chronicles by mothy. their explosive popularity is wholeheartedly owed to rin and len— ok this is a tangent but this is the genius of the rin and len package, that to this day was never replicated, they come together as you know and since they are male and female with no set setting, they are an easy buy and you can make a story because you can do two points of view across several songs... like literally. its paperplane vs prisoner. daughter of evil vs servant of evil. and their fans were and continue to be super passionate. it's great, we would be missing a huge chunk of what makes vocaloid subculture what it is without them. of course, shujinP's series (plural because they had several) is less known these days but it was probably the first series to get plays and novels and all that. quickly followed by EC. later came series like sasakure's doomsday series, stuck in a limbo between old and new era (most of the songs released in the old era but the novelization and such came out during the new), and a few "outsider" series like numtack05/putinP's series (the reasons this never got popular is because it was absurdist and shitpost-y and involved too much political imagery, not only that but also because putinP used a lot of copyright samples (most famously ronald mcdonald and sazae-san clips)— the freely distributed album vers omit these samples entirely and i can confirm the songs are worse for it)

so to give a summary of the above section

the tastes of fans were maturing

there was a shift in how vocaloid was perceived

the growing influence of utaite

the growing interest of big corpos in the scene

the growing interest in storytelling using vocaloid as a medium

anyway, here comes the real deal. and... it's gonna be a mess. just like the era itself was. i hope you're ready, at least.

even the very first echo of vocaloid3 felt kinda corpo-y. it wasn't, but.. looking back. it kind of felt like it. the first time we ever found out about v3 was through a leak of seeU's demo— but it was a work in progress leak, so it had the voice of her provider dahee kim singing along. people had no idea so they assumed this was the capability of the software. it was exciting! kpop was just starting to get popular, and we were getting a new vocaloid software, with korean capability!!!

anyway. we're not talking about the can of worms that was seeU.

not just because of dahee kim. but because it's not related beyond this. also the fact that korean fans were heavily and horribly mistreated by the majority japanese fandom for obvious reasons. i do not have the depths to speak on that stuff, but it says a lot that the software's first big swing ended up like that.

but i wanted to illustrate the mood of the fans going into this era. it was full of hopes and dreams. now, i don't want any wannabe know-it-alls wagging their fingers at me and checking the wikia going "b-but cullen, mew also came out!! at the same time!!" the seeU leak came out first. i remember there were fights over whether or not that demo was real. it was a cultural shift like no other. who the fuck cares about mew? literally her only legacy is one really amazing ezfg song. i will not debate anyone on this btw. i try to be objective but i'm allowed to inject a bit of my own opinion here too. you know who were also full of hopes and dreams? the companies. not your internetcos and your ahsofts, no, i'm talking publicly traded shits and record companies. look... i'm coming off harsh. i actually don't hold that much animosity, but you're gonna see why this was the first huge misstep of the era.

nice picture, right? this was the kind of optimism we started off this era on. but, i'll break down the picture for you in a way that helps illustrate a point somewhat:

your girlies from V2 like gumi (who was this era's it girl), lily, galaco (even if her shitty V2 version is contest only)

your earnest newcomers mew (look, even yamaha girlies count), cul, aoki lapis, seeU (one could argue.), IA (one could argue...)

tone rion of dear stage (who represented dempagumi inc., the group her voice provider came from, though this was a myth for years until it was proven... also it was clear they wanted to make the rest of dempagumi into vocaloids but rion flopped at the time. there was even a picture of her friends floating around. astoundingly embarrassing confidence. one billion dead vocaloids.)

akikoloid-chan of lawsons (yes, the convenience store! she is a vocaloidification of their mascot and i would argue the poster child of the modern brand private vocaloid. she was retired in uh.. 2019 i wanna say? though she was dormant for a long time anyway)

ring suzune, the aborted failure of minna no vocalo keikaku (everyone's vocalo-project)... this one involves a lot of otona no jijou AKA adult circumstances (japanese corpo's favorite excuse. you will now notice this phrase every time you hear it oooo). just unfortunate all around

yuzuki yukari of vocalomakets, i put her in a separate category because she really is a girlie of her own. a vocal born from producers being dissatisfied that their wants weren't being answered and no company was taking them up, they just went "fuck it" and produced yukari on their own. a huge outlier in this era of vanity projects and companies using the scene for their own crap.

not pictured, but i have to mention her due to her complicated position in this era, but mayu of exit tunes. exit tunes is a record label that heavily supported vocaloid and utaite during this era, signing both producers and utaite, and making compilation cds of popular vocaloid hits. and probably saw to it that due to their dominance in the area of compilation cds (and they still dominate, even if their releases are sparse these days their cds still top oricon without effort), them sneaking mayu into the tracklists would work... my thoughts on this? my position has softened a lot over the years. and i've always thought "they gave up right before she organically caught on, they should have kept pushing. so what a shame".

now you may notice i bolded a few of these and made special mention of the companies behind them. you probably already figured it out, but this era had heavy investment from parties who had only to gain from a rapidly growing niche subculture. see, unlike the other two of nnd's big three idolmaster and touhou, who are IPs where you need some kind of cooperation to officially get in on, vocaloid... is incredibly free, so laissez faire in comparison. you buy a 9,000 dollar dev kit and get to work making your mascot. it was... so easy. so free. so sweet. but real life is not so easy, or free, or sweet. you actually had to be accepted by the fans, and like i said before... the voice does not matter. what matters is who uses it, and how that propagate the voice. this is true time and time again. it is the ultimate "how many times do i have to teach you this lesson, old man?!" of the scene from a commercial standpoint. no matter how many years pass. ergo, one billion dead vocaloids. corpo vocaloids were releasing and they flopped immediately. earnest products from newcomers were dropping and struggling, though def doing better than the corpo ones (like lapis, lapis did ok). existing "in crowd" companies were vomiting out new vocals and not even promoting them. it was a disgusting era of excess and death and bile and plague and war and and and. it's astounding that it is hard carried by the art that came out of it. because if you only look at the commercial side of things, it is fucking disgusting.

now, onto the fan aspect. remember when i said this era truly kicked off when kagerou daze came out? yup. here it comes. so, anyone lived through this era remembers the cambrian explosion of original projects that did not make use of vocaloid mascots— arguably the final death knell of vocaloid-ke secondary works being the mainstream.

now, i'm planting my flag in the ground here very firmly— i do not ride the bandwagon of the people who erroneously attribute the near death of the scene to kagepro. it's just not true. personally i have a very complicated (bordering on near sort of but not quite negative, depending on how nostalgic i feel that day) relationship with the series, but to blame it is incredibly narrowminded and ignorant of the actual reasons the bubble burst, and not to mention unfair. if you find it annoying, fine. but just say you don't like the series and move on. and really, for better or for worse, mekakucity days and mekakucity records are unironically god tier vocaloid albums that will be remembered for years to come. i just have to say this because i see a lot of people blame jin for very flimsy reasons... SHUT UP!!! anyway.

i think one of the issues with the whole project culture that flourished during this era was simply the fact that since they were multimedia projects (whether by accident like kagepro or intentionally from the get), fans were coming from all angles, and even those who got into it through vocaloid eventually became super mega invested in them as separate IPs. which is... unfortunately an issue. so when these properties eventually spun off into manga, light novels, covers with real seiyuu, merch and ultimately some even netting anime projects... once those projects either abruptly ended (lol, lmao, this will come back later) or reached their natural conclusion, inevitably a lot of those fans either leave with it or found themselves burned out on vocaloid itself, or perhaps even think they've outgrown it.

next, utaite. now i mentioned a bit earlier about how the first batch of utaite were amateurs who didn't expect anything out of it and did it just cause, and how exit tunes signed a lot of them in this era. now, comes the time i speak about utaite "after piko and akiakane". i believe due to a generational gap and subconsciously perhaps due to the signing of a few utaite from the old guard at this point, the nu utaite of the 2010s had a sort of individuality to them... this isn't an insult, and a large part of their popularity actually came from them always collaborating and a lot of them ending up befriending each other. again, i'm an outsider, but i understand this much. but this era for utaite was the beginning of the idea that an utaite can become a superstar. in the end, very few of them did become superstars.

a lot of them naturally returned to a normal level of popularity after the bubble. there aren't a lot of your AtRs or your amatsukis and such. the smart ones became vtubers before being a vtuber was cool. to give an example: un:c and hashiyan who are arguably oldheads more than nu era became anjo and kosaka of monsterz mate. this isn't a doxx btw, this is publically available information, and un:c often credits himself as a mixer under projects he does as anjo. also, a certain duo of female utaite whose names i will not mention went on to form the super popular vtuber duo himehima. there are other early adopters like kano and god knows who else that i don't feel like mentioning. anyway, if your utaite did it after 2018 and under their own identity it is a desperate plea for attention. sorry but it's just the objective truth. tangent over... did you think i wasn't gonna shoehorn vtubers into this somehow?! anyway.

even sutopuri who got mega popular, only really formed after the vocaloid bubble burst, perhaps even as a result of it. utaite had a positive effect on the vocaloid scene and still do. but at the time, i think it was at its strongest. utaite NEEDED vocaloid, and vocaloid benefitted greatly from their continued patronage and love for it. i for one will not be caught slandering utaite and their relationship with vocaloid even if i will always prefer the vocaloid versions. the issue here comes from the fact that way too many were signed without much star factor (i'm not disparaging them, i'm just saying they did not hold their audience across the mediums), and even at that their fans splintered off into many tribes and many weren't really into vocaloid in the first place and were more into the livestreams and twitter banter. that's just how things shook out. you even have your reols and such, as reol was the face but in a sense her, gigaP and okiku were a set and gigaP left the scene to focus on commercial work with those two. too many of them got signed and splintered off into their own little fandoms before THOSE fandoms kind of died out. so this is another part where fans disappear and lose interest. you're starting to see the pattern here, right?

there's so much stuff i thought i would touch on, like how gumi was the undisputed it girl of the scene at this time, and how kagepro rose IA to prominence (all because jin wanted to buy gumi but didn't find her in the store) and how IA's people 1st place locked certain producers in their basement (like jin, yasuhiro, ishifuro etc) and... now this is a conspiracy on my part but prevented them from working on anything else, so that drew more talent away from the scene... but i realized it's tangential and belongs to other parts in this conversation. i want to reiterate here though before we go on to the biggest elephant in the room of all which would be the point of no return... there is more to the vocaloid bubble era of 2012-2015 than projects, than corpo and record company bullshit, than utaite fans. and there is more to the era before that than the top brass producers i mentioned earlier. i really... really lament how so much of early vocaloid reuploads are gone from youtube. there's a whole world just gone. so, anyway, are you ready?

the final block in this weird jenga of a story.

the producer, suzumu, and his unfortunate associates.

i will cut to the chase because it's easier to explain who was involved once i say what happened. to put it shortly... suzumu "stole" his songs. this is weird and vague and i always hated the way people used polite euphemisms to explain it because it made the situation way more confusing than it had to be— he used his producer friends as ghostwriters to compose songs for him, basically. and was very not nice about it according to one of the people involved. now i will probably adopt a somewhat sympathetic angle that people who have previously heard of this case may have not encountered before. not because i feel bad for that fuck, but because it seems like at least one of the people impacted has forgiven him, and others have moved on in less obvious ways. he's also professionally making music in the industry now. as much as i want to keep up the act of disliking him, i don't care anymore. i still dislike what he did immensely because it impacts producers i love to this day. but the man came forth about it himself and those involved forgave him. it's been almost a decade now... man!

suzumu, before getting into posting songs (who knows how many were actually his and which were ghostwritten), was a prolific lyric writer who worked with some of the trendiest vocaloid producers around. i'll cross gigaP out, since he was not involved in the incident, but almost every single person involved in this had worked with him in a lyric or story writing capacity (for 150P and komine specifically). here are the involved parties as i recall, bolded are people who he "stole" from

mafumafu, the person who spoke the most about it post suzumu's confession and the most vocal, and likely the person who was used as a ghostwriter the most (i don't recall if he actually alludes to this or not but people commonly think this). mafumafu had a series of vocaloid songs that told a story, but stopped using vocaloid after the incident for a while and songs that were going to get pvs from his first vocaloid album were not posted. he contributed a song called machigai sagashi for the vocaloid flavored moba #compass in 2015, but it seems like that song was probably in the works since before the incident for reasons i will highlight in a moment. suzumu wrote the lyrics for only one of the songs. iirc, mafumafu's song berserk is about suzumu. don't remember if this is confirmed or not. btw, the album of those songs, meikyou shisui, is really underrated and you should check it out. im not a mafu guy but that album is great

kemu, the person who is arguably closest to suzumu and the one who most publicly supported suzumu (albeit wordlessly) in later years by working with him professionally. when i mention someone forgiving suzumu, i mean him. suzumu wrote the lyrics for most of his kemu voxx songs, a famous multimedia project kemu was on the helm of along with hatsuko as the main illustrator. since kemu no longer had a lyricist, the project stalled for years until he posted a song suddenly in 2017 (with self written lyrics). it seems like the series is continuing still, but with a different direction

150P, who worked with suzumu heavily for his shuuen no shiori (bookmark of demise) project, a project that was conceived from the start to be a story. this part makes me really mad, guys!! i'll try to keep calm about it. 150P wrote over 50 songs (idk if this is an actual number but he wrote a lot. at least 40.) for the series, with suzumu writing the story and lyrics. the character designs were done by saine (who dodged a bullet all things considered.) and the art was done by komine. 150P was already doing crazy things before shuuenpro, his most popular song is still his insane 12-len classical metal chorus song lost destination. now shuuenpro caught on slower than its peers and was an underdog. i LOVE shuuenpro to this day. you know what? right when it was finally getting its first W, when the album that had seiyuu covers at come out on oricon in third place, suzumu dropped his confession. what a slap to the fucking face!! the manga of the series hastily wrapped up after that. 150P and komine disappeared and no longer did stuff ever. 150P recently appeared for a mafumafu anniversary thing so i'm glad he's still alive. but, komine...

komine, the only non-producer, an artist with the worst luck. she was slowly rising to prominence doing pv art for a lot of popular producers, and was the main artist of shuuenpro most prominently. during the initial release of the first few shuuenpro songs, she was accused of tracing, and the art of the pv of sarumane isutori game had to be done by someone else. komine stopped using social media at that point, but continued to make art for the project quietly and quite prolifically. so she was already on some kind of fraught standing even though the tracing allegations were disproven. fast forward to the suzumu blowup, komine packed up her bags and disappeared forever. if she had become disillusioned, i do not blame her. her final public contribution was the design of jeanne d'arc from #compass, the character who was paired with the mafumafu song. all subsequent artworks of jeanne were done by different artists. i suspect the reason the vocaloid version of machigai sagashi did not have a proper pv was due to komine quitting. i can only imagine what that pv looked like! if you're wondering why i mention a pv, it's cuz compass fans got mad at mafu for having a fancy pv for his self cover but not for the original. but otona no jijou, you know? and where is that energy for eve who still hasn't released a pv for mistletoe publicly and only put it on his kuso app and with 0 compass association? who let that wishy washy fuck do an anniversary song? ...im not gonna go on a compass tangent. anyway.

so... why does this matter?

it matters because people became disillusioned due to this drama. it matters because suzumu took out some very popular and prolific people from the scene during what one could argue was a transitional phase. the fans of all those people, including suzumu's... gone. if you weren't there, you may not understand the cult of personality suzumu had. he had his name on everything and was friends with all the right people. when i heard about this incident... i just closed my eyes and sighed lol. it hurt and it hit when the scene was at its weakest. and was the final blow, almost. and it impacted the way people saw and talked about vocaloid for years. miku became "owakon" for a time. people thought kizuna ai was gonna replace her as a cultural touchstone (lol, lmao, it is proven time and time again that the big three cannot die). kenshi yonezu, in all his detached glory, came down from his jeweled encrusted throne to compose a song for miku's 10th birthday that he smugly thought was the death knell of nico nico douga.... which even at the time of its release was contested by even people who were on the same miku anniversary project and, whether you wanna acknowledge it or not, is still mocked to this day by several producers. magical mirai's theme this year even does it. there is no respect for sand planet or anything kenshi yonezu stood for in that song. what an asshole move no matter how you see it. argue with the wall if you don't agree, i don't want to hear it. the scene survived because there were producers and artists and fans who still loved it. not because of some sardonic fuckoff song by a guy so detached he'd write a funeral march for a birthday.

these days, i feel like the community is incredibly conscious of what happened. there are wanton community led events that encourage not only the creation of songs, covers, art and secondary creations but also the discovery of new producers— the biggest of which being vocaloid collection, which happens three times a year and has many categories, but most importantly the top ranking (producers active for 3+ years) and the rookie ranking. i once read a japanese article that said proseka brought new fans hungry for something beyond the music presented in the game, and vocacolle and other community led events and song posting festivals supplied the works. the average age of the new vocaloid producer is— and this is my own estimate based on how many heart attacks i've been given the past 3 or 4 years— 17~19 years old. they say things like "i know of kagepro but i wasn't there"!! should i get my cane out!! who's driving me to the retirement home?!

even companies involved in the product end are more savvy these days.... (holding my tongue about a certain company of a popular synth software and its ceo because i have nothing nice to say). i think they realized that you can't clap with one hand and that appealing to the end user and fans is a necessity. honestly, i can only be excited for what comes next. we're never going back to that dark age, i can say this with utmost confidence. do i miss the past of the times before the bubble, back when vocaloid was a smidge more geeky? sure. but we can only really move forward, so why not enjoy it

[inflammatory]

HELLO I AM ABOUT TO WALK INTO MY ECONS FINAL BUT 1 & 3 & 4 please 😽😽

YAAAWWWW time for a maia win. AS on that AD until it GDPs i know your grade is gonna be inelastically good

1 who is the first artist you remember loving?

I was big into of monsters and men as a kid in addition to all the usual tumblr grunge suspects. If we go back even earlier to like 8 years old my vocaloid girlies <33333

Thats IA and gumi (i wasnt into miku because she wasnt like so #me . I was already developing the alternative agenda at 8. I mean i liked her and rin and len just fine but these two were like THE ones for me). Okay ovviously theyre not “artists” but i wasnt deliberately looking for who made what song i just liked their looks and sound and the type of music people made them sing. Wait im gonna use this as an excuse to link stuff

THIS ia track (six trillion years and one night story) is still a really good blend of traditional japanese scales and jpop intensity and was exactly the kind of grimdark headbanger kid me liked. The part that goes If this world could just be me and you and if everyone else would just disappear. that part will get me eternally. Also i realised i probably also liked these two because theyve actually got pretty realistic voices. Childhood blues by gumi has a really nice video with art that i used to be obsessed with

This is really a tangent but also i thought about vocaloid producers that i liked also and seriously neru was huge for suicidecore rock songs . Shockingly his stuff that i like is actually kind of recent like 2017? But in my opinion it was easier to get into specific vocaloid artists as a kid cause they had videos on youtube and violent beats so you could binge a whole discography as an easily bored young person . Anyway neru stuff is typically steeped in that Japanese high school melancholia, you know, school uniforms, blank expressions, desks flying everywhere. I really liked this one its pertinent for when youre in your very early preteens/teens and you dont like doing homework and youre convinced youre an evil and wicked human being

3 who is the artist you put on to make you smile?

LOVEEEE dominic fike and always gets me in a good mood. His songs have palpable swag even in purely audio format. Quality cuts that havent failed to improve my mood yet

4 which song rips your heart out?

Oh rips heart out is a very specific feeling and i kind of want to say erm that part in legally blonde from legally blonde the musical when she says some girls fight hard some face the trial some girls were just meant to smile. All my other sad songs are more of an ache kind of feel. Actually wait forget i said the legally blonde answer i dont listen to musicals ssshhhhhh its actually bye bye darling by børns now because i slammed back so many plays of it when my dog died

I mean like

Goodbye to the paperback age / I'll miss your touch

To flip you, crease you, lay underneath you, fall asleep to / Bye-bye darling I'll miss you so much

Welll……welllllllll….wellllllllllllllll

[laeteria]

I was feeling things…

I was on my way to university and I was suddenly hit with the fact how times had changed. Kind of like the realization: “Wow, you've grown up! “. It's such a weird feeling honestly, but at the same time I think it's part of what we call life.

(Feel free to skip, because it's really not like the usual content)

This is a little writing on the spot about how I currently feel, so it may be cluttered. Don't worry, it's still kinda about music/multimedia projects I love so much, but I hope some may share the same sentiments and feelings as I do. 

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts as long as it's respectful! 

A STEP INTO AN UNFAMILIAR WORLD

I was never really into Japanese media like I am right now. To be honest, my world was pretty empty when it came to music. I don't even remember the artists I followed before I fell into this world, but it was probably not a lot. Music was simply not something that played a big part in my life. 

I think that I wanted to try something new roughly 10 years ago, so I sort of forced myself to listen to vocaloid. It was something unfamiliar and I thought it was weird. They didn't sound human at all! Soon, I grew to love the fact how the vocaloid producers could make songs exactly the way they did. What would be something impossible for humans, was possible with vocaloid. 

After that, I kind of branched out to the utaite world, but I think it was when I heard MafuMafu's ベルセルク (Berserk) that locked my place in this industry. I felt understood and that was the moment that I thought (maybe a bit cliché even), “So music really can save lives.” I didn't even understand the lyrics, but the raw emotion in the song really hit me like a truck. I was not alone in this world, because there were many others who resonated with the song. It was as if a warm blanket had been put on your shoulders on a cold night.

THE SPARKLING WORLD OF MUSIC PROJECTS

After that, I started to follow these Japanese artists and one day I somehow ended up on a video of Love Live! (just to be sure, social media wasn't really big back in the day, so you really had to do it with what you had at that time which was YouTube for me). I was surprised because they were anime girls, but the voice actresses behind the characters were also performing live? I had never seen something like that before.

I think I got into LL with the last few months of μ's. I didn't follow them that much, but I knew I kind of loved the feeling of supporting something that was so close to the things I love (anime and music in this case). So when Aqours was announced, I decided to follow them closely and that's how I became an Aqours defender. It was a fun time, but it was also still fresh after the disbandment of μ's, so people were throwing kind of emotional comments all the time. I think this made me appreciate them more, because they kept working hard and they kept giving to the fans. They looked absolutely lovely in my eyes, not only the characters, but also the VA's.

Anyway, I also stumbled on the MV of Roselia's BLACK SHOUT and I thought they were cool, but I never really fell into the hole of BanG Dream! as project, but I guess I did follow Roselia's music casually. Not after I lost the YT account because I didn't have a Google account, so I only remembered after I found the video again.

LET'S TRY SOMETHING OF A DIFFERENT FLAVOUR

After that, I played SIF and Garupa a lot, but I wanted to try something different. This is something unimaginable if you know me, but I absolutely refused to check out music projects featuring male characters. I thought it was stupid and why would I because I couldn't relate to them anyway, but oh boy, this aged so poorly...

Back then, I was on an app called Amino. It's a dumpster fire app nowadays, but I'll never forget the people I met online on there (but that's a story for another time). When you entered the app, you would get advertisement sometimes. I deadass got advertisement for the game of IDOLiSH7. This was very very very stupid. I would get i7 ads on YT as well and I was so confused. Anyway, I decided to give it a try but I was on my iPad and I was stupid, so I was locked out because of region lock. I raged, LMAO.

I still decided to give it a try since I saw that they had an anime season with these characters. This was mistake 1, because not only did I not know what I started, not only did I watch the cringe dance, but I fricking loved it. TRIGGER was introduced and wow, I listen to their songs and their songs are good too. What's happening? I didn't know either. In reality, I absolutely fell into their marketing trap and my life had never been the same.

Some other projects worth mentioning that I started to check out after realising that male music projects were good were Band Yarouze! and Kare wa Vocalist.

IT'S TOO LATE TO TURN BACK

I met people online who were into other projects and I met my bestie who introduced me to Hypnosis Mic back in 2018. I met more people, I started to follow more music projects in general. I actually didn't even like hiphop/rap music until I stumbled upon Paradox Live. These projects are really opening my eyes now, huh…

Anyway, a project that really changed my life forever was Argopro. I followed them in their beginning stages kinda (2018) and they still don't disappoint at all. They were building on a shakey base, but look how steady it goes (pun intended?) right now! I was even reminiscing about the times when the pandemic was going on and how strongly they were going even then. They were absolutely dominating the field. Here is the link of that small thread of mine.

Suddenly, there was a rise of several music projects too. I guess it was the perfect time for people to check out these projects, especially when they were not allowed to go outside.

HAPPY, BUT WITH A LINGERING SADNESS

I graduated from high school, but my high school times were absolutely wild. I tiered in games. Not in the biggest games ever, but I had a great time tiering in AAside and Hanipre (though both games are no more; do check out Kimisute 🫵). I went to school, did my homework and played games. That was basically it.

When I officially graduated, I started to understand the SOARA songs more and I felt a certain sadness within me. It was time for goodbye. It was an end of a chapter of my life. My friends and I were going to different universities and we were friends, but there were no aligning interests actually, so the interaction died out pretty quickly.

I started to attend uni and I was much busier than I was in high school. The 30 minutes cycling to school became a 2 hours ride on the train and I had to plan. There was no time anymore… there was no time to indulge myself into these projects that much anymore… It was an end of a chapter.

AND THAT'S WHERE WE ARE NOW.

Even though I'm mostly a closet fan and I'm afraid to actually take the first step for many interactions, I am no longer alone in this world. I bought CDs and albums, I bought online live tickets, I pulled other people into projects. I am happy.

This has been a mess, but I just wanted this to be off my chest while I'm on my way to uni.

I do feel bad when I'm missing out and when I'm no longer up to date with the story of the projects, but simply listening to their songs is more than enough. There is not something like a good reason to be a fan. If you enjoy it, you enjoy it, right?

Of course there are party poopers who are like the fandom police who tell you to do certain things and they make obnoxious comments like "how did you not know this?". They honestly make me sad, especially as a Genshin Impact fan, you know how bad it is over there. Do I really have to care about their words though? No, past me did not put a lot of effort to find happiness for the current me to throw away that easily.

Things have changed, of course they do. It's impossible to stay the same and I think it's valid to be sad about things you can't do right now. You are allowed to grief. It is okay and it will be okay. I always tell myself that. Even if the road seems long, it's still not a dead end. You got this, just like all the other times you did.

I don't know if people struggle like me, but…

You're not alone,

You will never be truly alone.

Lots of love,

Lae

[miku-meeku]

hello... may i ask... what are your fav vocaloid producers

im a mega harumaki gohan fan

his songs are basically like childhood dreams and i love it so much

my all time favorite song is Melty Land Nightmare since the song takes place in a land where people dreams, a big inspiration to my fairytale dreamland ocs where children dreams

BUT MY FAVORITE ALBUM OF HIS WOULD HAVE TO BE

Futari no / For the Two of Us

a story of two girls who tries to reunite.

basically the story is about these two girls named NANA and LILI

They're childhood friends and they were inseparable as the two of them would search for the answers to life's mysteries together. The two promised that they would stay as children forever.

Until LILI eventually moves out to which they end up separating, henceforth their journey to reunite. yada yada, they ended up reuniting eventually.....through DEATH.

idk why im explaining the lore of futarino album, but im such a sucker for "a love that was never meant to be" stories i also love stories of children hating adults, im not sure why, me when i have parental issues i guess anws thank you for listening to my insane rambling once more (i just really love harumaki gohan, hes my very big inspo for my fairytale dreamland ocs where they dream to escape reality)

[masonsystem]

like kgpr's fall from popularity makes me so sad bc it didnt fall off bc it had finished, it fell off bc of executives rushing the franchise along, that led to bad writing choices... like i said, kgpr 'ended' in 2014 with mca showcasing a good ending, but the manga, a key component in even understanding mca's storyline, was only ever finished in 2019. which by then kagepro had already lost a lot of popularity. like....

like it didnt have to be like this :( they couldve taken their time with this. bc, ppl really liked kagepro back then... its hard to state just how immensely popular kagepro was during its peak, in like 2012-2014. it wasnt super mainstream popular like aot or anything, but it was the most popular niche thing at the time. if you knew vocaloid, then you knew of kagerou project. like people take mca for granted nowadays, but do you understand just how significant it is that an extremely indie novel music project thing was popular enough to receive an anime? and also, how jin was one of the earliest producers to make vocaloid songs featuring characters that werent the vocaloid themselves, and how he got so much hate for it at first. and did you know headphone actor was like, a demo song for IA? it was made with IA before IA was publicly released, yet managed to go viral. it was the first IA song to get a million+ views, even before IA was released. and also how ayano's theory of happiness mv holds the record for one of the fastest video to hit a million views on nnd, in less than 5 hours or smth...

like.. kagepro was Big. Bigggg. people loved this story, and they loved these characters. it was taking pixiv and nnd over by storm... like you had to be there to understand just how much people loved novel 5. bc novel 5 was released during kgpr's peak, during Mekakucity Records era, and before the anime. people were losing their minds over the plot revelations tying everything together, and it was the best selling light novel for that month too i think... kano shuuya fanart was everywhereeee. this is how much people liked kagerou project. but this buzz and popularity coincided with the releases of music videos and the anime. and instead of spacing out the production of those two medias, they were all rushed out in such a short amount of time 😞 its just very sad to me, bc you can tell just how passionate jin and sidu and all the other ppl who worked on it were about this project. jin really had a story he wanted to write, and it was a story that many, many people wanted to read about. but so many people dont pay attention to it anymore, or understand it (and to no fault of their own, with how convoluted kgpr had to become to fit in everything), even though it isnt completed... and the mekakucity reload anime is in copyright limbo. its all very sad 😞😞😞😞

[vocalsynthrecs]

i saw your adachi rei posts and i just need to infodump and give clarifications,, basically that guy (Missile) on twitter whos building a robot is her creator!! Missile has built a miku robot in the past, but this time he wanted to built a completely original robot that can stand and sing. thus adachi rei was born. but of course - she need a voice, so he developed her voice bank without any humans sampling, based purely on sin and cosine wavelengths. Up till now he's made amazing progress, the full body with bending joints as well as her outfit that he sowed by hand!! that's why in adachi rei songs and arts you'll see such a big emphasis on her being a robot as well as a scientist creator . thank you for listening (unrelated but your blog is such a delight, to see people still passionate about vocaloid songs in particular, and so supportive of smaller producers.... incredible <3)

omg thank you for this ask!

i’ve seen that miku robot before, i had no idea adachi rei’s creator made her and that the adachi rei robot was BY her creator!!

i made that adachi rei shill recommendation because when i wrote it, picodo and adachi rei were still niche but their music blew up between the post being posted and me queue’ing it. thank you for taking it seriously despite the dissonance !!

i knew she was made of sine waves but didn’t know her lore so i really appreciate this!

and thank you!! i love the vocaloid community and i love music!! i post songs i love and songs that i simply found enjoyable even if they were show stopping because everyone deserves a chance to be appreciated and have support! i love small creators and big creators, i’m just happy i get to share all parts of the community and so grateful when i get submissions for songs i’ve never heard before!! i wish it was easier for me to acess non-english speaking vocaloid community because i’m sure there’s amazing covers and song and content in french and arabic and korean and portugese and etc etc!! i just love the community and want everyone to see all the cool stuff everyone makes

i’m grateful to have nice followers like you that enjoy seeing new content and trying to support others !! idk, wahoo!! yay! thanks for sending this nice ask

[welcometomy20s]

January 30, 2023

VOCALOID LEGENDS - 2023 Part 1

#748 - Lost Umbrella (Inaba Kumori) [Kaai Yuki]

Achievement Date: 23-01-04, Upload Date: 18-02-27

Second song from Mr. Kumori has much higher views on YouTube. A bit more frantic than his previous song on this list. A nice mix of the more rougher style in his early days and almost trance-like feel in his later songs. A certified classic and a must-listen.

#749 - Lavie (Surii) [Kagamine Len]

Achievement Date: 23-01-05, Upload Date: 22-10-29

I would call it part of his ‘animal’ series and yes, a COMPASS song. Kind of a TikTok infused version of his previous ‘animal’ songs, which makes it just a bit grating… it’s just cringe-inducing for some reason, and I feel like I need to be more graceful… yeah.

#750 - Surges (Orangestar) [IA, Hatsune Miku]

Achievement Date: 23-01-05, Upload Date: 21-08-23

Still one of my favorite songs from Orangestar, and shows that he is still going strong. A rare duet but a well-made one. Has all the things you love about Orangestar, incredibly fast and high-pitched lines, instrumentation that breathes outwards with an incredibly summer-y illustration from M.B, along with a nice addition of a string section.

#751 - IMAWANOKIWA (Iyowa) [Hatsune Miku]

Achievement Date: 23-01-07, Upload Date: 19-11-10

Iyowa has been popping off lately, already getting a third song on this list. The song is about a mother who lost a child and goes into a depressive spiral leading to… well, her searching for her child, I suppose. So, it’s a pretty dark song and… well, it suddenly got big because of TikTok, so… the producer is a little antsy about this song.

#752 - ∞Mawaru∞ (Carlos Hakamada) [Hatsune Miku, Otomachi Una]

Achievement Date: 23-01-09, Upload Date: 17-09-23

Hakamada gets his third song on this list. This song seems to be a tiny bit calmer than his other songs, but the song still retains the manic chiptune style that signifies the producer along with the eternal Miku/Una duo. I like the guitar solo on this as well.

#753 - Dreamless Dreams (Harumaki Gohan) [Hatsune Miku]

Achievement Date: 23-01-18, Upload Date: 17-05-06

The producer finally gets his second song on this list. While Meltyland Nightmare is a driving song, this song is a hard/psychedelic rock which almost overpowers the vocals, but the signature tuning still carries through in this majestic song. Truly an epitome of songs from the producer, and a good sign from what to come from him.

#754 - End Roll (VY1, Hatsune Miku) [Natsushiro Takaaki]

Achievement Date: 23-01-23, Upload Date: 18-07-19

One of my favorite songs from the producer, and a song reflects my life and views at times. A rare VY1 song that rightly showcases the wonderful voice of the non-character. N.T.’s songs always feel trendy but not overly conscious. It’s always a nice listen. 

#755 - The Flowers have Fallen, So (Hifumi) [Hatsune Miku]

Achievement Date: 23-01-23, Upload Date: 17-01-20

A master of Wa-Rock has earned their second song in the list. The two songs were released right next to each other, so Hifumi had a spotlight. An odd but fitting tuning and impressionistic lyrics that fits the aesthetics of the song. 

#756 - krank (Yuukisan) [Hatsune Miku]

Achievement Date: 23-01-28, Upload Date: 17-03-17

Yuukisan always gives us a curious song and this is no exception, with odd scratches and other song sprinkled with a jazzy staid groove… the lyrics are even more melancholy than usual, the title meaning ‘sickness’ in German, hence the slang…

#757 - Mani Mani (r-906) [Hatsune Miku]

Achievement Date: 23-01-28, Upload Date: 22-04-23

Second VocaColle topper to be on this list and the first song from r-906. I think this is a good example of r-906, not just of his style but just a good song from him. I think he has held onto a great idea and used it to the full potential. 

[accordokite]

My Nijisanji DR is complicated, so I'm gonna try and explain the key important parts, not just for whatever audience sees this, but for myself. It'll help me put words to what I have in my head of this DR.

Firstly, all of the vtubers look just like their models offline. They act just like their characters, and all of the lore and their memories are real. In short, Vox is actually a voice demon, Doppio actually has his supernatural ability thing, et cetera. Magic is real in this reality, and both the XSOLEIL and ILUNA Institutes are essentially this reality's elite supernatural schools.

Nijisanji as an agency quite different from what we know it to be in this reality. ANYCOLOR as a company does not exist, and the company solely consists of the EN branch. So, when the Nijisanji company is referred to, there is no need to clarify which branch, since there is only one. I mainly did this for my own sake, since there is over 100 VTubers in Nijisanji JP. Without knowing much about them, it would be hard to pinpoint a reality and shift there.

The founder of Nijisanji is still Tazumi, and he does speak both English and Japanese (I could not remember if he spoke English or not, but I included it just in case). In my Nijisanji desired reality, VTubing is much more popular than it is in our current reality. Especially for a wealthy agency like Nijisanji, VTubers within this agency have about 10x more viewers on average than they do in this reality.

Essentially, VTubers are the new popular form of streamer, and can even be compared to music artists or actors with their level of popularity and content. Nijisanji is probably the most popular, but other well-known agencies such as HOLOLIVE exist here too.

As stated in my post where I gave a general description of all of my DRs, all of the Nijisanji members live together in one big magical mansion, known as the House of Nijisanji. This house is at the center of an artificially created island, created by the Nijisanji company. The island is named Riku Island, after Tazumi's given name. New VTubers will typically move in about two weeks before debut, to get settled into their dorms, meet their genmates, get tutorials on how their streaming applications work, etc..

Each wave has its own hallway, and although Staff live on the island, the only people who live in the house are Tazumi and the other VTubers. The hallway has individual dorm rooms for each member, that are highly customized and tailored to the person. There is a total of two floors when I will first shift, however, I suspect that eventually more floors will need to be built as more waves are added.

My wave is Nijisanji's 8th wave, Altarana. Before I explain the wave and how I got in, it is important to explain that in this reality, not all members auditioned. Some waves were personally scouted out, while others did audition. More specifically, LazuLight, OBSYDIA, Ethyria, and Nijisanji's 9th wave, TEAM SOS (inspired by those who sang the "Let's Get it Started" cover on YouTube, hosted by Aruvn) all auditioned to be in Nijisanji in this reality. This means that Luxiem, Noctyx, ILUNA, XSOLEIL, and Altarana did not audition, and were hand-picked based on wave themes Nijisanji wanted to do.

My wave is interesting, because before I was a VTuber, I was actually a vocaloid producer. I would produce songs and covers, which is why me and my four other genmates were picked.

I also have a few Nijisanji VTubers, both boys and girls, listed to be a potential S/O in my script. I also included already existing and official couples for this reality.

I think that so far, these are the most important details about the DR. Some details I am not quite comfortable sharing yet, and so I will end this post for now.

[krryptonite]

Pinned!

Hi! I'm Krrypt, I believe i've stumbled on a new alternate universe or something?

--

All I remember was that I was playing a game about elevators in my parents apartment, and then suddenly passed out.

when I woke up, I was in a completely different room, it was apparently my room, in my home, even though I swear I lived in a bigger house, and it was just me and my moms living there, but now apparently my grandma and two cousins live in the house with us??

--

I'm still trying to process everything, and I've found the best way to do that is to talk about a special interest of mine; Vocaloid!

I used to be very into Vocaloid Lost Media, which has apparently a different scene in *this* universe.

Apparently, Keishi's Mermaid Princess song is lost?? and so is Medical wedding??

But, Knife and ReAct aren't?! That was a trip to learn, lol, but it's really interesting to see what the songs sound like beyond the two ten-second-clips we have in my universe!!

I do also wonder if the works of Kriptonyte-P are found here, she was a really obscure producer I used to love! I even got my username after her.

She was a producer back in ... maybe 2009 to 2015, maybe? I don't remember exactly but she was in a big group of friends who all produced music together on a site called LiuBarred; they just all stopped uploading one day, and completely went inactive one by one.

iirc, Valentine and Wingx were the first to start deleting their songs, and then J, and then Kriptonyte.

I'm not familiar with anyone elses music, but I think Kriptonyte was the first to upload their collab songs; which was some kind of creepy ambient song?? it was from 2011, and was sung by Yuzuki Yukari and Gumi Megpoid. but the Pv had two white figures, and both had Gumi's haircut, but had different color hair.

Again, I don't remember much about it, but I really hope someone stumbles on this and is able help me!

EDIT: I do remember this small controversy with Valentine, but I don't know what about her was true, I might be able to give more info if needed..