Episode Two Point Two Five: Mikupa 2012

Kaito's Concert Debut

"Mikupa" is a annual concert on March 9, also called the Thanksgiving Concert or some such. March ninth is also 3/9, which in Japanese can be read "mi-ku" or "san-kyu" (Thank You), so there's a concert at that time, with a live band and something like holograms. Here is complete footage of like Day 1 or something, with Miku, Luka, Rin, Len, and Kaito (!). 

Kaito is singing Pane Dhiria at around 1:21:00 if you just want to see him and don't have two hours, twelve minutes, and three seconds to spare. I still think he's dancing kinda like a girl in some parts... OTL But yes! This is an exciting moment for Kaito fangirls like me. 

Episode Two: Lepidopterans and Kaito

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. This shall be the second installment, in which many songs shall be brought to light, and Spaz is going to stop trying to speak formally and get on with it.

Featured Vocaloid

This edition's featured Vocaloid is the beloved Kaito, again, whose name is capitalized as KAITO. His voice provider is Naoto Fuuga, who has actually covered a couple of Kaito's songs on occasion, like Hikyou Sentai Urotander. Kaito is the second Japanese Vocaloid for the Vocaloid1 engine, distributed by Crypton Future Media. His most well-known roles are the Second Alice in Alice Human Sacrifice, the Blue Prince in Story of Evil, the Prince in Cendrillon, the Phantom-of-the-Opera-wannabe in Cantarella, and himself in My Ice Cream is Melting. Of course, he's got some other notable roles too. When he was first released, only a few hundred of the software were bought, so Crypton declared him a failure (ouch ;-;). So that was that, until after Miku Hatsune was released. Some producer had her sing a short cover of Higurashi's "You", with altered lyrics asking where Kaito was and what he was doing, etc. During the same time, another producer (now known as Ice-P) was working on a cover of "The Ice Cream Song" for Kaito, saw the video, and tacked on a few things, calling the video "An Answer to Hatsune Miku". This brought Kaito back into the spotlight, and arguably saved him from obscurity. He and Meiko were designed to complement each other's voice, and were developed at the same time, but Meiko was released first, Kaito a year or two afterwards. So there's an argument for KaiMi and KaiMei. * Spaz gets gunned down by KaiLen fangirls * His character item is, of course, ice cream, sometimes specialized as Haagen-Dazs ice cream. His fandom portrayal is of a cheerful, happy-go-lucky kind of guy, if a bit oblivious. Though, lots of his songs are quiet and contemplative... so... take your headcanon where you wish. He's got a bit of a mechanical undertone to his voice, but certain producers can do wonders with him, like shigotoshiteP and shinjouP. 

Featured Producer

Let's look at the diabolical genius, mothy, otherwise known as AkunoP. His name comes from his most popular and well-known series, The Story of Evil, consisting of Daughter of Evil, Servant of Evil, Regret Message, and Re_Birthday. Oh, and Daughter of White. Of course, Story of Evil is only a piece of his whole Seven Sins series, and Re_Birthday is part of the Clockwork Lullaby series, and the Clockwork Lullaby series connects to the Seven Sins series and the Moonlight series, and the Moonlight series connects to the Pere Noel series, and the Pere Noel series connects to the Seven Sins series, and the Seven Sins series interconnects... it's confusing and mind blowing but awesome. And tragic. Mothy's weakness is tuning Vocaloids, his early songs are pretty awful at times T.T but he's gotten a bit better. He's got most of the major Vocaloids. Oh! And then another song called Handbeat Clocktower connects kinda to the Clockwork Lullaby series and it may be part of the Story of Evil series... Most of his songs compose this grandiose uber-series called The Evillous Chronicles. Mothy's strength is the instrumentals, often classical with a bit of electric guitar. Most of his songs are classics, he's kind of one of the producers you have to know of. 

Bonus Section! 

And here is where our Featured Vocaloid and our Featured Producer relate! Kaito has a role in almost all of mothy's songs, so let's list them out, just for fun.

The Blue Prince/King in Story of Evil

The Husband Guy in Moonlight Series

The Fifteenth (?) Head Chef in Evil Food Eater Conchita

The person Luka stalked in Tailor Shop in Enbizaka

The Gear in Heartbeat Clocktower

The (SPOILER) in Madness of Duke Venomania (not really safe for work)

The Fiance in Gift from Princess Who Brought Sleep

Blue One in Number Five: Pierrot

The Corrupt Judge in Judgement of Corruption

The Gear in Capriccio Farce

The Blue Prince/King in Handbeat Clocktower

So there!

Vocaloid Vocabulary

"PV", short for "Picture Video" or "Producer's Video", is the standard term for the video along with the Vocaloid song. More specifically, the one the producer provided for it, but usually used to describe any video for the song. 

"Nico Nico Chorus" works like this: people on NND cover Vocaloid songs. Some video editing genius takes several covers and smushes them together, sometimes with the Vocaloid singing it, creating awesome. 

What's on Spaz's iPod?

Chrono Story, by our Featured Producer, sung by Luka Megurine, Rin, and Len. This is the last in the Moonlight series, the song that connects to the Seven Sins series with Hansel and Gretel (so it connects to the Pere Noel series) taking the "original sin" and splitting it up in to seven parts and releasing them (great idea, guys). It's got an awesome instrumental and the "Lu Li La"s connect with the Clockwork Lullaby series...

The Classics

Meltdown, sung by Rin Kagamine and produced by iroha. An awesome song, but the lyrics are a bit... opaque... but still awesome. Note: Do not try to sing loudly, as there is a very slight risk of serious vocal chord damage. 

Crowning Music of Awesome

Bad End Night, by PeopledropP (that's what google translate does with it anyways) and sung by Miku, Kaito, Meiko, Rin, Len, Gumi, Gakupo, and Luka. It's a group piece (dur) with a Nightmare Before Christmas kinda vibe, very fun and Halloween-ish. The PV and their costumes are cool too.

Crowning Music of Sad

What, Servant of Evil isn't sad enough for you? Try the Classical Version. What, still not sobbing hysterically? How about the Nico Nico Chorus Classical Version?

Crowning Music of Funny

Lord of Darkness is a parody of Daughter of Evil, sung by Kaito about a fail vampire. Shut up, it's hilarious. 

Spotlight Cover

Byakkoya no Musume. Listen to it first before you read the rest. ... Okay, the starting part is Rin and she pops up later too, but most of the song is Kaito. Yes, that is Kaito. Yes, I know, he sounds pretty much like a real person here. Yes, you can't believe it, but it's true. That's Kaito. (At least, that was Vocaloidnoob Spaz's first reaction). It's a cover of Paprika (Japanese movie, apparenly)'s OP. 

Spotlight Duet

TwiRight Prank, by mothy and sung by Rin and Len. It's a song of Rillaine (Daughter of Evil) and Allen (Servant of Evil) as little kids. It's not particularly well-tuned, but it's sweet.

Random Recommendation

Cyber Thunder Cider, sung by VY1 and produced by EZFG. The PV has an amusing dancing stick man. It's a bit odd... Aca just kinda randomly mentioned it. It hung out on the Weekly Vocaloid Ranking for a while, as I remember... Oh, there's a brief curse word in there too, just a heads up OTL

Recent News

Yet another VOCALOID3 voicebank has been announced, "Galaco". How many do we have announced/released yet, like ten? Anyways, she's kind of cool, here's her introduction song called galaxias!, though I'm not sure if that's her actual voice... it's pretty heavily autotuned, but her voice as shown here. She'll be made by Internet Co. Ltd. (Gumi, Gakupo, etc). So there's that, and the Weekly Vocaloid Ranking's up on Vocaloidism. 

End Note

See, it's funny because moths are in class Lepidoptera... *brick'd*

Episode One Point Five: A New Addition and iPodification

A New Addition

Spaz has roped another one into the fandom! Our addition shall go by the name of Happy. Happy's first favorite Vocaloid song was Alice Human Sacrifice, and she also likes Imitation Black.

iPodification: How to get songs on your iPod

Or mp3 player of your choice, I suppose. 

I recommend that you try to find the songs on iTunes first, as that helps support the producer. It's also much easier. 

So let's say I want to find "Crime and Punishment" by DECO*27 and sung by Miku. What should I do? 

What I should not do is search "Hatsune Miku" on the iTunes store. That won't be very productive.

What I should do is search the producer name-- "DECO*27"

That's much more useful, as that pulls up all his albums, etc. 

Now what? I can't find "Crime and Punishment". However, there are some songs in romanized Japanese... so, that song might be one of those. Listening to the samples is important, because often the music arrangement and tuning is slightly different than the versions you find on Youtube/NND. 

So let's listen to some samples. I know "Crime and Punishment" is one of DECO*27's earlier songs, so it might be in his early albums. There it is! Under the name "Tsumi To Batsu". 

I know you can also find supercell's songs on iTunes ("World is Mine") and mothy/AkunoP has his albums there too (Daughter of Evil, etc) The songs most likely will be under different names, especially mothy's.

Now let's say you can't for the life of you find the song on iTunes. There is an answer to your problem! First you must find the original link-- the NicoNicoDouga version's URL. Most Youtube uploaders will provide it, or just the "sm" which is the important thing. But, you can also just copy the whole link. It will start with "nicovideo.jp/watch/sm" and after the sm will be the video identification. 

So find the NND link and copy it. 

Next you want to go to Nicosound, an mp3 converter for NND videos. You'll have to type in "nicosound.anyap.info" or just search "nicosound". 

This will take you to a confusing web page in Japanese. Do not fret! All you must to is past the NND link into the orangish box near the top and press the button with the words "MP3" in there. 

Huzzah! You will then be transported to another confusing Japanese page, but now you can see the video is there! Scroll down and click the third button below the graphy thing. That should start the download, which you can open in iTunes. 

Congratulations! You've downloaded your first Vocaloid song, either the simple way or the super-vocafan-pro way! Nicosound will be your best friend, especially if the song is recent and/or obscure. 

Episode One: Please Work! and Meiko

Hello! This is the first installation of On the Same Page, hopefully the first part of many more. Let's not delay this any further and get this thing up and running!

Featured Vocaloid

This week's featured Vocaloid is Meiko, though you'll see her official name is capitalized as MEIKO. For my inner spellcheck's sake we'll call her Meiko. Her voice provider is Meiko Haigou, though you'll never hear that much about her. Meiko was the first Japanese Vocaloid for the Vocaloid 1 engine, by Crypton Future Media. Her most well-known roles are the First Alice in Alice Human Sacrifice, Conchita in Conchita, the Epicurean Daughter of Evil (also known as Evil Food Eater Conchita), and the leader of the revolution in the Story of Evil (Daughter of Evil, Servant of Evil, etc.). She is a generally assertive, dominant personality and voice. She is also a Tsundere, which, in layman's terms, means that when she's in tsuntsun mode she's harsh and such but when she's in deredere mode she's all nice and emotional and stuff. Bad description, just go google it. Anyways. Her character item is Sake, a kind of alcoholic drink made from rice. There is a minor shipping war on whether to pair her with Kaito or Kaito with Miku. I am a staunch KaiMei shipper. She and Kaito were made to complement each other's voice, with Meiko the dominant voice, with Kaito the harmony. I can go on and on about how their voices/personalities balance each other out but this is already too long. Anyways, Meiko is a wholly unappreciated Vocaloid with a tendency to sing flat, but when the right producer comes along she has amazing potential. 

Featured Producer

A producer is someone who makes Vocaloid songs and generally posts them to NicoNicoDouga (Japanese Youtube, basically). If well known, they will generally be called after their most popular song with a P after their name, for example, shigotoshiteP's actual username is Hinayukki. Anyways, shigotoshiteP is this edition's Featured Producer. She is well known in her skill with Kaito and Meiko. Her name actually comes from a cover of one of her songs, where Kaito sings about her laziness instead of Singing Earth. Singing Earth can be found here, and the cover is here. The first work of hers to appear on NND is Progeny of the Wings- flying child featuring Kaito. Another notable shigotoshiteP work is Shine, pushing Kaito to the bottom of his range and with a wonderful instrumental. She has also made a Talkoid- a video of the Vocaloids speaking instead of singing- with a bit of Shine to it, called Playing a Trick on Kaito. As you can see, she favors Kaito, but Meiko can be found chiming in, like in the end of The Song of Swift Wind and the Sky. 

Vocaloid Vocabulary of the Week

This week's word is "Append". An "Append" is basically a fixed-up, smoothed out, improved version of a voicebank. It often makes the singer sound more human. The first Append was Miku Hatsune's, when Crypton responded to user complaints that her chipper voice didn't fit with other "moods" of songs. Miku's Append was sixfold, with "Soft", "Sweet", "Light", "Vivid", "Dark", and "Solid" voicebanks. Rin and Len Kagamine also received Appends with different moods of voicebanks, Power, Warm, and Sweet for Rin and Power, Cold, and Serious for Len. Gumi has received an "Extend", which is basically the same thing. Kaito, Meiko, and Luka have all been confirmed to receive Appends at some point, and Kaito is confirmed to get an English voicebank like Miku did and that Luka already has. Here is one of Kaito's Append demos, a Luka Append demo, and a Meiko Append demo. Contrary to expectations, most Appends are not used frequently. However, when they are, they are usually impressive. 

What's on Spaz's iPod?

Monochrome Dream-Eater, by Nem and sung by Len Kagamine! Don't be fooled, Len can actually sing in the bass octave! He's singing this song delightfully low for a change, backed by an awesome jazzy instrumental. His outfit is cool too. This song tells the story of a Dream Eater, who makes a contract with a young lady who looks like Miku. Oh yeah, and he squeaks. Or maybe that's gasping in an effeminate manner. I don't know. Great song, though. 

The Classics

This first edition's classic is fittingly, the classic of all classics, Ievan Polkka. This song shot to meme-level popularity on NND and brought Vocaloid into focus, also naming the leek/spring onion/negi as Miku's character item. And now it is stuck in your head. You're welcome.

Crowning Music of Awesome

Double Lariat by Ago-anikiP, sung by Luka Megurine. This particular video has the lyrics changed from "spinning" to "singing". This song is ridiculously motivating and, coincidentally, one of the first songs that got the author of this email into Vocaloid. 

Crowning Music of Sad

Campanella sung by Gumi, produced by sasakure.UK. It's... It's just... hold on a sec, I got something- there's something in my eye, it's just- ah screw it *cries all over the place*

Crowning Music of Funny

Not technically music, but referring to Daughter of Evil. Go watch it if you haven't yet. Anyways, this very fast summary of the song is HILARIOUS. 

Spotlight Cover

Amazing Grace. Sung by Meiko. Yes, that Amazing Grace. No, not her Append. Yes, it is amazing. This is an amazing cover, brilliantly tuned so that Meiko's accent isn't too thick, while she's backed by Miku, Rin, Len, and Kaito. One of the few songs where I'll allow Meiko to sing that high. And it is glorious. 

Spotlight Duet

The Pair Tree Wither-er, sung by Kaito and Meiko, a shigotoshiteP masterpiece. A classic in traditional Japanese style about the coming of autumn.

Random Recommendation (this is where you recommend stuff to me)

Smiling, recommended by Anna. NND's theme song, I guess, sung by... fourteen? Or so Vocaloids, counting two of Miku's Appends. Len raps. So does Kaito. 

Recent News

Nothing much, though the newest Weekly Vocaloid Ranking can be found at Vocaloidism.com~! 

End Note

Well, this took a good hour to type up and find the songs, but it was worth it! Hope you guys enjoy, and show me songs you've found so I can slap that up on the Random Recommendation! (also make sure your links work. XD )

Note: For the blog version of this, the links are nonexistent, as I copy-pasted this as plain text to avoid other issues in fitting this to the blog format. From now forward, I will try to avert this disaster by writing it first in the blog. Sorry for the early installment weirdness!

Episode Negative One

Vocaloid: The Fangirls Three

The Beginning

Once upon a time, there was a Spaz. Now this Spaz was an odd one, prone to obscure subcultures like Anime, and as such found a Vocaloid video. Thus began a weird courtship of sorts, a meeting of accidents. Spaz would visit Youtube and would find a Vocaloid video somewhere in her recommendations. This remained a casual flirtation until our heroine decided, once and for all, to find out what this Vocaloid stuff was all about. 

And then she was obsessed. It started as a simple inquiry and downspiraled into fangirlism, particularly of the obliviously handsome silly blue-haired Vocaloid known as Kaito. However, nothing came of it, it was only a personal obsession. That is, until...

The Discovery

One day, there was a Spaz and an Anonymous Person, who shall be known as Aca until further nicknaming. Now Aca was two grades below Spaz, however, their friendship was true because of their shared geekiness Pokemon Master-ness  awesomeness. On one particular bus ride to a soccer game, Spaz was listening to Vocaloid music on her iPod, as usual. One soccer player then asked Spaz what she was listening to, while Spaz sheepishly attempted to explain precisely what Vocaloid is. It was then that Aca found a fellow Vocaloid fan. And it was good. And Aca recommended a good song to Spaz.

A few months later, there was a Spaz an a person who shall be known as Bubbles until further nicknaming. One day during elective Spaz wondered aloud if she and Aca were the only Vocaloid fans of the school, one then Bubbles revealed that she, too, was a budding Vocaloid fan.

However, there was a problem: there was no way Spaz could deliver all her information, canon and headcanon, shipping preferences, the classic songs and the obscure, the producers of fame and all, to Aca and Bubbles in any short amount of time.

The Solution

This blog, coupled with an email. A weekly edition featuring such things like Featured Vocaloid, Featured Producer, Crowning Music of Awesome, et cetera.
Also a "half episode" of sorts-- dealing with some other Vocaloid and such-- will be posted on occasion.