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#like it’s probably because i’m not that big into utaite and vocaloid as i was 3 years ago but
fakecats · 2 years
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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
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zero-ek · 4 days
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A couple of live concerts and some thoughts on them
Howdy!
So there’s been a whole bunch of concerts i wanted to watch very close to one another these past 4 months or so, and originally i was just gonna post my reports as they went. But, due to my computer breaking down after the first one, and also not to spam the feeds of the handful of people who for some reason follow this blog, i figured I’d just wait it out and make it a very big post instead.
I wrote each of these a couple days after they aired, so it’s been very interesting to re-read these and look back stuff i wrote myself that isn't college assignments lol. I mention this often but I’ve got a very poor memory, so i tend to feel disconnected from stuff i did in the past when i see it, like, i have to tell myself “this was me, i wrote/made this” because i don’t remember doing it myself.
I don’t know why i haven’t thought of it after all this time but re-reading through these inspired me to start keeping a diary, if i can’t keep my memories in my brain, then paper will do it for me!
Anyhow, that’s enough about me for the time being. This first half be about the Vsinger side of things, while part two will be the utaite concerts, i will number in order if you wanna follow this chronologically though. Starting with:
1. RIM – NEUROMANCE II
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It’s Mechi time!
I’m sorry but i absolutely love how RIM’s nickname (d)evolved into just “Mechi”, it’s so silly sounding i love it.
I really don’t talk about this enough but RIM is my favourite Kamitsubaki artist, like, i don’t know how to explain it, but after i think 2 years of listening to her the “i-found-a-new-artist-i like” euphoria still hasn’t worn off. New Romance is probably the closest thing to a perfect album that I’ve ever heard, none of the songs have gotten old to me even after so long.
That being said, i really haven’t been keeping up with what Kamitsubaki’s been doing ever since i think BudouKAF really, and by extension what RIM has been doing outside of her music releases. So although i was really excited for my first ever RIM solo live, I’m gonna be honest not knowing what the whole Sinka series was about did kinda threw me off a bit.
Also, something else that cut my hype short and that i will preemptively apologize for is that my computer decided it didn’t want to live anymore a couple days after the concert, so i had to make the draft of this post on my phone and by the time i got this thing back not only had most of my post-live excitement worn off already, but the whole situation made me very grumpy. So I’m really sorry if i don’t sound as excited as i should be but i guarantee you that i really did enjoy this live.
Anyways:
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Fanfare!
I really didn’t expect it, since I’m much more a fan of her heavier, rock songs, but ever since this track came out on the Singularity Live album it’s been one of my most listened songs of hers for like the whole year. Something that i noticed a lot about New Romancer II is how blends Sasagawa Mao’s quintessential writing and melody phrases with the addictive pop beats, structures and overall structure of more modern J-Pop/Vocaloid music.
It’s like, New Romancer is the album you rock out to, and New Romancer II the album you’ll catch yourself humming to without realizing.
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Also also, Cosmic Puppets! I’m so glad it still got one last stage appearance, it’s my favourite of RIM’s designs by far and i don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I’m sure the new one will grow on me but i don’t know, it just doesn’t scream RIM to me as much as this one does. (Future Zero here, the new one still hasn’t grown on me. Team Cosmic Puppets forever!)
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Crybaby is my alarm clock, so i actually got a little jumpscared when it came up, lol, especially so early into the concert.
Also, massive appreciation for Kamitsubaki’s in-house engineer, i love how the live sound is massive, but each instrument is so cleanly separated from each other. I can only imagine how much it shakes you in person, which is to say Neuromance III better be a venue concert PIEDPIPER do you hear me she deserves it!!!!
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Now for my single grievance with this concert, is that the simplified-for-live arrangements do take away a bit from the songs a bit. Now don’t get me wrong, i completely get why they do it, this is a 2 hour concert, the musicians need to conserve as much energy as possible. But at the same time, Sasagawa Mao has one of the best senses for rhythm sections that I’ve ever heard, and it’s hard not to feel kinda sad when you don’t get to hear it.
That is to say i really missed that drum groove on the second verse of “The Moon does not...” and I’m a bit salty about it.
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First, i gotta say my compliments to Kamitsubaki’s 3d environment team, i do try to keep up with concert live reports when they come out, so i was aware that they were doing some really impressive stuff, but it’s even more impressive to see it for myself.
Also, i feel like the tracking is much better too, her movements look so much more fluid and her face much more expressive compared to like the Singularity live. It does not enter my mind how the heck they’re rendering this live.
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I love when they do these little intros for songs it always gives me goosebumps when you catch on the rhythm and key and realize “oh it’s this song” right before the it hits.
Also i just complained about the whole live-ification thing but I’m already taking it back my jaw is on the floor at how much Pillow Talk and Neuromance sounded just like they where on the record, actually even better that i could pick each instrument apart. I’m sorry live band i should’ve never doubted you.
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Honestly thought there wasn’t gonna be any MCs at all in this live lol girl breathe.
Also look it’s her original hairstyle!
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Ok so this is the part where i gotta ask what the heck is going on, currently regretting not doing my homework on the Sinka series I’m so lost.
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I love the idea of the discotheque, like just 10 minutes of her running around and vibing, honestly every concert should have something like that. Although i was kinda hoping I’d get to hear Mateki in full in this live but alas you can’t have everything in life.
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It’s original outfit RIM!
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Guiano!
I gotta be honest, they picked the songs from “Imagine” i listen to the least, but it still always tickles my brain when i hear their voices in unison. Guiano’s lower tones are so clear, it’s almost uncanny how well his voice blends with RIM’s. I would love to hear them together in more harmonically diverse contexts, i bet it’d sound insane.
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One of the highlights of the live for me, Eloim was already one of my favourites from NRII, but i think it goes even harder with the live band, like it sounds so much more aggressive with the drum hits, the huge bass and the guitars, it actually got my heart jumping. I am soooooo thankful they put this one on Youtube.
Also also tell me i'm not the only one who thinks that the Counter Clockwise design looks very Gallifreyan.
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It’s another Mechi!
Guiano’s “花鳥風月” (i don’t know how the Romaji for this one goes) is probably my favourite work of his ever, and it feels weirdly fulfilling to hear it with both RIM and RIME together, and with a full live band to boot, like, it feels like a natural conclusion to both of their versions of the song, i don’t know how to explain it well.
Also, i don’t know if this is the newer Voicepeak RIME, but i feel like she's tuned much better this time around compared to the Singularity Live.
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The second highlight of the live for me, I’m not even sure why, but the visuals here were incredibly captivating, i adore how Kamitsubaki really uses their 3d environments to their fullest potential.
Also, again, how the heck are they rendering this live?
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Now to probably the thing that stuck with me the most on this concert.... the talking bit!
So during her last MC she spoke about a lot of stuff from the past 2 years since the first Neuromance, she mainly focused on the topic of plurality, elaborating about people’s perception of her as a Vsinger and how that led her to encounter people very opinionated on it in either direction, and that eventually she came to accept that people are entitled to their own likes and dislikes, and free to be vocal about it, it’s simply a part of life and the human experience.
But something that she spoke that hit me the most was about how much the world had not only changed in these past couple of years since COVID, but it started to move a lot faster than you can sometimes keep up with, this is something that i do struggle with quite a bit. I mention this a lot but i don’t have a really good memory ever since i was like 17 or so, not that it’s deteriorating or anything (i don’t have any diagnoses, really) it’s just that i have a harder time recalling specific things than the average person does.
How this relates to what RIM talked about is that 2020 and early 2021 are particularly blank for me, like, they're particularly hard to recall. A lot of things that i know happened to me in that time period comes from me inferring that it must’ve happened sometime there from like dates and stuff instead of actually recalling how it played out, i imagine because of lockdown and being stuck in one place doing the same things over and over for a whole year. I try to be unbothered by it but it can be very hard to ignore the fact that a sizable chunk of my life is just missing.
It goes without saying but that really messes with how you situate yourself in the world, especially considering said world hasn’t been in its best shape since then. I manage, honestly pretty well all things considered, but it’s kinda what i imagine being held back a year in school feels like, not only you’re not up to date with what you should’ve, but you’re also struggling to catch up with your own life and just growing up, i know that it’s a common sentiment, especially for us zoomers, to still feel like a teenager while only your body matures, but i feel like for me it’s a little more literal than I’d like.
Speaking of this generation, i think that’s exactly why I’ve been thinking about it so much, RIM is i think only one or two years older than me, and... i don’t know, something about this girl i admire on the other side of the world, in a country totally culturally different than mine, standing in this million-dollar studio, looking directly at me and bringing up something that hits so close to home gave me a sort of weird reality check, like it’s a sign of some sort that i really ought to think about it more.
God dang it i can’t seem to escape the existential dread not even in Vsinger concerts, anyways, for the ending
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She then proceeds to sing Eons Whispered after all that talk, i don’t even know what to say because i feel like my mind was somewhere else entirely during this last bit.
Honestly I’m actually kinda glad this was my first live RIM experience, i looked at the setlist for the first Neuromance after this and as much as i liked the album that came with it, i feel like i got a lot more out of this live than i would’ve from the first one, with having the back and forth between songs from both albums, which as i mentioned, are very sonically distinct.
Although i will say, as much as i love the Kamicity 3D visuals, RIM is definitely one of those singers whose energy gets wasted on virtual concerts. I see some people call her a “gyaru” and i tend to agree, her stage presence just demands a crowd to keep up with her. I know she’ll be at the Yoyogi wars (which i unfortunately won’t be able to watch) but i really feel like she could absolutely own a One Man live by herself. Here’s hoping that comes true sooner than later.
2. SorAZ – First Gravity
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I’m really not sure how to start this...
I really feel like i need to preface this but AZKi is probably my single favourite person on this entire planet, like i sincerely and wholeheartedly love her to death, her songs and just her voice in general are irreplaceable to me and even just as a person overall i really look up to her. She hasn’t had a one-man live in i think three years, and it’s been even more time since she’s done one in an actual venue, with a real crowd to cheer her on, so i really need you to understand that i was counting the days until this concert ever since it was announced.
Unfortunately though, i just wasn’t in the headspace to enjoy this concert proper.
Everything for the past few weeks has been absolutely awful for me, my computer decided to break down and it needed a factory reset to get fixed, so i lost a lot of things that i couldn’t backup in time, then i got really sick for like a couple days to just sour my mood even more. But I’d actually gotten over that pretty quickly, i was feeling quite okay until i got served probably the single biggest punch in the gut in years that was Mel’s termination.
I made a post on my initial thoughts on it the day it happened, and i do know there’s been some developments since then, but overall my feelings haven’t changed all that much, that is to say, I’m still a huge mess. And as much as i adore AZKi i just haven’t been in the mood to look at Vstuff in general lately.
I had the ticket already though, so i thought maybe it’d help lift my spirits a lil bit.
(Oh yeah also I’m not sure why but the site says screenshots weren’t allowed, i know people were sharing them on Twitter anyways but i try to be a good girl around these parts. So I’ll use some assorted SorAZ pics instead)
I won’t go song for song, mainly because i feel very exhausted and i don’t feel like typing too much, but also, pretty much the entire setlist was from their new album, Futurity Step. I like that album, i saw someone say somewhere that they’re like “Hololive’s own ClariS” and a truer statement has never been said, it really feels just like a ClariS album. I grew up with ClariS, being a Madoka ChildTM, they were some of the first concerts i went out of my way to find and watch, i can’t really explain it in any way other than their songs take you into a world of fairy tales when you listen to them, it’s like a unique sort of bubbly, twinkly feeling, like I’m a Precure character or something, i don’t know if there’s a word for it. But the thing is, these aren’t usually the sort of songs that i prefer listening to when I’m feeling down, though, at least not as down as i am right now. I really did want to feel better and excited, but i physically couldn’t bring myself to.
Here’s some highlights i picked out after a couple rewatches.
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I’d say Futari Destiny is my favourite song on the album, the melody lines feel the most satisfying to me, and i overall just love a song where the bass goes crazy. I could be just me but i feel like the live setting really helped pick their voices apart, plus, i feel like Sora’s voice sounds a lot sharper, and with a lot more lower harmonics when she sings live live, and that gap with AZKi’s lighter and breathier tone helped make their unison bits sound more interesting in texture.
Which by the way, is one of my few gripes with the album, a lot of their parts are mostly unison, and there isn’t a lot of more interesting vocal harmonies. Which is too bad because like listen to these girls, AZKi has the most beautiful falsetto on the face of the Earth, and Sora has as super cool low but piercing quality to her voice, like, songwriters, this is peak harmony material just waiting to be explored! Capitalize on it!
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Sora cringing at their scripted MC lines was a mood, also i gotta say you wouldn’t believe that she’s entering her 7th year doing this, she was like a kid introducing themselves at a talent show. It was kinda endearing.
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I think what everyone was looking forward to the most was seeing them in their concert dresses together, they made the most out of it but it’s really a shame that the venue’s stage couldn’t do it justice, i feel like songs like Kimi to Boku... weren’t as hype as they could’ve been with visuals that could match them. I gotta say, the harmonies in MAG-NET were pretty good though, again, i feel like you can appreciate it much more with the less polished nature of live vocals and all.
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Probably the biggest highlight for me was “Gamen no Naka...” on AZKi’s solo part, which is a song that really grew on me hard, one because the drums are really awesome (god bless our lord and saviour Wataru Sena), and two, because even though the lyrics are very simplistic and straightforward, i don’t think they’ve ever been truer to me before. I don’t feel like going into detail, but i don’t think there’s any other song in the world that could more accurately describe how I’m feeling right now, towards AZKi, of course, but mainly towards Mel.
I sincerely hope, from the bottom of my heart, that everything goes well for her.
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I think i said this before but i think AZKi in her 4th design matches the Bright idol outfit the best out of everyone, but why is her angry face so weird lol.
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Skipping to the end, this is probably what got me the most excited, AZKi’s has a one-man and album 3 in the works, which i have been hoping for literal years now, and now that the fanbase is bigger than ever before it does genuinely make me excited to see how far she can go. I know it’s probably daydreaming but i really think, with how much notoriety she’s gotten, that she could perform at like Tokyo Zepp or hell, even Toyosu Pit.
Although, being more realistic, i looked up the venue for Sora’s anni party they announced and it holds only like a couple hundred people, which is surprising, considering she’s, well, the Tokino Sora, but also, i was under the impression that having a label would allow her to go for something much bigger. It could be due to availability or even preference, maybe (i don’t really watch her so i don’t know), but as much as i want to dream big, I’ll try to keep my hopes in moderation for what AZKi has coming up.
All in all, i really wished i could’ve watched this in a better place mentally, like, even with the scuffs and the simple stage, i could tell that they poured all of their heart into their performances. I wholeheartedly wanted to be happier for AZKi, she really is at home on the stage, with an actual audience to interact with, it makes me feel terrible that i couldn’t cheer her on something that she’s probably been waiting so long to do, something that I’ve always wanted to see (minus the Hololive festivals, this is actually my first time seeing her live on a venue).
It’s probably just me drowning in melancholy at the moment, but right now all I’m really hoping for is that nothing goes wrong by the time her solo live comes up, for all i know she could get axed then and there and i don’t want to regret not cheering her own while i still had the chance.
5. Hololive 5th Fes – Capture the Moment
(No keyvis cause i reached the image limit...)
Man, in hindsight, it's pretty cringe, but i've been so negative for pretty much no reason for like the whole month leading up to this concert, yeah absolutely because of Mel, again.
I know that everything’s settled down already and to be fair i had mostly gotten over it myself. But like y’know, she was half the reason i was looking forward to watching this concert to begin with, so i feel that my grumpiness is valid, it’d be surprising if i didn’t get at least a little sulky over her not being there anymore.
I had tickets for the HoloHoney and Stage 3, since Mel is a massive Honeyworks fan, and AZKi was going to show up on both. But since I’ve gotten the HoloHoney ticket mainly for Mel, i decided to just skip the HoloHoney one entirely, it just wasn’t worth it for me anymore.
Oh, yeah, I’ll mainly only talk about AZKi (and Suisei) here because they’re the ones i actively follow. I mean no disrespect to the other girls, i just don’t really follow Holo as a whole.
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I genuinely cannot shake the impression that AZKi wears the Bright design the absolute best out of everyone I’ve seen, the design just fits her silhouette so perfectly, and the pink highlights match her inner coloured hair beautifully.
I still don’t like "ωNeko" all that much, but i can’t be upset that it’s as popular as it is.
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Honorable mention to Mumei’s “Mumei”, i have heard the song before, since it went around quite a bit, and i really liked it, so it was very nice to hear it live.
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Another honorable mention to Roboco’s cover of “Boku ga Shinou...”, she’s one of the couple members that i check in on from time to time, she has this unique raspy quality about her singing voice that really tugs at the heartstrings.
Ok, so uh, let’s talk about it, the moment.
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(can i just say i'm very proud of this shot they look divine here)
Something that i haven’t seen a lot of people mention is that for quite a while the idea of AZKi and Suisei reuniting seemed like something very unlikely, like, it’s a big part of the reason why it was such of a big deal when AZKi showed up on Suisei’s 500k milestone live (i mean, i remember it, that's really something). By then, it had been a pretty long time since Suisei left INNK (looking it up, it was apparently almost a whole year later), which is pretty universally understood to have been a very rough time for her, so it didn’t seem by that point that they’d ever get together again, i think gen 0 wasn’t a thing yet back then, and AZKi was still pretty much music only as opposed to the more streamer Suisei.
“The Last Frontier” was also extremely heavy hitting when it came out, since just a couple months prior we had learned that AZKi would’ve originally graduated, and as Suisei herself pointed out, it was very much a Swan Song for her. It would’ve pretty much marked the end of their story, and as much of a banger that this song is, it wouldn’t have been a satisfying one at all. Even after they reconnected, they didn’t really get together much at all, AZKi still being separated from everyone else in INNK, it would’ve been not only the last, but one of the only things these two did together.
(Also also can i just say that it goes extremely underappreciated that AZKi wrote pretty much the whole song? Like, she does lyrics pretty often, but it’s rarer that she actually does the arrangement too, and then she cooks some of the hardest songs to ever grace this planet how frickin awesome is that????)
They sang this song live twice before, and have gotten together a whole lot more since AZKi joined Hololive proper. But it was this moment, right here, that i think was the proper resolution for their whole saga. For AZKi, the song she wrote to someone she thought she couldn’t reach, performed as the grand finale of the festival, on the stage it deserves, that she deserves. And for Suisei, i feel like this was the moment to reach out to AZKi, even more so than their first reunion, to show that none of what they went through was in vain, and that she sees her, that she’s finally properly by her side now.
I could be and probably am wrong about this, but i personally have never seen or don't remember seeing AZKi openly cry before, in fact something that i simultaneously admired and worried about is that for as long as I’ve watched her, she doesn’t ever ”let her guard down”, like she takes breaks extremely rarely, and is always super smiley and in high spirits even things aren’t going super great.
So like, when i saw her actually break down like that, i couldn’t keep it together, i cried so. damn. hard, like genuinely ugly crying, bawling my eyes out and then some, to the point that i felt like a raisin that was left in the sun to dry some more for the whole day, i genuinely believe that i have 床’d the hardest out of any Pioneer alive (fight me Iroha). It was very cathartic tho i do recommend it especially if you’ve been bottling up feelings tangentially related to it and have been grumpy about it for the week.
AZKi is probably the best thing that’s happened to me in these past 5 years, like, i think at this point i can say that she’s a major part of my life and who i am now. There hasn’t been anyone else whose music touched me, comforted me whenever i needed, and inspired me to get on my feet and face life like her music did. There’s no one else who sings like she does, and nothing makes me happier to see her come as far as she did, somewhere that as recently as a year ago I’d never thought it’d be possible. It was just so extremely rewarding to see it, as clear and concrete as it can be, that she made it, that to keep going was the right decision, that she’s achieved something incredible, and that Suisei, the Pioneers, everyone, looks at her with pride.
I’m just so incredibly happy, i can’t put it into words, i couldn’t have asked for anything more.
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Watching back the MV after this live, i cannot even begin to tell you how much more complete and fulfilling it feels now. The two of them, looking for each other, but never meeting until the very end. Now, i think more than ever, the last part truly became real, the two of them holding hands, looking at the same sky.
Tonight, Canopus was the brightest star in the sky.
Continues in the next one
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The unique talent found in music videos
Animation and artistic talent can not only be found in anime, but also in the ever growing platforms that the internet offers. One of the biggest ways the internet has offered for an artist to show their abilities is through a music video. 
  When you search japanese music you can easily find unique and interesting animated videos, and a reason I think they are so abundant is because of the Vocaloid. Considering that Vocaloid are just voice banks it’s pretty much impossible to make a convencional music video, the closest you could get to it would be using the 3D modeling program Miku Miku Dance (MMD), thus the composers are obliged to use an original illustration or video to go along with the song.
  As a very big fan of animated videos and music, I would like to share many my favorite talents with all of you:
  I’ll start with artist/animator Wooma. This extremely good animator works with very popular vocaloid producers, such as Niru Kajitsu in A Mistaken Belief of Love, Shama, Wozwald and Kilmer, and Hiiragi Kirai with Autophagy, Eva and recent massive hit Bocca della Verita, and the most notable thing about their style would be the way they draw the faces and their unique character design.
    While their works with Niru Kajitsu tend to follow a story to go along with the song, Hiiragi Kirai videos are often a still images that gradually changes during the song, but they compensate by making the lyrics on screen into a show of kinetic typography.
  Speaking of Niru Kajitsu, we can’t continue without mentioning 明石 (@a_ka_shi____), the artist behind the popular music video Traffic Jam, whose style is pretty recognisable for the lack of lineart, textured coloring and facial expressions.
    Next I’ll talk about is sakiyama, who has a very peculiar style, with dark thin lines, a lot of smaller lines for details, solid coloring and a contrast between a muted palette for backgrounds and bright colors for certain characters or objects. They have worked with vocaloid producer Hachiya Nanashi in Neurosis and Incision, and with singer Zuttomayo in songs like Humanoid, Mabushii DNA Dake and Such a Disturbance.
    I’ll follow with nekozemon, who worked with producer Surii as an animator for the song Junky Night Town Orchestra, which is clearly now a song series thanks to their recently updated prequel song Beaver. Both videos have very fluid animation and creative secuencies that go perfectly along with their songs, presenting a very interesting story.
    My next artist would be the mastermind behind the videos of popular producer syudou. ヤスタツ(@yasutatsu_) has worked in pretty much all of syudou’s biggest hits since Annoyance, the most notable being Call Boy, Bitter Choco Decoration and Religion of Loneliness. One remarkable thing about their style would be the interesting way they use colors for their videos.
    If you like to follow japanese artists chances are you have seen at least one illustration by the extremely popular artist Avogado6, easily recognized by their simple artstyle and numerous creative, unique and sometimes downright bizarre pieces. If you are familiarized with their work you’ll be happy to know that they already have a number of music videos under their belt, but their most known and unique work of this kind are the songs by producer Lanndo/nulut It’s Just Life and Empty Prayer. Both videos perfectly capture the feeling of what this artist’s work is, and you already know them you can immediately tell it’s theirs.
    To finish talking about current vocaloid producers I saved up Harumaki Gohan, as I think he’s a special case as he not only is the producer and composer of his songs, he is also the animator and has started singing his songs himself, you could say he does pretty much all the work! With his most famous songs Melty Land Nightmare and Reunion, he definitely is a creator worth checking out.
    The reason I mention Vocaloid as an important factor in the use of animation in music videos is that a lot of the most popular animated videos come from now professional musicians that started their musical career with vocaloid! It seems that artist that have been vocaloid producers are more likely to at some point use animated videos, there’s even artists whose ALL of their music videos are animated.
  A pretty famous case of this would be singer Kenshi Yonezu, former vocaloid producer known as Hachi in the community, responsible for some of the most popular and well known vocaloid songs of all time (Matryoshka anyone?). He has a number of animated songs in his channel but I’ll go with the one is without a doubt the most famous of all, Go Go Ghostship, of which you can find numerous parodies by different fandoms.
    Another notable case would be also former vocaloid producer Yoh Kamiyama, and while most of his non-vocaloid songs have pretty standard music videos, he is better known for the beautiful animated video for his song Yellow, made by Touyouigaku (seriously, watch yellow, it’s a beauty).
    If you want a more recent case of this we have last year’s massive hit that was Yoru ni Kakeru by the duo YOASOBI, comprised of former producer Ayase and singer Ikura; that by the time of writing this has already accumulated almost 50 million views! The simple but beautiful video was made by 藍にいな (@ai_niina_).
    To close off this post I’ll talk about who is probably the most famous and prolific animator in this list, Waboku. His immense recognition comes from his work for the already mentioned singer Zuttomayo and, most notably, the former Utaite Eve; both artists who only use animation for their music videos. 
    Waboku is mostly known for their chaotic and crazy videos, there’s a lot of things happening very fast on the screen! But their works are filled with creative sequences, fluid motions, and generally just ooze of personality. For his work with Eve we have As You Like It, Tokyo Ghetto and Baumkuchen End (just watch all of Eve’s videos, they’re beautiful, he’s a king); his most known video for Zuttomayo is Bite the Second Hand.
  There are some people that I didn’t mention in this post, but that I’m saving up for the big finale :)
 Antonia Aqueveque
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weirdtrashpanda · 7 years
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So, I found out about Sand Planet, Hachi’s new song. First of all I’m a big Hachi Fan. Matryoshka is my all time all time favorite, Panda Hero, Donut Hole all amazing songs. And now there’s Sand Planet, Hachi’s comeback (Maybe? Hopefully.) I’m gonna talk about the song a lot now, because hell… I still love Vocaloid and this song hits me hard. Mostly about theories and the MV. Maybe some time later about the song itself.
Let’s come to the theories! I read some online and made up my own mind. The masked people behind Miku are producers in my opinion. It’s a reflection on today. How Hachi sees the vocaloid fandom now. Most noticeable is of course the two “producers”, who leave. It’s a sad theory but for me it makes sense:  They are PowaPowa-P and Samfree, producers who passed away. Another thing to point out, the more and more producers leave more unnoticed. Those are probably musicians who moved on from Vocaloid. Which is extremely sad to me. In the end Miku is left alone.
 Next notable scene: The “flower girl”. I think this person is utaite. They hug Miku but then jump to one of the producers and probably take them away. This happens. I mean a lot of utaites and producers work closely together. The last scene: Miku is alone but walks towards to new figures. Hopefully new producer, who will make new songs. I cling to this glimmer of hope!
Next on Miku herself. We have two versions. Miku on the sand planet, lets call her “Real Miku” and the all-known happy Hatsune Miku standing before a black apple tree, our “Fan Miku”. Now why Fan Miku? Because this Miku is like most fans portray her, the upbeat happy cyber idol. Real Miku seems much more mature. It feels like she aged, for example 10 years. See what Hachi did there! Oh my god. Also Real Miku shows no emotion. Or she seems more sad, serious than Fan Miku. She could be a version how the producers see her.
My opinion on all this. I feel freaking guilty! To be honest, I have forgot Vocaloid nearly. It was a big part of my life. Hell, it still is. And hearing this song feels like it’s a scream for help. “Please, don’t forget about Vocaloid.” And this hit me hard. I discovered Vocaloid at a really hard time in my life. I was disappointed in real people, plus myself. Something completely fictional couldn’t disappoint me, right? Vocaloid was my lifeboat. I hold onto it. My friends and family told me how stupid it was, but it really was the only thing that helped me and maybe kept me from seriously hurting myself. Plus I found new friends through Vocaloid, a really good friend and also my girlfriend. As time passed I got help from professionals. I guess I thought I don’t need it anymore. Slowly I got bored of the music, didn’t searched for new songs, got into Love Live and Musical more. My friends lost interest in it long before me.
Well, my psychologist died some time ago. I’m back at the beginning. I think I needed a song like this. Yea, it’s kind of sad and not a permanent help, but I will cling to it again. It’s still really dumb. 
I guess I’m done. Thanks for reading.
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destination-of-fate · 7 years
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Hello! I have a questionnnnn~ I've been in the vocaloid/utaite community for a while but never really understood the widespread rule of not tweeting utaite in english, or to not comment in korean on nnd videos. I mean, I've never done it myself, but I dont really get it why it's so bad.. Do you know why people hate it so much?? p.s. thank you for being am amazing and lovely person~
Hi anon and thank you so much for your nice words, I really appreciate them!! The issue of Korean comments on NND and sending utaite messages in foreign languages are actually two separate things, so I’ll address them both. First of all, since NND doesn’t offer a space specifically for Korean comments, but there are many Korean utaite fans who want to express their love on the videos, they tend to leave comments in the English comment section. I don’t spend a lot of time in the Eng comments section so I haven’t seen a lot, but from what I understand, they are regularly harassed in the comments for this and targeted for comments like “No Korean” and “don’t post Korean here.” I can’t wrap my mind around why this happens, since as far as I know, other languages are also posted in the English section but are not targeted. There is not any kind of fandom rule of “don’t post Korean comments,” in fact it’s the opposite where we discourage those kinds of discriminatory remarks on utaite videos (Or if that’s not the fandom’s reaction, it should be!) Again I’m not super familiar with this subject, but I’m not sure why we can’t share our English comments section with other languages that don’t have their own section or why people make such a big fuss about Korean comments specifically ;_; So please don’t take that to be like a fandom rule or anything because it’s not at all, I’ve certainly never seen anyone complain about Korean comments outside of the Eng NND comments section ;; As far as directing messages to utaite in non-English languages, this is more about causing problems for the utaite themselves. Utaite are of course happy to have fans from around the globe, but very few of them speak any language other than Japanese, and they use Twitter replies and Namahousou comments as ways to communicate directly with their fans. If everyone commented/replied in their native language, it’d be a lot harder for the utaite to be able to find things that they can actually read and understand. There are those who argue that simple things in english just like “I’m from __” or “I love you” are ok because utaite can probably read them, and while that might be true, it has always seemed kind of, idk, english-centric to assume that these Japanese people should speak enough english to understand your message. Idk if that makes sense ww I just feel like it’s be better to send those simple messages in Japanese instead, since it’s easy to find how to write small things like that in Japanese just by google searching. Then you don’t have to make the utaite do any work to read your message, and you’re not burying Japanese comments/responses with stuff that the utaite can’t even read. Sorry for the small novel ww if any of that didn’t make sense, feel free to ask and I will try to explain better! \o/
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