Vocaloid/Headscratchers

• Ok, I just didn't get: Alice Human Sacrifice; Wide Knowledge of the Late Madness; and Dark Woods Circus. Can anyone summarize them for me?
  • If I remembered correctly, Alice Human Sacrifice is based on the history of those Vocaloids. Consider Miku's part of the song and you will probably notice it.
  • Well, first you gotta see an English sub of them. If you did, and still don't really get them, the general gist is:
    • Alice Human Sacrifice: 4 Alices go into the wonderland. The first one, Meiko, is a knight. She starts killing everything, and thusly gets locked up deep in the woods. The second one, Kaito, is a nice singer. He sings to the country. Sounds good, right? Nope. His words make the populace go crazy, and someone shoots him (or possibly he shoots himself). The third one, Miku, is a beautiful maiden. She makes everyone fall in love with her and do what she says. She is made queen of the country. She is stricken with fear of death, and hangs on so. And so she rules until there just isn't anything of her left. The fourth ones are Rin and Len. They get a letter from the queen asking them to come. They nearly made it, however they are murdered. Charming, no?
      • Murdered by what? All the videos imply "Meiko", but she gets locked away earlier in the song...
        • It's shown in one video that Meiko killed the twins before being locked up.
        • At least one video (The Hitobashira Alice Drama) implies it was the Queen Miku who ordered their deaths.
        • In another they kill eachother, and in another they aren't killed at all, but instead end up trapped within the dream (which is what the lyrics actually suggest)
        • One video ends with Rin staring at Len, whose face is half covered in darkness and bears a Slasher Smile. It then cuts to a silhouette of Len holding Rin bridal-style in a graveyard. She is worryingly limp.
    • Wide Knowledge of Late, Madness: So, Miku has lost it. She gets sent to a mental hospital. But the patients start dissapearing. Miku learns what's happening. In the video I watched, we learn that our good friend Meiko has been killing them for whatever reason. Ah, that Meiko, always choppin' off heads... Of course, it's insanely scarier than how I can describe the plot.
    • Dark Woods Circus: Of course, this is based about the video I had watched, so it may be a little different from video to video... So, hey look, it's our favorite murderess Meiko! Now, don't ask me why she's always in that role. Ah, she's going to the circus, can't be too bad... Well, just watch a sub, I can't describe it very much, nor very well. All I can do is whine. Kaitoooo! Ah, at the end, Meiko hands out fliers. OF DOOM, as always with Meiko. Well, I hope I helped a bit. And I have a question of my own...
      • To be more specific, Meiko (non-murderous this time) is the little girl that visits the circus. She first encounters Haku and Neru (although the song says "chairman", it's more like "chairwomen"), the stilt people. Then there's Rin and Len, the two-headed person. It's implied in the video that they were sewn together to get that way. Miku is the diva. She doesn't look all that freakish, until you notice that her legs seem to be those of some variety of animal, possibly a goat, donkey, or ostrich. Also, everything she sees rots away and turns into flowers. Kaito is the "blue beast who likes to eat things cold", who was apparently forced to eat human limbs (possibly his own--the outfit he was wearing didn't have arm holes) or starve, and developed a taste for them. There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo of Teto as the Hanging Clown, before she gets turned into rotten flowers by Miku's vision.
      • I've heard that Miku didn't literally rot things; she was used as a sex slave. She's 'rotten fruit'. That's why she has the blindfold; so she couldn't see who was raping her.
      • I thought the flowers represented rot in the video; perhaps Miku has rot discretion version?
  • Thanks guys, but it was just a joke, if you look at the history you'll see that the question and original response were both from me...
• Why in the videos and such is Meiko always the killer, or at least leading people to certain doom? Well, for the Mind Screw-ish ones, of course.
  • Because Miku works better as The Corrupted/The Victim, Rin and Len are The Devil Children, and Kaito... Well, for some reason the fandom doesn't seem to think he's capable of much...
    • You're wrong. The fandom thinks he's capable of plenty...
      • Kaito is the Poor Sucker The Keeps Getting Killed Or Suffering Despite Being Harmless Compared To The Others.
        • Len also dies and suffers a lot. And gets forced into ridiculous outfits.
      • Because it's hilarious?
  • Maybe because she wears red, the color of blood?
  • Also, Meiko is often portrayed as a Sadist or at least some kind of tendency towards violence, especially towards Kaito for some reason, so it is kinda logical to put her in these place.
  • Also she was Miss Vocaloid before Miku Hatsune (01), so that make her a Prototype (00).
    • This Troper reads the code on the side of Meiko as "CRV 1". Since Miku's code is "CV 01", it might be implied that Meiko's code is simply "1".
  • Making Meiko as the Sadist is also supported by her strong voice and her hot-blooded looking boxart.
• RinxLen shipping bugs me (it turns some people on), but what annoys me more is the fact that the official response is... well lame. I've heard it said over and over again that it's okay because they are "mirror images" of one another. We have a word for that. Twins or clones. Which still means that any romantic situations between them are going to end quickly, nastily or both.
  • It's okay because it's Rin and Len. Whether they're blood siblings, whether they're A.I. or androids that don't even have blood, they will be shipped. Including by me. Unhappy ending =/= inevitable. Anyway, I think the 'mirror image' thing is the official attempt to please everybody, which as usual for these things didn't quite work.
    • Speaking of which, I kind of wish 75% of the Rin and Len shippers didn't gag at the sight of yaoi/yuri pairings involving either. Really now...
      • Do they? Huh. I hadn't noticed, and I'm a diehard shipper of the Kagamines. Maybe I'm just not involved enough in the fandom?
        • Take a look at fanfiction.net. Also note that there is absolutely no good fanfic in the Vocaloid section.
        • I'm part of the Vocaloid fanfiction community. I'm friends with many of the Rinx Len fans, being one myself, and every single one of them supports yaoi/yuri and many write for it. I do too... Maybe it's the YouTube ones? Also, I find that there are some good fanfictions on the site, but you're partially right. A large amount of the fanfiction is pretty bad, especially if you're not fond of Kagaminecest. The section is dominated by that pairing.
      • I've been reading there for a while, and while most of it's not so good there are a few. Still don't see the hate, though-- At least, not at any higher (or rather, at much lower) rates than other fandoms. I'm not sure how the lack of quality fic relates to the original, or the branch-off which is: Why do people I meet who ship Kaito/Len or Gakupo/Len hate Rin/Len with the hate of a thousand fiery suns? I've come across that much more than the one asked here.
        • It's more of a reactionary thing, at least in my case. You must not read much beyond the Vocaloid LJ community, as there's spats over pairings everywhere, especially on ff.net and Dev Art (try shipping Kaito/Luka and watch the fires start!)
      • Well, there's the answer then: People on all sides should start being less reactionary. Dev Art is too fanwanky for me, and I've never bothered with the comms at ff.net.
      • IMHO, since they are robots, it's like that psychology thing: your ideal love is the opposite gender version of you.
• In Daughter and Servant of Evil, Did Meiko knew that Len was Pretending to be Rin? It seen like she was too, letting her go too, I mean look at this from 7:00 to 7:12.
  • Yes. If you listen to Daughter of Vengeance, she refers to Len-dressed-as-Rin as "the servant who was taken for the princess" and she also knows that Rin is standing among the people.
  • Would make sense she'd be fine with that. Meiko was out to get revenge on Rin, and she and Kaito rebelling against her tyranny led to Rin losing everything, including the one person who sincerely loved her, but now she has to live on, alone, with nothing. Fate Worse Than Death, I'd say.
  • But Daughter of Vengeance is fanmade, not made by Akuno-P/mothy himself. It's up to the reader to decide. But since the original songs imply nothing of the sort, I'd say Meiko didn't know. It'd be very unlikely she'd kill an innocent instead of the person who killed her father (according to mothy's blog). The PV linked is also not the original PV.
    • Not completely innocent... He did kill Miku, and it's implied in Servant of Evil that he's killed before on Rin's orders.
    • Well, the novel (which is written by Akuno-P) says that Len was adopted by Meiko's father (Leon), and he is actually the one who killed Leon, acting on Rin's orders. Meiko grew up with Len so she would most likely be able to recognise him, and she certainly had motivation to kill him.
• Wait, I don't get it. Are they music videos? They're computer programs, but is their a story? How can tropes be applied to them?
  • People confusing fanon with canon, I think...
    • The tropes are applied to the songs and popular fan interpretations. There is a sort of story to each song. So, to answer your last question, the same way one applies tropes to music and music videos.
      • Count me among the baffled. Isn't it true that anyone who buys the software for $180 can make it play whatever song she wants? Shipping Vocaloids makes as much sense as "Roland x Fairlight" or "trombone x french horn" shipping would.
        • Well, since they are voice synthesizers, they are given personality by the creators/fans. And when you can ship Italy and Germany together, trombone/french horn is really nothing.
• You want to know what I don't get? Why there's Ship-to-Ship Combat and Internet Backdrafts everywhere in regards to pairings...for a fandom whose canon changes with each song. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Sure, I'm not too fond of Len x Rin or Kaito x Luka, but you don't see me going Yandere-crazy whenever I see people shipping it.
  • On an unrelated note, should UTAU and Vocaloid be two seperate articles? I'm just curious since they're seperate programs, the only difference being in that UTAU is just a freeware version of Vocaloid and isn't allowed to use famous singers/actors.
• Why is Black Rock Shooter so popular? I like the song and video myself, but I don't know why it's so popular that it gets its own series. In addition to that, exactly what is the story behind it? I read subs of the music video and couldn't make much out of it besides the fact that it might be set in a post-apocalyptic world.
  • Because it was produced by Ryo, who is considered god of all that is Miku. To relate his immense popularity, he is the guy who made Melt, which was played in Hatsune Miku's live concert and was sung by the android using her. The character is unrelated to Hatsune Miku, and the concept art is pretty wicked; with the gigantic boom of Vocaloid works and...you know, Ryo producing the theme song, it became safe to produce an anime work. I don't actually know the plot either.
    • Plot is basically about a girl who fights against an evil girl because someone (possibly the evil one) killed her friend. In the anime trailer, it hints that the evil girl is actually her friend who disappeared, but it might be just to mislead the public.
    • Alright, but how come the other Vocaloid songs don't get an anime? There are some extremely popular ones that would make it, such as the Daughter of Evil series.
      • Because Aku no Musume already has a Theater Play and Kokoro a musical. Not to mention that it's harder to make an anime out of four songs as the centerpiece instead of one (think of a sports team having four mascots). And even so, B* RS is only going to be fifty minutes. Released free online. Not such a big deal after all.
      • Daughter of Evil is actually getting manga series.
• Throwing this idea out there for Impossibly Cool Clothes or similar topic: Miku's boots, assuming they don't have zippers: how can she get in or out of them? Yes, I am expecting "don't think too hard about that".
  • This Troperâ„¢ always thought that she DIDN'T wear boots. Initially, they looked to me more like thigh-high socks on top of sandals, or something like that.
  • I was under the impression that she doesn't need to take them off so...
  • They're actually pretty elastic. There.
  • She's a robot. There's a chance that she is not wearing boots, and what look like boots are just the cover for her legs.
• There's no official American release, is there?
  • Not American, but there are English Vocaloids. Lola, Leon, Prima, Miriam, and (hopefully) soon to be released Big Al and newly annouced Tonio. Also, Sonika is supposed to be able to sing in any language, but...
  • As of Nov 17, 2010, Miku's official Facebook page reached 39,390 likes, which Crypton annouced once that happened they would begin to work on an English release of Miku.
• Why the flying heck is Miku so popular? Okay, I get it, so the Memetic Mutation kind of rose Vocaloids to their popularity, but between people who are already fans of them I can't believe how people prefer her voice to Meiko or Rin's. I find it a little shrill and annoyingly high. Plus many of the videos and fanart usually make her the center of everything...
  • The point of Miku was to make a voice with a range no human can realistically replicate. Not sure why she's so popular, though...
    • Super-long twin-tails, S+ rank zettai ryouiki with tiny miniskirt, and appears in a number of costumes, sometimes with her female costars? Yeah, I wonder why she's so popular with the Vocaloid-loving masses. (Personally, This Troper prefers Rin.) Anyway, not so sure about the majority of videos/fanart featuring her, though she is the flagship character so it's not surprising if it's true.
  • Probably because she is the first Vocaloid to produce "child-like Kawaii" voices. No other Vocaloid has yet been as "Kawaii" as her.
    • Yuki was deliberately created to be cute, yet she's unpopular. Sweet Append Miku produces an even more child-like voice, but she's second to Dark Append (who sounds older and heartbroken) in popularity. In fact, cuteness has nearly dropped off the radar in terms of popularity in the Vocaloid fandom, the reason why Miku remains so popular today is likely her status as an all-rounder.
• Some of the Magnet duets. Now most of the less obvious (obvious ones being the shared gender ones) ones can be explained. Meiko and Kaito? Those two are commonly interpreted as siblings, so it works. But would someone mind explaining how the heck a Gakupo and Luka one fits the theme of that song? Its not a love song, its a FORBIDDEN love song!
  • So, then... if it's heterosexual and it's not (questionably) incest, it can't possibly be forbidden love? I guess Romeo and Juliet were siblings, then! Pretty much any Vocaloid couple can fit the Magnet song if you use a little bit of imagination. I'm certain that there are many reasons why a Samurai, whose class had strict codes on who they could marry and even who they could take as a * mistress* , would be forbidden to love a particular woman.
    • Or, maybe people just wanted to hear those particular voices singing that song.
    • Anyone note that Gakupo and Luka are made by different companies..?
  • Y'know, it COULD be forbidden in-context...
  • The canon is pretty much "whatever the heck you think it should be" (with a few small exceptions here and there), so there's really no reason why any Vocaloid ship couldn't potentially be forbidden love, as long as somebody can come up with a scenario where it works. When there's minimal official canon, it's pretty easy to make anything work as long as you can imagine a backstory for it.
• Why sometimes Kaito is named Shion Kaito on some videos?
  • It's his fanmade surname, but many seem to mistake it as official.
• Why does everyone accuse Miku of being a Mary Sue? The only given reasons why are "she's pretty, has a nice voice, and people generally like her". Um...does that mean most Vocaloids are Mary Sues since they fall into those definitions too?
  • Yes. It's because pretty much all Vocaloid songs (and songs in general) rely on romanticized personalities; therefore, characters who's lives revolve around music = romanticized = mary sues.
    • Few people characterize Vocaloids as characters whose lives revolve around music. Generally, fanfiction and "talkloids" serve to give the Vocaloids some personality, though most of the Word of Dante comes from songs. Remember, not everyone has to sing songs that are in line with their personality. If we do treat songs this way, there would be so many conflicts among different songs that it would be an utter mess.
  • Simple. On the many of the fan vids, she's this pretty, popular, nice, amazing girl who is loved by everyone and has every boy falling for her, and if she ever gets into trouble, it's only because she's so great. (Daughter of Evil, Alice Human Sacrifice come to mind). She's constantly shoehorned as the center of everything for no goddamned reason. It's Spotlight-Stealing Squad to the third degree, at least to the people who like other Vocaloids, to the point that a lot of people (and sometimes the creators, as seen in the merchandise) tend to tend to forget that other Vocaloids even exist.
    • For a while, people were so enamored with the novelty of a singing program that they never took the time to develop Miku's personality. Therefore, her stock personality at the time reflected that, and since a lot of early songs ended up in the Small Reference Pools of the majority of the overseas fandom, people get the impression that she's still this way today. It's just plain inaccurate to say that her personality has completely shoved everyone else off the map, in fact, Luka, Rin, and Gumi have all had their turn as the Spotlight-Stealing Squad. Miku is popular, but not as popular as a lot of people make her out to be.
    • It's actually quite the opposite. When Miku was released, MEIKO and KAITO's popularity skyrocketed. In addition, most people discover vocaloids through Miku, so it's not really a matter of 'forgetting' the others.
    • KAITO's did. MEIKO's went up, then went into a nosedive. Unfairly enough, MEIKO became The Scrappy for a while and is still this to an extent now.
    • If I recall, Miku's short comings in Alice Human Sacrifice were entirely her fault.
  • This troper doesn't get it either. I mean... she a Vocaloid. She doesn't has a canon personality. If you hate Miku's Mary Sue-ness, then blame the songwriters and PV creators. Or make one that doesn't potray Miku like that. Anyways. It's impossible to call someone a Mary Sue when, you know, she's basically a blank slate.
• Which version of these songs are the creator version of them?
  • Dreaming Leaf - Miku or Rin
  • Migikata no Chou - Rin or Len
  • Cantarella - Kaito or Kaito X Miku
    • Miku's version of Dreaming Leaf was first (by OSTER project), Rin's version of Migikata no Chou was first (although Len's version was also made by the same creator, Nori-P), and the Kaito X Miku version was first (by Dios/Signal-P).
• Why the credits of Sakura no Ame shown when the song is played Hatsune Miku Project Diva is not Halyosy despite he is the song creator? Or the kanji shown is Halyosy's real name?
  • The kanji shown is Halyosy's real name.
• Is Miku's or Luka's version of Stardust Utopia the song creator's version of it?
  • It's Luka's (by otetsu).
• The "Hagane Vocaloids." As a metalhead myself (I have a very wide taste in music,) I'm facepalming at whoever is dubbing these designs as 'Heavy Metal.' Only a spare few of them even look like they could be classified as Rock.
  • They're more punk-ish, if anything. Surprising, though, given the large metal presence in Japan. Or maybe that's how they dress there.
    • Are you referring to the "M-Side" Hagane-loids? I agree, for the longest time I did not believe that these guys could be 'metal' even though they are all over the place in the English fandom, because in my opinion they looked ridiculous...that is, until I found out that the punk-looking ones are fanmades of a fanmade. Hansi's versions (original/H-Side) definitely fits the 'metal' look a lot better than Momopanda's M-Side.
• What bugs me is when new fans call Rin and Len "Lin and Ren" or Luka as "Ruka". It says it right there on the box people! One fan even accused the Japanese creators of being "wrong" about the names!
  • There's something in the Lin/Ren names that makes it easy to mix up.
  • Japanese has no L sound, so the two are interchangeable.
• Considering the sheer amount of tweaks one has to go through to get a vocal track to sound right, it Just Bugs Me that so many listeners dismiss Vocaloid songs as cheap, lazy Auto-Tune crap — and a lot of this bashing seems to come from people who never liked Jpop (or pop in general, really) all that much to begin with.
• Okay, as a Mac user myself, I find it really frustrating that the VOCALOID programs are not available for Macs (or at least the ones that I looked into so this might not be completely true). This seems unfair seeing as I don't want to have to go out and buy a compatible computer so as to use the software and since it doesn't seem like they're planning to release them for Macs, it just bugs me even more.
  • Using MikuInstaller or Wine (since they're both built in the same platform) works like a charm. Absolutely no bugs. (Mac user here who's tested it out.)
  • There is a Vocaloid called Macne Nana who works with Garage Band.
• Who is exactly Team MOER? The one who is behind the Project DIVA 2nd song Colorful X Melody.
  • It's a team of doriko, OSTER project, minato, and 19's Sound Factory.
• What is Rin/Len's 'Karakuri Burst' about? Rin's a kunoichi and Len's a...nazi? And Miku and Kaito are their bosses respectively? I can't find any explaination's of the plotline and the lyrics don't translate into a story very well...
  • Some people believe that Rin and Len were seperated at birth, and one was taken and raised as "Good," and the other as "Evil." They are pitted against each other by the kidnappers, and then they remember their childhood and realise they're related. If you really analyze the lyrics, though, it seems like both of the verses are equally chaoruppt even though Rin seems more pshyco and Len is just very to-the-book.
• I just wanna see if I can get this straight... Vocaloid's popularity is mostly from the Miku cover of Ievan Polka, right? And that's a parody of the leekspin meme, which is the clip of Orihime spinning a leek. So is Vocaloid basically famous because of Bleach?
  • Not nessecarily. The three songs that contributed to Miku's success(which is what started the vocaloid boom, not many knew about Kaito/Meiko even though they came out before Miku) are Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru, Koisuru VOC@LOID, and Packaged. Ievan Polkka did help a little bit, and was also the origin of Hatchune Miku, the chibi Miku character.
• Is Crypton going to finish CV04 or is he going to end up as Vaporware? Cause I seriously hope it's not the latter...
  • They're probably just holding off until they get all their other projects (Kaito and Meiko Append, English Miku, Vocaloid 3 engine, Vocalistener, etc.) done. Luka hasn't been out for too long either, so there's no rush.
  • Word of God has confirmed that it's still in production. They're not listing him as CV04 anymore, though (they're calling him "male vocal").
• Why would Kasane Teto is included as Project DIVA 2nd DLC? Isn't that she is an UTAU?
  • I think she was recently canonized.
• In Regret Message, there are two videos that have different translations of the third and fourth lines of the first verse: "By this sea, there existed / An ancient tradition from long before" and "Looking out to the sea that holds her memories / A story that she cannot tell". Which one is the right one?
  • The correct translation is "By this sea, there existed / An ancient tradition from long before".