Sunday 8 May 2011

Some songs and American Miku

By now anyone who's interested has undoubtedly already heard about the whole Toyota Corolla promotion featuring Miku, but I felt like adding my two cents anyway.

moe~
Like others have said, I don't see it having any value for Toyota. Most (dare I say all?) Miku fans can't afford to buy a new car, and anyone who doesn't already know her is going to be confused if not well and truly put off by the commercial. Well, the long one at least. I think the short one is a lot better for a number of reasons: the narrator isn't wanking on about dreams and works of art, we don't hear Miku's banshee wail, and we don't hear the "ima sugu ni yo" which I think seems a bit out of place - foregrounding the Japanese vocals would just serve to further distance people. If I saw the short commercial and didn't know about Miku I think I'd almost be tempted to look her up.

But it's not really about selling cars. Miku's English debut is coming up, and Crypton are trying to drum up some excitement. Surely that's not so bad? Well, no, but I still think it's a bad approach since there's still the problem of it doing very little to expand the potential market. In fact it could well end up reducing it, restricting the scope of English Miku to the 'otaku' community.

What I think they should have done is something more along the lines of Yamaha's VY1, which sounds fairly similar to Miku but was released without a character image and was advertised as having a unisex voice (although it sounds quite feminine). Obviously Miku already has a well-established character and this is the leading cause of her success, but given the Western market's general distaste for overtly anime-looking goods, I think playing down her character a bit in advertising would have been a better choice. This would give Miku more of a future in professional music (as a backup vocalist or whatever) rather than being shunned as a piece of chinese girl software. 

I could be wrong. Miku could catalyse the 'otaku' (I don't like using that word but it conveys meaning well) community into a state of unprecedented creativity and we'll actually get some good works made using her voice. I'd very much like that, but I remain pessimistic.

That's enough negativity for one blog post so I'm going to post some music. None of it's new or anything, just some tracks that I've been listening to recently.


I picked up this CD (Puzzle) on a whim when I was in Japan last Christmas, and this song's been stuck in my head on and off since. The circle is 恋竹林 (koichikurin) and the song is SA/BA/O/RI. Miku's voice is pushed a bit high but it's still pretty catchy. Another song off the album that I particularly like is Puzzle, which has a fairly similar sort of sound.


This one's Orbital, a fairly old song sung by Teto. It's got a fairly muddy sound but I really like the voice. The same guy did a second version of the same song called, not surprisingly, Orbital 2nd. It's got a cleaner sound and uses Rin as well as Teto. It's a good song too, though I think I still prefer the first.


This one isn't Vocaloid related at all - it's リラの街から (From the town of Lyre) by ORIGA, who is probably best known for her vocals on the Ghost in the Shell soundtracks. It's in Russian, I think it was released over a decade ago, but I think it's a beautiful song.

I played some Minecraft earlier with HHH and NEET. It was fun, and they've got some impressive structures going. I was going to hop back on and play some more after dinner but Cella (a Korean Zerg player from team SlayerS) is streaming Starcraft 2 and he's damn entertaining to watch. His English is pretty good too. I'll have to get back on tomorrow and work on my little house some more.

10 comments:

  1. So not moé~ Seriously, that's so bad, one can't help but question what they were thinking at the time. I think it's just a case of west cannnot into moé. Moé doesn't sell here, IMPROVE THE DESIGN BY MAKING IT UGLY.

    >Most (dare I say all?) Miku fans can't afford to buy a new car

    I wouldn't directly call myself a "Miku fan," but I can see how this can be true.

    >Miku's English debut is coming up

    I hope my body can take the Justin Bieber. No, I will probably pass out.

    >In fact it could well end up reducing it, restricting the scope of English Miku to the 'otaku' community.

    Funny how that works, huh? I hope it does play out that way. Maybe they'll learn.

    Unrelated, but I had my volume up when I played the first video. Scared the shit out of me.

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  2. >Toyota Corolla promotion featuring Miku
    >amerimiku.jpg
    >Miku's English debut is coming up

    why

    Just why. And that commercial was horrible.

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  3. I don't even want to see the commercial. Seeing the new "Miku" was enough for me. I really don't like these attempts to import Japanese things into the West, but at the same time it's stupid of me to not like it. I guess there is some degree of, "I don't want everyone to like what I like" left in me.

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  4. >Hatsoony Mekoo

    Uh... Every time.

    >I could be wrong. Miku could catalyse the 'otaku' (I don't like using that word but it conveys meaning well) community into a state of unprecedented creativity and we'll actually get some good works made using her voice. I'd very much like that, but I remain pessimistic.

    Oh yeah! ... No. No, actually anyone that thinks it through knows that there wont be anything of substance produced by the western fanbase.

    For one thing the Japanese otaku and internet user culture is completely different and there is an older and move vibrant creative community than simple consumerism and hackjob AMV's.

    There are already English language Vocaloids and have been long before Miku. The language barrier is just an excuse people could use to save face for never doing anything worthwhile with Miku.

    I really think Crypton has misunderstood the situation here, and that as far as the English speaking western community is concerned the English language Miku will end up being a torrent download that collects dust on people's drives.

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  5. >unisex voice
    That has to be a voice of a child.

    Cool music.

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  6. big companies always doing things like thatt

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  7. I'm actually more curious about how they thought that this was a good idea. I can't really see how this will bring more positive awareness to Miku outside of weeaboos who will most likely say "What anime char is this???"

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  8. @Kami no Pocky

    Thanks, you put it better than I could have. I completely agree, the western fanbase is too used to other people making the content, and the creativity just doesn't seem to be there.

    If it was, we'd have seen people using Miku or other vocaloids to make decent English songs, while as it stands we've got nothing but the occasional vocaloid doing a horrible cover of a Lady Gaga song.

    >I can't really see how this will bring more positive awareness to Miku outside of weeaboos who will most likely say "What anime char is this???"

    Someone, somewhere, thinks that Miku is one of the characters from the Touhou anime.

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  9. I'm just seething in anger at how this could happen. There's already a movement that involves bombarding Toyota with emails to recall that commercial.

    Then there's the Amerifat/Narutard weaboos that don't understand the underlying implications of all this. I'm pretty sure on of those people were the ones that spearheaded the whole campaign on bringing Miku here.

    Sure, I'm probably one of the few people that can benefit from AmeriMiku in the sense that the program will be in English and I can use it on my Pro Tools interface. But I can already do that by messing around with translation patches. Fuck this English voice bank bullshit.

    I suggest that everybody should make an uproar to stop this before it's too late!

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  10. shit's going like crazy on in america.

    now this and tomorrow the declarataion of the second impact being a lie.

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