Author: Hentai

Hatsune Miku Retrospective: Lost History

“Hatsune Miku Retrospective” is a series of blogs relating to the like-named panel to be hosted at Anime Los Angeles 14. This blog “Lost History” is the first in the series and chronicles issues encountered in the research phase of the panel.

Preparing for my upcoming panel was quite a nostalgic experience.

I got to reflect on my decade of being a Vocaloid fan and look back at old videos and all of a sudden I am a freshman in college, Bleach had just come out and this viral video with a girl spinning a leek became a hit between my friends. There wasn’t a term for this at the time but I guess I can say ‘lolituma’ and ‘leek spin’ would become one of my first exposures to a “meme”. From this meme would spawn the infamous video by Otomania, Hachune Miku, and my first exposure to Vocaloid.

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Maika Artist Noririn to Crowdfund Vocaloid Artbook

The character designer and artist for Voctro-Lab’s Vocaloid Maika just launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking to crowdfund the creation of a Vocaloid artbook titled The Art of VOCALOID MAIKA. Backer rewards include the artbook, limited editions, commissions, buttons, stickers, keychains mugs, T-shirts, figures, prints and 3D models.

At the time of publishing the campaign is already fully funded but as Kickstarters go those goals are usually the amount needed minimum viable product and every little bit helps. The campaign is slated to close on December 1st 2017 so you still have time to reserve your artbooks and Maika related goodies until then.

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Utauvision 2017 Begins Team Formation Phase

Utauvision is an international country-based internet UTAU song battle competition where teams work together to sing, make art, mix and animate to make great songs and videos. Teams are self-organized with anywhere from 3 to 6 members from the same country where they try to combine various skill-sets (art, tuning, mixing, etc.) to make a well rounded team.

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Seiun Virtual Idols Project’s Viki Hopper to Perform at VOCAMERICA

With the VOCAMERICA Kickstarter now closed AkiGlancy (EmpathP) has revealed the “mystery UTAU” that claimed the $1,000 “UTAU Performance Reward Package” to be none other Seiun Virtual Idols Project’s Viki Hopper. Viki Hopper is an English VCCV voicebank developed for the UTAU singthesis software.

As part of “UTAU Performance Reward Package” Viki Hopper will appear in concert performing an original song written and composed by EmpathP. As updates for Viki Hopper are still pending she won’t debut until “next summer” during a yet unnamed future VOCAMERICA event as the opening act.

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