Thoughts on “Mirai no Neiro -The Sound of the Future-” Panel @ AX 2014

Thoughts on “Mirai no Neiro -The Sound of the Future-” Panel @ AX 2014

Its a bit delayed but welcome to the first of Engloids.Info’s recap coverage of AnimeExpo 2014. First up is a VocaRant article where Executive Editor ‘Hentai’ shares his thoughts on “Mirai no Neiro -The Sound of the Future-” AnimeExpo’s annual Vocaloid panel hosted by D.P.H. (Delusion Production House)

For those unfamiliar with Mirai no Neiro’s basic format it consists of a host/translator along with a panel of 3-5 Vocaloid producers who each take turns introducing themselves, sharing a bit of their work (often a PV something new), and a segment where each producer either gives some background in the production of that particular song or Vocaloid in general.

This year’s panel of producer included the likes of buzzG, KagomeP, sunzriver, UtataP & WataameP. While they all had a lot of interesting things to share, KagomeP and UtataP in particular thanks to their relatively high English proficiency and great stories, what really stood out to me were the segments by the Illustrator WOGURA and MMD Producer MasatakaP.

I think an important thing to remember is due to its dynamic and internet nature Vocaloid is very much a visual-audio medium. I am guilty of this as much as the next person but when I think of Vocaloid I think of the software, the voices, the music and often I completely forget that ‘Vocaloid Music’ isn’t just the music but also the video and illustrations that accompany each song as it is uploaded to sites like YouTube and NicoNicoDouga.

Though I buy Vocaloid music in album form when I think of things like The BIG ALbum I don’t just imagine its track listing but the cover of the album with BIG AL and the American Flag he hides on the pack of his jacket. When Tell Your World comes on rotation on my MP3 player the Google Chrome Commercial instantly comes to mind. When I hear an utaitte sing Love is War images of warplanes and megaphones start dancing in my head. When I hear World’s End Dancehall my world drops to greyscale and I start of have urges to break down doors.

Vocaloid is not just a software, its not just the music, its an entire read-write culture of visuals & sounds and I am glad D.P.H. not only invited Vocaloid producers but an illustrator and MMD animator as well. My only regret is that AnimeExpo and SPJA grossly mismanaged the lines at #LineCon and due to the convention staff’s ineptitude they didn’t START seating the crowd till the panel was slated to start (even though the room was empty) causing the panel to loose 20 minutes of its runtime and robbing MasatakaP his chance to talk about MMD an the animation side of things.

Look at me, instead of talking about what actually happened in the panel I ended up critiquing it and ranting about Vocaloid, the culture around it and its status as a visual-audio medium primarily publicized through video. Anyways for those interested in what actually went on during the panel I setup a Storify of tweets that happened during the panel.

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About The Author

Hentai

I am part oldie, part newbie, and in many ways a walking contradiction. My interests include anime, manga, computers, and videogames. I am the voicer of OTAKUNE Weeabo, a moderator on UtaForum, and the Executive Editor of Engloids.Info.

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