AWTY 158 - Gathering of the Mikus (Weebinar: Vocaloids)

You could feel faded by your under I will lead you down I will make you happy.

Hello and welcome to our weave. There yet in exploration and education in anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert and birthday person, D hollander. ooh.

I'm brenna mccullough. You're an anime holographic tupac.

Perfect.

I'm sensing a theme from that.

Yeah, it's also tupac's birthday, right?

Is it?

How could this be?

How we bring them back?

We got a fun little diversion from the usual format to celebrate dee's birthday.

We sure do. I couldn't be more excited.

We're more terrified.

Good. As I said last time, the only uncharted territory I really have left from my youth as an anime fan is Vocaloid. So I have taken the time to put together somewhat of a vocaloid presentation for these guys.

Oh boy.

A new format. We'll see if it comes back after this if it doesn't scare us away. But this will be a webinar segment as we learn more of surrounding anime things.

Yeah, I mean, the show is called are We There Yet? So it's like this is Weebie weeb adjacent.

It's definitely touching on anime. Like, it's definitely anime characters and stuff. So it's good enough. It doesn't have to be a full anime series. But boy, howdy everyone knows. Me too.

Yeah. I was going to ask if either of you know anything about Vocaloid.

I know. Me too. And that's it. That's where my knowledge stops.

Fair enough.

Yeah. I have the concept of vocaloid. I get it. I've been around anime long enough to realize this. We see a lot of shows where it's like, yes, the digital Music Agency. Yes. carolyn Tuesday. You're fighting against AI usage, so stuff like that. But not really. Any concept of listening to it through personal preference.

Sure thing. I understand. Honestly, I haven't really listened to vocaloid stuff since I was in middle school. When I go back and listen to it, I'm like, Fuck yeah, this is it. So I'm really excited to stop it. What the fuck is this?

Brandon? Listen, I know me notification.

I didn't want it okay?

It's the intersection. I will not be surprised if this if the webinar goes well. The problem is that it will give brenton the opportunity to then just talk about digimon for his birthdays.

Shit. Sorry. We're scrapping this episode. What about that most recent yugio series?

Oh, I know. yukio, you want to get into yugio? I can get to yugio too. Oh no, that's work. Open this pandora's box.

This is definitely something I'm very interested to get into because in my everyday non anime life, music plays a big part. So it is nice to check in and get this, like, common ground here. So yeah. Real quick, let's check in with Vocal. Lloyd being a very middle schooly thing for D brendan, where were you at with music at this time? Because this is my good prime, like grunge and getting into punk era. So this 8th grade is where I sort of got that, like adult consciousness, if that makes sense. Like, the timeline for my brain started getting linear at about 13, so I was like, oh, yes, I'm an adult now. I think things and they matter. I am no longer a child.

I'll let you know when I get there.

But, yeah, this is where I was like, oh, yes. I don't need to just listen to the music my parents listen to. I can find my own things.

I don't I don't like what I've done. I am I don't know if there's a specific term for it, but I would consider myself musically illiterate. I have bad taste in music and I'm aware of and it's fine. My first cd I ever bought was the Bare Naked Ladies album. My first concert was weird.

Owl hey, I've been to a Weird Al concert.

It's great, they're fantastic and full circle. My first album, I was Weird Al.

Wow.

But you know how you progress beyond that and develop your own sense of musical taste afterwards? Not me. I hung out with a lot of metal heads, but I was the nerd in the metal head group, so I listened to a lot of sticks. A lot of the offspring got some simon and garfunkel. My dad burnt the songs from Nightmare Before Christmas and I had them on a cd in middle school.

I love Nightmare Before Christmas. Parents and their children. I think that is a fascinating subculture.

Oh, this deeply traumatized me as a child and now we're bonding over it. Oh, you got over the trauma? No, but we're bonding over it currently.

Working through it.

Working through it. Went to a hot topic a lot with my dad. That was a weird experience in hindsight. Yeah. Music. I have no input it's on music. I have no one respects my opinions on music and they should not. I'm aware of how I listen to what I listen to. I don't bother people. I genuinely couldn't tell you beyond. Like Nightmare for Christmas Bird. cd simon A garfunkel and the Offspring It's a weird mash up. I can't defend it.

It's fine. I mean, no one should have to defend their middle school tastes. Here we are. But, yeah, I also was in that boat of like all of my friends were like the jazz musicians, so they liked capital and music. When I tried to get into their stuff, they were like, no, you don't like this. And I was like, yeah, I don't like this.

You're right.

Then I started liking my own stuff and they were like, hey, we don't like this. I guess I'll never win with my friend group. I guess I'll just listen to whatever. And that's how I started listening to punk and no one else did.

It's very similar to me, except I had an older brother who I hated everything he liked. So I pretended to not like punk, but I did in hindsight. villar. Yeah, I guess the remotes are good. Yeah. Dead candidates are like, God damn it's all good. Okay, fine.

But yeah. Besides vocaloid, what other stuff were you listening to? If it helps paint the canvas of where you were at musically in middle school.

Well, so middle school was when I was really in my weeb prime. So I listened to Vocaloid, like, religiously, and then my other group of friends who weren't weebs were going through their emo phase. So I did in fact listen to my Chemical Romance also.

All right, well, I think the stage is set. Shall we throw away to our listening party?

Yes. I'm so excited. I'll post a list of all the songs on Twitter. So anybody wants it, it'll be there.

All right. Who was going to tell me that miku fucks?

No.

Internet was holding out on me.

Do you mean like literally? Because we do I got a song section of songs called bangin banging song.

Literally. Yeah. So of course we had to touch on some hatsini. miku, of course. We got a little sampling that I didn't really have before, but yeah, I didn't realize miku fucks canonically.

Canonically.

I just kind of assumed it was like barbie, where there's, like, miku and then miku has, like, a younger sister and then also a daughter and then maybe another daughter. Maybe that's a sister's daughter. I'm not sure how barbie works, but I assume that miku was similar where there was just a lot of idols, focal odds. I don't know that term.

Yeah, barbie was the frame of reference I did have because I was like, okay, I'm aware of Japanese idols being like, oh, no, I'll never have sex until I'm married because I'm saving it for you, listener. And I was like, okay, so, yeah, obviously a robot is not going to be fucking people, right? Well, no, this robot's fucking people.

Surprise. What a delightful surprise.

I also know there's like the AI home assistant stuff, like everyone's a lot of people have, but I like the alexis the series and all that. I know there's like hologram based one. It's basically the same thing, but in Japan it's just like a tube. And in the tube is like, a little hologram. At least the commercial I saw for it was miku. So it's like that way you could have your own virtual girlfriend at home waiting for you and you hook it up to your phone and they would send you text messages and stuff, like through your phone. I was like, this is crossing a line. This is a weird I've seen blade Runner too many times.

Yeah, that's getting into some weird territory. Yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Let's pull back in the weird territory. Okay.

Go back to 2008.

Yes. So we're going to start off with a section. What is vocaloid, I'm going to tell you. So Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software produced by yamaha. And the first software was actually released in 2004. So there are various voice banks or singers that people can buy, and at least the Japanese ones are based off of real Japanese voice actors. So it's got at this point, I don't listen to new vocaloid music, really. I would like to, but I just don't know how to keep up with it.

Seems like a lot.

Yeah. And I mean, when I was in middle school, it was and it must be even bigger now. It's a huge community of producers, artists, cos players, singers and dancers. Like, it's got to be endless at this point. There was a platform, a Japanese platform called nico Nikodoga, which was a place for Japanese singers to cover the songs and for dancers to post their choreography on. My YouTube channel used to have just a whole playlist of covers because the covers would be top notch. They were so good a lot of the time. And I also tried to learn the dances. Can I dance? No.

Time'S. A flat circle. It's prototict.

Exactly. donut TikTok find the Vocaloid dance covers. And there was also a pretty big dubbing community on YouTube where they would take the translations and make them singable. I'm not really sure what it's like anymore, but I actually used to talk to some of the big shots. I was very cool on YouTube. In middle school, when YouTube had messaging, I had like a long message thread with this one artist named Rock Leadist who was this really nice woman. And then I used to talk on skype with this other girl. I forget her name now, but yeah. So it was a weird time for me. But very formative.

Yeah. Finding community, finding friends.

Yeah. And I did want to mention your guys'experience with Vocal. Lloyd is probably when Griffin mcelroy used it in the Crystal Kingdom arc of the Adventure zone.

I'll be real. I listened to the adventure zone. I remember zero of it.

Great.

I blacked out for something in that Griffin triggered something and my sleep are still activated and I just don't remember, like, 2015.

Yeah. Honestly, I don't know if it can be considered or if it's just like autotune or whatever the actual classification is, but probably my first exposure to Vocaloid music is Portal and.

Jonathan Golden. Oh, that caught me off guard.

I mean, like, for real. You're not wrong, van and those songs slapped.

Still, objectively, I was not ready for you to say glados is my favorite vocaly.

Not my favorite, but the first exposure.

Yes.

Robot singing.

Cool.

Yeah. That is a little different because I don't know if the voice actress does the singing, but I think someone does sing it and then they affect it to make it sound like a robot. Yeah, but yeah, that's a gateway to singing software.

Yeah, I know, for me, early on, I was always confused by what vocalists were. I thought they were just a person with a virtual identity. I didn't realize it was a fully automated system.

Yeah. Software producers and songwriters can buy to make the Vocal Bank sing.

Interesting.

Yeah. So let's get into the characters, the personalities. So, first off, we've got her hatsune. miku. She's here. Welcome.

The one, the only, that I know.

It'S all we got.

Yeah. So we're gonna get to know her a little better. So she is a 16 year old virtual idol. Her initial release was in August 2007 and she's had various iterations as Vocaloid software has advanced. She had an upgraded version come out in 2010 that came with the tones sweet, dark, soft, light, vivid and solid. So it was just like, different ways to make her sound and it sounded a little more realistic.

I'm the same age as meeku. That feels wrong.

She are you were 16 in 2007?

Yeah.

Oh, that's fun.

Oh, dang, that feels weird.

Niku'S 30 now, everyone.

Don't out me like this.

Sorry. And I thought this was interesting and like so she's marketed as a teen idol, but her personality was kept vague by the creators. So producers and songwriters could make a personality through their music. So, yeah, you look at miku and you're like, oh, she's a teen idol. She probably has that personality. But then creators were like, no, let's make her fuck.

Let's make her fucking murder.

Exactly. So, I mean, it gets there eventually, right? You look at a cute character and.

You'Re like, if you're changing up somehow.

Yeah, but yeah. So there's been, like, niku albums released and they do concerts now with, like, all of the vocaloids and it's just watching holograms dance around on stage when.

It'S fun to be alive.

Yeah, I think they call it miku Expo. I'm not sure if that's the tour or if it's like an actual event thing, but that's what it's called. And then the song I recommended for you guys, it's very on brand for her is a song from 2008 called strobe Night. It's very spacey and cute and high energy. And like, looking at the lyrics, I realized that a lot of her songs are about being alone and misunderstood. Like, I'm just a little robot and no one understands but they all love me.

I too, have problems relating to holograms.

So. Yes, that's miku. Moving on. We've got rin and len Cogamine. So rin and len are twins that are younger than miku. There wasn't an official age listed on their wikipedia, but I think they're supposed to be like 13 or 14. Their names are a play on right and left, and their last name comes from the Japanese words for mirror, which is kagami, and sound, which is nay. So Kagamine it yeah, they were right on the no shortly. Sorry. Go ahead.

So right on the nose.

Oh, yep. So they were released shortly after miku in December of 2007. And when they were released, producers kind of had mixed reviews for them because their vocals were harder to use. And I would say that probably they have the most mixed reviews from fans, too. People tend to not like rin very much. len has actually always been my favorite, though. Interesting.

Yeah. I will say, listening through all these songs, I also, for extra credit, did some listening just to a recent Vocaloid banger playlist, just really what's out there. And yeah, the vocal quality of these sounds was much harsher even compared to miku at the time. It's like, okay, this is clearly not as sophisticated software as some of the other ones.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's just how I was hearing it. Like I said, my ears are garbage, actually. So I'm not a professional to dictate the quality of audio. But with a Lynn, it seemed like his lyrics were like choppier. Like it seemed like they cut short more. Yeah. Even when duggan said even mika a few years earlier, her songs kind of seemed to flow better. Same with ryn, but Lynn seemed to like and it seems like with all of his songs that I heard, that might just be I don't know, it's a bias. I developed it without realizing it, but it seemed to cut off more in. It reminded me a lot of per rap of the rapper where it was just cut off and people making songs with different words, like an audio hostage note.

Yeah. So I guess it is just a result of their program being a little more difficult. But they did get upgraded voice banks over time. rinse expansion came with the tones power, warm and sweet and Lens came with power, cold and serious. And even though, like, the characters are twins, I guess that's not necessarily canon. And they're depicted as like lovers sometimes in their songs, which is not my favorite.

Pick one and stick with it, please.

Yeah. And the song that I recommended is one of those songs. It's called suki kitai, which means love, hate. And I think it's really cute. But it is like their twins.

Yeah, I got confused for a while. There is a trope we see a lot, though, with twins in anime.

Unfortunately, it does fit the technically not incest bingo.

I thought about it.

The other song is like it's just like, cute. Like it's just about like innocent crushes. A lot of rinse songs are and this one's just very like classic anime romcom plot where it's just like, I don't know if I like you. And he's like, oh, but I'm so confident, you have to like me. And then they like each other in the end. Moving on to kaito. So kaito is actually the first Japanese vocaloid. He was released before miku. There's no official age for him listed on the wiki either, but I think he's supposed to be, like, in his early twenty s. And he got his name because yamaha thought it would be easy for non Japanese speakers to pronounce. And they also liked the way his name looked. With mako, the other vocaloid, I think she was released before him, but they're kind of like they go together. So he was released in February of 2006, and he was a flop because the people who were interested in vocaloids were mostly men. So, yes, he did not do very well, but once miku took off, once miku took off, his sales got better. So he also got an upgrade. His came out in 2013 with the tones Straight, Soft, whisper, and English.

Yuck. Straight. No thank you.

And yeah, he's often paired with miku and, like, songs and fan art. And then for his song, him and mako don't have a lot of super popular songs. So the one that I put on the list is Canterella, which is it's funny, Brendan. You were like, oh, are there any creepy sexy songs? This one's creepy, but not in the way that the actual creepy songs are because this is just kaito being nasty to me, too.

This one kind of had weird clown bloodborne energy. Like, watching the video with it, too. I was like, what's happening here? What's going on?

Yeah, it's very, like, Fan of the Opera esque, where they knew each other when they were young. But he's older than her and now she's older and he's like, oh, now I want to bang.

Yeah, I thought it was really interesting. That a common theme for a lot of the songs you picked are like a lot of these have fairy tale or sort of like romantic castle settings and stuff like that. It's like, hey, sci-fi is right there. You bought, but you're really committing to fantasy. All right, I'm not complaining. It's just like, hey, the closer choices, right? No. All right, go through your second thought.

All right. It's also like this era because most of the songs are from 2008, 2009, and like, I I don't know what vocaloid is like now, so I don't know. It could just be what people were into.

Yeah. This is like a black butler era.

Yeah, baby.

I don't want to say what I was thinking about.

So next is mako. So mako was released before kaito in November of 2004. Oh, I'm sorry. She was actually the first vocaloid to sing in Japanese, so she was the fourth one released. And she's also received an upgrade with the Tones, Power, Straight, Dark, and whisper Again straight.

Based on the content of the song.

So mako was generally well received when she came out, but at this point, she's like, the least popular of the original crew. I think this is because of the introduction of luka Megarina, who we'll talk about in a minute, who has, like, a similar sound to mako where it's supposed to be like, a more mature woman. And I was like, maybe her. Because mako is also like, kaito portrayed as a woman in her 20s. So I was like, maybe that has something to do with her popularity, but that's kind of how luca is portrayed as well. So I don't know.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Sometimes you have the right formula, but it just doesn't come out the way you want it to.

Yeah. And then the song I recommended is Evil Food eater Konchita, which is not a song that I've actually like. It wasn't like one of my favorites or anything. I knew about it, but people really like it. It's just about her being a cannibal.

Okay, I get it.

Yeah. And I was listening to it for this, and I was like, at the end, she eats herself. And I was like, oh, yeah. Okay.

All right, sick.

We've all been in that mood, I.

Noticed, with these spooky, like miko or oboros, am I right?

I like that one.

I think it was the first one I noticed where I'm like, oh, all the other focaloids are in this as well as the twins are like a butler and a maid. kaito was like the chef or something. I was like, oh, is it like reoccurring cast? Like, is this a group of the vocal AIDS? And they all use each other as different characters in their songs and stuff? Or I guess team ups. It's easier that way.

Yeah. And like art and stuff. When people make music videos, they tend to do that. They make the cast the other vocaloids because it just kind of makes sense because they're all in the same universe.

Yeah.

Just plop them in there. And then the last of the vocaloids I'm going to talk about, like I said before, is luca Megarina. I was going to leave her out, but then over the course of choosing the songs, I was like, oh, no, I should talk about her. So she was released in January of 2009. She was the first vocaloid to be designed to sing in Japanese and English. Like, from the get. Yeah. So her upgrade came with the tones hard, soft, hard eve C and soft E ve C. And that stands for enhanced Voice Expression Control. And it was made to allow for, like, delicate adjustments. And even though she was programmed to sing in English, her marketing was actually aimed toward Japanese producers. And I believe this is the vocaloid that Griffin used in the Crystal Kingdom. And then her song that I recommended is Just to Be Friends from 2009. And I honestly love this song.

It's still a boss.

I like it a lot. It's just like a classic breakup song of, like, couple meets young Mary's Young, and then they fall out of love and it's like, sad, but the beat is a bop.

It's kind of like clubby compared to the other songs people listen to. Like, this I could easily hear like in a club or something that's kind of like oh, okay, yeah, it slaps.

Yeah. There's also a response song called Answer and I used to really love that song too. So that's all the vocal oils I'm going to talk about. So now we're going to get into some songs with stories of a theme. Yeah. Okay, so the first section I made is creepy songs because for whatever reason, people really like making creepy songs with vocaloid. There's quite the market for it.

I feel like it in particular works well because vocaloid inherently has that sort of uncanny valley of like, yeah, it's vocals, but my brain is like, no, that's not a person. No, going into the creepy supernatural element with that in mind is like, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. But I also agree to your point earlier, at least these once again, probably just out of the air and thematically it was like all fantasy stuff and not like I would immediately assume, like, the creepy idea with vocalists would be like, where's the line between consciousness of AI and self created stuff? But instead they went more like fancy stuff, which once again, not bad, but it's like not where I thought it was going off guard there.

You can ask them like real existential questions of like, am I real? But you're like, no, let's talk about clowns and murder and shit.

Then again, play La magica.

There is a lot of murder. So the first song that we have is Alice Human Sacrifice by the fab Five, which is miku Rinlan, kaito and mako. The one I recommended is a cover because this is the one that I listened to in middle school and I actually really like it. I think the singers do a really good job. So, yes, this one, obviously is a play on Alice in wonderland with different iterations of Alice. So I wanted to know if you guys could kind of follow a story if you guys got what was going on. This one's pretty straightforward.

Yeah, I mean, we've done enough anime, you know, I can't follow the story. You know the answer to that.

But so first we get mako. She's a warrior and she goes on a rampage of some kind, which leads her into the forest and she gets lost. And at the end of this verse, I thought she died, but later on maybe she didn't. So she could have just gotten lost for a really long time.

Yeah, it seems like she got locked up and then they lost. They couldn't find her or just forgot about her and disappeared.

Yeah, people don't care about mako. She's less floating.

She is my favorite.

I get that for you.

I like a cannibal lady.

What can I say? And then we get kaito and he was a boy with a beautiful voice and people loved listening to him sing. And then one day, a crazy man assassinated him. So his is, like, cut and dry, like he's gone riff to the pretty blue boy. Then we get miku. She's just a beautiful young lady and everyone loved her and they made her the Queen of wonderland. And then she goes crazy and doesn't want to die. So I think hers doesn't end with her dying, but it ends with her kind of going crazy. Just like being like, I want to be beautiful forever. And yeah, so spooky. Right?

Beauty seems the most reasonable.

Yeah. I don't want to die. Fair.

Fair.

And then we get rin and len and there are just some kids who go to have a tea party in the woods and then they find an invitation to the palace and they're most like regular Alice and Alice and wonderland stories where they're just kind of wandering around and getting lost. So they wander further into the woods and get lost. And this is where you're like, didn't mako die? Because mako finds them and kills them.

Got you.

Yeah. So that's the end of that one. Much death. Very spook. Happy Halloween. It's October now.

Oh, yeah.

Only someone twisted in 2008 would be woody.

Yeah. This one's very edgy. These are all edgy.

The art was all really sketchy. Like it was wrong with a pence on the middle and study hall and middle school.

Yeah.

Yes. All of the animation in this whole series has a very back of the binder feel.

Yeah.

So next up we have rotten Girl grotesque Romance, which is a hot Senate miku song from 2009. This is you remember? You know, gotsai from future diary.

This is her, unfortunately, yes.

Yeah. This is her theme song. Classic Yondere scenario. miku is in this, so the lyrics aren't so straightforward. It's just miku saying creepy things. But this music video we watched kind of gives it a little more of, like, a straightforward story. So in this particular music video, she's, like, watching her neighbor across the way. She finds out that he has a girlfriend, 10, so she's ready to murder and she leaves him a little present. They, like, walk past each other in a dramatic moment. Oh, and the boyfriend is kaito and his girlfriend is luca. So another one of those situations where they're just, like background characters in each other's songs. And what's in the box? It's the girlfriend's whole ass torso. Not just the head, it's the whole thing.

Yeah. I was kind of surprised. I feel like that's harder to do.

It also wasn't bloody.

The boobies fair.

It's in the contract.

I wish. It was gorgeous. I was like, Come on, why isn't she bloody at all?

Yeah. Zero blood. I was like, Why did miku did you make a sex doll of your boyfriend's girlfriend?

Yeah, I thought it was a mannequin at first. I was like, what?

Commit. So now he starts to go a little nuts. He's like, we. See him taking care of the torso and brushing his hair, which I thought was a fun touch because, like I said, the lyrics are just miku. Like, talking about how much she loves someone and all that stuff. But I like that it has this element of her doing something that leads to him going just as crazy as she is destined for each other. They can fix each other, and I think that's what makes harley Quinn. They end up going on a date and she invites him into her apartment. And I was like, okay, so now he's crazy enough to fall in love with her, but then he murders her and she's like, great, maybe you'll also die and we'll just love each other forever. So, yes. Classic Yondere. I think rotten Girl grotesque Romance is like I think the music is really cool. It's not just like, music Box spooky. It actually has some wild stuff going on, like instrumentally, and I think it's cool. And then finally, the third creepy song that I picked is Dark Wood Circus again by the fab Five. And in my notes, I linked you guys to the vocaloid wikipedia because this is a whole series that has a lot of songs. So, like, just to give you guys an idea of how deep it could go, like, there aren't that many characters in darkwood Circus, so, like, I assume each character must have a song where they talk about themselves, but then there's also, like, an overarching story. I don't know. This one's crazy. It has like, more than ten songs.

Yeah, some of these were I'm counting on the wiki. It looks like there's about twelve. And then a novel.

Excellent.

Yeah, I was not expecting I mean, I guess vocalized have been around long enough. I probably should have expected, like, operaticic songs, but I was not prepared for it, at least. So stylized.

Yeah. I really like the art in this one. The song is okay. This is where I find ren and Lens voices most grating because the artist chose to make them super high. Yeah, but yes. So this one, darkwood Circus, this is the most popular one in the series. A little girl is invited to a creepy circus full of people that God has abandoned. I really liked the flavor text of, like, oh, the deformity. I was like, jeez, we've got twins that are sewn together. That's ren and len. We've got a deformed diva that's miku. And then we've got more cannibalism baby.

With kaito, never enough.

Okay. Because with him it said, a blue beast that loves to eat things cold. And I was like, that doesn't feel like it fits here.

He just likes ice cream.

Imagine going to a circus freak show and they're like, this man only likes ice cream.

Yeah, I definitely assumed there was, like, a more sinister connotation to it, but at least the lyrics were like, what does he do? What is he just eating cereal? Like, what is this?

He'd watch this guy drink a whole gallon of milk straight from the fridge. And I think this one kind of focuses on the deformed diva character. She truly hates herself and her existence. And it's like pretty sad. But rin and len, they're kind of like the ringmaster in this scenario. And they just keep talking about how fun the circus is. So fun. Am I right?

Good times.

And the diva, she straight up says that she wants to die. And this one, it's creepy in the imagery and the characters. But with regards to the lyrics, this one is the saddest of the creepy songs.

It was this song that made me realize it wouldn't be out of line for Miku to be at the gathering of the juggalos.

Oh, no, listen, you got to take whatever engage you can get. It's a tough economy out there for a hologram.

But yes. So that's the creepy songs. And now we move on to songs about banging. Hell yeah, because again, for whatever reason, there are so many of these.

I mean, that's just the whole job. That's just R and B. I just love making music.

So these ones have less story than the creepy songs. The first one is Spice by len Cogamine, which is the cheesiest ship. Like the song itself, it's laughable. It's not good. I used to really like this song once.

I thought of len as per rap of the rapper. I couldn't not hear him as that.

This song is literally just about len fucking a bunch of ladies. I don't really know why.

Thankfully not including his sister this time.

This time?

Well, there are music videos. So the story is kind of like that he's in love with just one girl, so he bangs a bunch of girls to suppress his feelings. And I think I've seen a music video where the one girl he's in love with is bran. But yeah, I was listening to it, looking at the lyrics and I was like, this is just blurred Lines. I'm so sorry. Oh, no, I'm so upset. I used to like this song because I like to len, I'm a Lens fan. What can I say? My sweet boy. So then we got romeo and cinderella. By hatsune, miku. I really like this song. It's like, actually, if you pay attention to the lyrics, this is another one that's actually kind of sad. Her parents don't approve of this guy that she's seeing. Hence, she has lyrics about wanting to run away like cinderella and juliet. And it seems like she wants to act like she's more mature. So she wears mascara and lingerie. But she's like so young and nervous, but also so horny.

This one is real horny.

Yeah. So at the end of the song, she leaves her parents for this guy who kind of pressured her into having sex. At least that's how I see it. So this one's kind of sad, but I like listening to it.

There was one lyric in particular that she's like, oh yes, it's romeo and cinderella. Don't call me juliet. I don't want to go by that name. And it's like, hey, Miku arose by any other name would smell as sweet. You don't even know you're juliet. You don't know what you're talking about.

They didn't read romeo and juliet in high school.

They don't know.

And then again, this category was shorter. These don't have much story. The last one is magnet, which is Hacine miku and luka meccarine. And this one is gay. This one truly doesn't have a story. It's just like steamy and sexy and gay. And like I was like really paying attention to the lyrics this time and I was like, wow. Yeah, like I actually really liked it.

Hey, you say there's no story, but it is explicitly about them rubbing each other's butterflies.

Yeah, it kind of felt like this forbidden feeling of this romance kind of thing.

The vocaloid historians will put it in. textbook says good friends, good pals, good cousins, vocal roommates.

I love looking at the lyrics. This is lesbian culture. It's very flowery and just like you said, butterflies. But it has been covered. There's like a kaito and len cover and stuff. This is a really popular song, so it has quite a few other vocaloid covers. But yes, this one's fun. I like magnet. Okay, now we move on to the PS de resistance. We're going to talk about the story of Evil series. This is the big one. This series had me spiraling in middle school. I was obsessed with this series.

Just to make sure it is just these three or is this a sampling? Because there is like the clear narrative between the three we see, but I didn't know if it goes on after this as well.

Another twelve.

Actually, I don't remember. There could be one more song, but I'm pretty sure it's just these three.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah. So this one's short and sweet. So the first song in the series is Daughter of Evil. Also, I realized when I was looking at the description of evil eater Konchita, this is the same producer.

Oh God.

Yeah. So yes, we open with daughter of evil rin Cogamine. Here we go. So rin is the young princess of an evil kingdom and len is her servant. They are still twins. It's part of the story. Thank God she in the past has been able to intimidate people out of overthrowing her. And it's worked so far. In this music video we see a scene of her keeping mako away. mako is like this beautiful night in this particular series, in this cast anyway. And then in the second verse we hear that she's in love with a man, but he's in love with someone else. The princess of the green country means meek, no? So this makes her very mad. So she decides as a princess that she's going to fuck up the Green Country and have the Green Princess killed. She thought this would end well.

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong? This man will love me now, right? Surprise.

No? Didn't work out that way.

So the Green Country is ready to fight back, and her kingdom has been ready for a revolution. So that just, like, spurs them on. So in the midst of the revolution, her servants have left her. She's got no one else to defend her. So they capture her, and she's going to be put to death. And we see her get beheaded in front of the whole kingdom. And they're like, hell yeah, she got what she deserved. So that's Daughter of Evil song number one. This is another one where rin's voice is just kind of like it's not extremely pleasant to listen to next. This is truly the one that I listened to this one regularly. Servant of Evil by lan Cogamin. So it's kind of a sequel, but it's time for some twists. So we find out len is her servant and they got separated in some capacity during their childhoods. And he's like, I will do anything for her. Anything. I love my sister. There's a lyric that it's even if the entire world becomes your enemy, I'll protect you.

Why.

Dude? What reason? You can be like, as a part of it.

I'll dip unconditional love for his sibling here.

I don't know what that's like. I was raised in a Catholic household. No, moving on. We don't have to focus on that.

So they're visiting the neighboring kingdom, and he meets a green princess. He falls in love with her. First sight. They have, like, a really short interaction. He's just like, so beautiful, as teenagers do. But so they get home, they get back to their kingdom, and rin is like, I would love for that princess to die. And so she tells Lynn to go do that. So he's the one that has to go carry out that task and kill the Green Princess. Heart wrenching. He's like, I would do anything for my sister, but for some reason, I just can't stop crying. And I'm like, one, you're in love with this girl. Two, you're a child killing somebody. It's traumatizing, baby.

I don't get it. What's the big deal? I can't just murder a queen.

Why can't I just suppress my emotion?

Ren likes the guy in that relationship, and len likes the girl. Just break them up. Then you can both have what you want.

Come on.

Yeah. This could have turned into, like, a fun comedy, a fun romp of getting them to break up.

Starting to win.

You're supposed to be on the same page.

But so the revolution is on its way, and to save her, this is what gets me.

Here we go.

Here we go. He disguises himself as the princess so they switch clothes. She's in his servant's clothes, and she gets away. And so they capture him. And so plot twist, he's the one who actually dies. And like, even before he's going to get beheaded, he's just thinking about how much he loves her. And this song really had just a vice grip on me when I was in middle school. It made me so sad, and I loved it.

So real quick, before we get into the resolution of it, was there like a release schedule to these? Did they all drop at the same time or when this second one came out, you're like, oh, I'm gripped. What will happen next? I got the next song.

I think they were all already out. So I found Honor of Evil first, obviously, and then I actually don't think I found out that there was a sequel until a little later on. So then I listened to it and I was just like, what the fuck? Why would they do this to me?

I had a satisfying ending in the first one. But now you made it sad.

Yeah, I was pulling away because, like, yes, this girl's objectively evil and destroying a country for her selfish needs. Let me sacrifice myself for her so she can get off scot free and I fucking die. I was like, I'm having trouble here.

He's just so selfless. Come on.

He's dumb. The dumbass boy.

Yeah, but it's fun and dramatic. I knew who I was in middle school.

I was like, that's just the story. It's a song. It doesn't have to make sense. But I was just like, why would he do it?

This just isn't believable.

My suspension of disbelief isn't conforming to these holographic singers.

So, yeah, the final song is called Regret Message. And this is rin again. And even in my notes for this, I put, this song is just kind of an afterthought for me. It's just rin looking back on their lives and feeling sad for what happened. She goes to the sea and they used to make wishes and glass bottles, so she's there to make another wish. She's just like, I regret everything I made him do, and now he's dead. And it was at this point I was like, why does len die in all of their songs? Because they have a couple. There's one called Prisoner. There's one called Prisoner Paper plane. Those are two songs. And then another two songs called kokoro and Kisseki. And then both of those little duos little duologies len dies. So producers have something against my boy.

They're like, we know objectively, he's the worst sounding one of the two. We'll just get rid of him every.

Time they face them. He's the Peter Brady of the bunch. We get it.

This music video is actually pretty good, though. I thought the art was good and the little moments of animation were cool, but so she wishes that if they're reborn, they can be twins again, hopefully in nicer circumstances. And then the song is fading out. And I was like there was still like a minute left. And I was like, oh, what else happened? So I scrolled forward and then they're reborn as ridden Lencogamine as the vocaloids. And I was like, what the fuck? And I just started laughing. I was like, how meta.

Okay, all right.

I just love that.

They're like, yeah, we're just some teen pop stars. And also canonically we are reincarnated.

I was wondering, is this canonical lore or is this just the artist making the video, having a little fun with the end of it?

But I wish it was cannon.

I mean, why not?

That would be so fun. Yes. So those are our story songs.

And then I do want to bring up real quick speaking of story songs because so much popular music in America, especially recently, is not story oriented. It's like, yeah, I got a feeling. Yeah, we're ready to party. But like listening to Daughter of Evil in particular, I was like, okay, yeah, it has this like cautionary tale aspect, like all that sort of stuff of like overstepping your power and all that. And I had a very cursed realization. So I'm going to describe the plot of that song. Basically is someone in an act of jealousy kills someone else. And officials are like, okay, time to stop this person. So they stop them through an attempted escape with involving hidden identity. This person is captured and brought to judgment and is ultimately killed. And I realized this both is the plot of the song, of the vocaloid song Daughter of Evil, but also the plot of Cocaine Blues by Johnny Cash. And of that just no, nothing works. The world shouldn't.

Everything in the flat.

Circle shouldn't be listening to a Japanese robot and being like, yes, country legend Johnny Cash.

I'll hold it up. Now what if we bring back Johnny Cash? hologram.

Oh.

Crossover concert voice bank.

Make Johnny Cash a vocaloid hurt.

I would pay good money for that.

Oh God. Good, good. What a way to end the story section. And then just real quick at the end, I wanted to throw in my personal favorite songs. So the first one is Rolling Girl by hasani Miku, who's made in 2010. I love the music video. It was made by an artist named akiya Kane. And she actually also covered the song, which is what made me love it. So I did link you guys to that. Did you guys get to listen to that one?

Yes.

I love her voice.

This one was good. But like, once again, I'm more visual. I'm bad with audio stuff. So watching the music video, it's just like the fuck's happening. It seems like another unrequited love story sort of thing. But then at a certain point, miko actually just starts rolling around like a bomb. And I got a little confused the.

Music video for the akia Kane cover is actually a birthday present from her friends. So it's like a parody of the music video she made for Rolling Girl. But, I mean, even so, the story is kind of hard to follow. It's really sad. It's about a depressive spiral. And then at the end, the guy kind of pulls her out of it and helps her out. They're like friends.

Unrelatable.

Yeah. Every day he says, Are you done? And she's like, no, not yet. I'm still going through this. And the status thing that I feel like I have to acknowledge is that the producer of this song, Will walka, actually passed away in 2019. So this is truly like, I love this song so much. And, yeah, he was a big deal in the vocaloid community. Yeah. But then, happier note, my other favorite song is called Drop Candy, which is Ryan Cogamin and luca. And it's just good. It just puts me in a good mood. It's just a good, cute time.

So this one I was surprised by.

Okay.

Because I already heard it a lot.

Was it the undertale thing?

Kind of, but it was a different Undertale parody.

Oh.

So the one I watched a lot came when I was just deep diving through undertale music because it is objectively good. And I will fight you in the street like a goddamn animal for anyone who wants to debate it.

Sure.

So Deep, dive in on undertale music for a while. I came across this video and I recommended which it's an audio format I can't show the listeners, unfortunately, but it is the song sung by papyrus and Sands and it's someone modeled them dancing to the entire thing. And it's actually a really good animation. The person who put a lot of work into it and it's very impressive.

Yeah, that's how I found the song. Drop Pop Candy was like, the audio of sans and papyrus quote singing it unquote. And the one that I linked, that I sent you guys is like, a 2d animation. It's really well done and it's only a minute of the song, but it's just good. This song is really cute and sweet, so I figured it would be a good way to round things out.

Powder cleanser after all the sad vocaloid songs.

Yeah. So through doing this, I kind of realized that all of these songs at least they have a very distinct, like, vocaloid sound. And I don't think newer songs are like that because I think they've kind of like expanded genres. But I feel like all of these songs sound like vocaloid songs, if that makes sense.

Do you think that the instrumental, like, ignoring the actual, quote unquote vocals of it? The style is distinct, human singer or not.

Okay. I was thinking maybe like, the way people talk about records, how it has this warm fuzz to it because of the medium of records, maybe vocal lights have this distinct sound, like, of the era they're in because of the technology used on the vocal banks at that time. Like you said, with Lynn being like better as time has gone on and improving the quality of the voices.

Yeah, but that's everything. So how are you guys feeling? It's not right to ask, Are we there yet? But I guess it kind of is because now you guys can listen to a more vocaloid song.

Yeah, it's not a new series, but it's a new entry into something weebly.

Yeah.

So, yeah, going into this was like, okay, this is going to be kind of like a high barrier of entry for me because in music the things I particularly focus on are the lyrics and the vocals. So just most musicians I'm primarily looking, do I like the sound of the vocals, do I like the lyrics, do those components compel me? And then the genre and stuff beyond that, that comes second. So that in the past has been a big barrier for number one songs in different languages where lyrics, I can't hear them and be like, yes, I understand. I relate to this because I don't speak Japanese. And then also the vocals of okay, this is objectively a synth, so no vocals. The two things I look forward or seek out the most in music are strike one and two on. But as I was listening to it and sort of just like turn my brain off, let me just listen to it, like having that playlist on in the background as I did other things just to warm up and get samples of more recent and better quality vocaloids, like twelve years later technology advanced.

Wild concept.

Yeah. When I got to those and I was like, okay, so it is a little bit more seamless with it sounding like actual vocals, so that helps. And sort of just going into the poppy elements of yeah, you don't need to know what the lyrics are because you won't know unless you Google them. So just enjoy this ride, listen to it like a pop song. Don't think about it, don't worry about it. And once I got that I was tapping my foot, I was subconsciously bopping to it, so I was like, yeah, I can see the appeal. It is objectively the opposite of what I look for. I get it.

That's good. I'm glad you could enjoy it in some capacity.

Yeah, this isn't anything too new for me because I listen to I watch a lot of fucking anime, so I listen to the opening and out shows a lot and I'll listen to them on YouTube and then the mix gets created and then they say, I know I'm bleeding into Vocal Aid without realizing it. So I've definitely heard a few Vocal Aid songs, even if I'm not aware that they were Vocal Aid songs. So, yeah, this is anything new to me. And yeah, it's still catchy. I know a lot more about it now than I ever did before, that's for sure.

More than you ever wanted to.

But, yeah, I mean, it's still catchy. I'll still listen to them. I don't think I'll be going out of my way. I don't think I'll be going to Miku expo ever. I'm not going to be a big time luca.

Is that which one mako is? The one you said you liked?

Mako? See, I don't know. So I won't be buying the merch anytime. Maybe the miku and the aguman wanzi. That was pretty adorable. But, yeah, like, the songs are just very catchy, very pop. And yes, some of them are. Now that I have more context for, like the range of some of them, I might delve into some of those more. But, yeah, still bangers. Still catchy as hell. But, yeah, like I said, I'd be more interested to see what some of the newer stuff is because some of ren and lynn's stuff was like this little crunchy on that auto tune. But, yeah, they're still catchy songs and stuff. The producers who are making them are still very skilled. So, yeah, enjoyable.

Yeah, I think that's like the biggest thing you have to think about when you're listening to the songs is like, somebody sat there and made this. I think that's where a lot of the appreciation comes from because you have to master this software to be able to make them sound good and at this point, human. So, yeah, crazy.

I really just want, like a deep dive into a vocal Lloyd like sci-fi horror. Like that episode of Gravity Falls where sue states the visual novel and it becomes sentient. Give me one of those with a vocal.

It must exist at this point.

It's gone right there.

Well, I'm glad I got to do this and I'm glad that you guys had a moderately good time.

Yeah, it's always nice to learn more about the past of your friends and.

Shameful middle school years.

Yay.

If there's an anime you would like to recommend or vocaloids or anime about vocaloids that end up killing people, you can send those shows to us. Our email is rweebetheret@gmail.com or you can reach out to us on twitter or instagram at arweed. There yetet on both. You can find me on twitter and instagram at Mrpatrick. dugan.

You can find me on instagram at honey. Period d on twitter at honey d eight and honey d art or on twitch at honey underscore d and honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You can find me.

On Twitter at abts. Brendan, you're going to be really I don't like going on there, but it's there in case you need to fluff some numbers.

Thank you to camille ruley for artwork and thank you to Louis zong for themed song stories. You can find all of Louis music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with vocaloids happy birthday to me, the rapper.

The rapper came out in 96. He's the first local Lloyd in Canada.