Kayako said: Introducing the new Vocaloids, i.e. proof that the producers are now pandering to the audience and not always the more wholesome portions of it.
They're not official vocaloids but Miki, the one on the girl's backback is.
To be fair, the entire Vocaloid character series basically was a [hugely successful] attempt to cater to a certain audience to begin with, although at least KEI [and whoever created Kaito and Meiko's characters] had somewhat original designs.
I do like Miki's voice, though I'm not sure why her demo have her with a duet with Miku. Though it probably helps that I already liked her design.
Yuki doesn't sound like a very young girl at all, though one comment on those scrolling niconico thingie did point out that she did sound like a slightly younger Meiko... or at least that's what I figured.
Kiyoteru... hmm. Sounds a bit too much like Kaito.
I dunno. At least there's now an official loli Vocaloid...?
BTW, this is completely different from Crypton's "Project If..." stuff.
And listening to the Christmas albums, it seems like Miki's voice is much better and distinct there so maybe it's just the demos that suck. Still, Yuki makes me completely uncomfortable.
Yeah, you have to listen to the Xmas CD for Miki's voice to shine. It sounds abit like some of the others a points, but on the second song on the list you can hear her uniqueness.
I want to know wtf AH-Soft was thinking when they designed these two... I mean I understand somethings sell... but they look like generic visual novel / date sim characters...
On Pixiv, the artist KL that drew this actually posted "Its not even vocaloid anymore." and on NND the comments for the demos are filled with "Kiyoteru sounds like Kaito"
The demos on niconico [or at least the ones that Vocaloidism linked too] sound really bad but the demos on their offical pages sound much, much better. [click on the blue/light blue buttons with the musical notes to download them]
( On another note, PowerFX's Big Al will also be released soon. thus we have an example of the differences between eastern and western standards in terms of personnification)
KaitoDies said: The demos on niconico [or at least the ones that Vocaloidism linked too] sound really bad but the demos on their offical pages sound much, much better. [click on the blue/light blue buttons with the musical notes to download them]
At the very least, Kiyoteru sounds much more unique and less like a Kaito clone. Yuki is still iffy imo.
Yeah, those are actually the first ones I heard, I think he sounds like a young Kaito ((I'll admit its better than the NND ones.))
I don't mind the "catering to the audiences" but I feel like they are f'in insulting us with those designs.. How could they design Miki and then give us those other two???
I don't want to download, I'll just wait for an upload on a video site.
Design wise Ah-Soft seems to like normal type character designs (check their Voiceroids), instead of Pop Idol stage clothing. I think people are expecting too much of others, and want them to follow Crypton designs when it comes to Vocaloid. But even Kaito and Meiko were quite different. I get that Miku's design is the most popular one though, but even UTAU gradually broke away from looking like Crypton.
With ZeroG (British), it seems like personification is not their thing, until it dawned on them that people like voices to go with a face, so at least PFX (Swedish) got that part.
If America ever got an American origin Vocaloid, it is likely there would be a character for it. Americans love mascots, cutesy stuff mostly, but likely the character would be adult-like.
