So I recently went along to a Hatsune Miku live show, for those of you who don’t know she is a virtual popstar, in that every aspect about her is digital from voice to image.
Miku.
In Japan the vocaloid phenomenon is huge, with dozens of vocaloid stars each with their own fanbase but Hatsune Miku reigns supreme.
These are just the most popular ones.
Vocaloid began it’s life as a commercial voice synthesiser backed by Yamaha, designed for producers and musicians to use at will with the idea being that the only limit is your creativity/skills. One inputs lyrics and melody and they are sung by the vocaloid of your choice. And as far as I understand one can then upload songs to services such as niconico(essentially like youtube) where should they gain enough popularity can actually become a hit single for that vocaloid, possibly even leading to it being performed at a live show, or getting onto one of the many rhythm based arcade games in Japan. The creators are credited for their work, as I have noted from playing the vocaloid/project diva arcade game. But I won’t go into the full detail, google it if you really want all the specifics.
Now one question I often hear is “how exactly does a live show work for a virtual popstar?” The answer my friends is holograms!
My poor photography attempting to capture the magic.
Technically the pepper’s ghost technique, the same technique everyone marvelled at when it was used to resurrect the late great stars Tupac and Michael Jackson, however in the case of the vocaloid stars their voices and personalities are also entirely digital. Yes I said personalities, Miku being your typical kawaii pop idol, Rin and Len the blonde twins being a bit more playful and cheeky, Meiko and Kaito being depicted as the slightly older, more mature idols. The others depicted in the above image I can’t really comment on because they didn’t appear at the show I went to.
So when I say they have personality I mean that over the course of the evening they would all address the audience as a regular popstar would, all in their own particular way, Miku as the super kawaii idol is particularly endearing, as she acts humbled by the audience, and hops around excitedly. Another aspect that really humanises them is that despite being digital constructs they aren’t perfect. Because they all have their own style, when they dance together their movements are not 100% identical as one would expect, and I think the perfect example of their imperfections is when Rin will grab Len by the arm and drag him across the stage and he will stumble and almost fall.
Another interesting aspect is that the music for the live show is not just a backing track but a full live band, an impeccable live band at that, all were clearly masters of their craft. One can’t help but wonder how such strong musicians feel about playing backup for a virtual star but they gave every impression of having the time of their lives.
But I think most interesting is the fandom, people near me shouting Miku’s name with a fervour I’ve never experienced before, more than a few times I heard the phrase “aishiteru” (I love you), and at the end of the concert raucous shouts of “arigatou”, to which I couldn’t help think “who exactly are you thanking?” However I will say arigatou to whoever sets the whole thing in motion because it was genuinely amazing.
A taste of what the live show looks like, my favourite Miku track “World is Mine”
(Apologies the wordpress embed feature is being a bitch)
Ok so now that I’m done gushing we come to the title of the article, cultural evolution or cultural endgame? For me I love it, the concept of a virtual popstar having fascinated me ever since I encountered the virtual star NG Resonance in Deus Ex: Invisible War way back in high school.
However the vocaloids are not without their critics, the main criticism is that many people question the validity of a virtual star, a criticism that has been countered with the idea that originally vocaloids were marketed as instruments rather than stars but at this point no one can deny that they have crossed that border. This has often been raised as an issue that detracts from real bands/singers which I say is poppycock, one does not have a limited amount of musicians they can be fans for, during my time here in Japan I have seen (therefore supported) the vocaloids but also many local bands, many of whom I had not even heard of before attending their shows, and I have discovered some this way for whom I would now consider myself an avowed fan. When I can get away from work I try to take this same approach at home.
There have also been some copyright issues, people using backing tracks copied from artists like Lady Gaga, people have also done direct covers using vocaloid and been subject to copyright infringement but covers have always been a bit of a grey area. There have been instances of vocaloid artists plagiarising other vocaloid artists but interestingly after many of these plagiarists have been called out the original artists have received lots of attention that they had not yet achieved. Then also there are examples such as Sega claiming copyright for the track “World is Mine” (above) even though they only own the copyright for the Project Diva arcade game. Of course copyright/plagiarism is always a serious issue, however the vocaloid community at large can hardly be blamed for this, just a few bad eggs ruining it for the rest of us.
Of course people have pirated the vocaloid software itself but in this day and age this is an inevitability so we can ignore this.
A big issue has been artists sexualising the characters which can particularly be found in the hentai/doujin (doujin meaning self published manga, mostly of the hentai variation) market, which has led to criticisms of the whole product being marketed to the lolicon fandom (essentially kiddie porn but with anime characters, which is still technically legal here though kiddie porn is not). This has also cropped up from time to time with people writing inappropriate lyrics and is of particular concern with the voiceroid derivative which is for spoken rather than sung voice synthesis, I’ll let you imagine how this could go a bit creepy. But again this is a bastardisation of the product by a small community. One can hardly blame the vocaloid community as a whole.
Essentially no new technology is without it’s issues, and most of the criticism I have personally heard has been a matter of subjective opinion, whether it be that people can’t get past the uncanny valleyness of it all or that they just plain don’t like the music. But exactly as I said to the Babymetal critics in my last post who claim that they’re ruining metal, if you choose to claim that vocaloid is in some way destroying the music industry I say fuck you and the high horse you rode in on. This shit is a lot of fun and makes a lot of people happy, if you cant accept that then go live under a rock with the other cultural luddites.
Beers I drank for this article:
Yebisu crystal amber: I was excited to see something that tagged itself as an amber ale, then disappointed to discover it lacking in any ale type flavour, just tasted like most Japanese lagers, weak and flavourless.
Shiga kogen IPA: Oooh an IPA, was what I thought, then was somewhat disappointed. Sure it’s a bit hoppy and a little bitter but overall it was pretty ordinary, I was really hoping for something with more guts.
Ao oni (blue demon): Ok Japan, now you’re talking my language, attracted by the interesting can design, when I turned it around it said IPA, having just tried the Shiga Kogen I was skeptical but that was unfounded, finally something strong and hoppy and bitter, for a beer to find in a Japanese konbini this is by far the winner, unfortunately very few konbini stock it
Dogo beer soseki: Was hard to tell what this guy was being almost entirely written in kana, the only thing it said in english was “one gulp of beer taken just after a bath is the time when you feel most refreshed” to which I think, you’re on the right track but the correct answer is when you’re drinking beer in the shower/bath. Essentially lager, but thankfully with a bit more flavour than most here.
Kirin flaveer lemon and hop: Wow this is bad, piss weak in both flavour and alcohol content, dunno why they have the word hop in there, just tastes like watered down beer with a squeeze of lemon, cannot stress enough how much to avoid this abortion of a beer.
Echigo stout: Again enticing but having been burned a few times in this country I went in with trepidation, but echigo brewery claim to be the first micro brewery in Japan so I thought maybe it’ll be a winner, and yeah it was alright as stouts go, it had all the hallmarks, dark, sorta smoky, slightly sorta chocolatey/coffeeish flavour but while these stout qualities were present they were still rather lacking.
gottadrink'emall 