Hello, dear reader. Until now I have avoided simply taking content from Sankaku, but this is just so bewildering that it deserves to be shared.
Itasha - anime character or symbol decals on cars seems to be a rather japanese trend, most of us wouldn't be caught dead in one. But one crazy russian drift fanatic has taken his (rather beaten) Nissan 180SX and plastered it with Miku. It is one thing to see a shiny track BMW on a japanese circuit, seeing a 180SX with plastic-welded bumpers and missing rear hatch going sideways through the downtown of Moscow is impressive to say the least.
You can read the whole article and see the rest of the pictures on Sankaku Complex
If you know where to find such itasha, do leave a comment. I swear that if I can find a proper itasha, it will end up on my 1997 Saab which is the last car where it should belong.
Sometimes spirit is more important than the impression it gives to the ignorant. I am sure, many would like to mock him for having anime style shimapan on his hood, but with his driving, who would actually dare to?
I guess you all remember this song standing out amongst others. "meltdown" by iroha(sasaki). Voice Kagamine Rin.
Due to the ongoing nuclear crisis at Fukushima, this song, I'd say, was abused to achieve something or more likely, was remade just for fun. A green faced politician "talking" about the situation (NicoVideo link). I checked that the lyrics are exactly the same as in the original song with some parts left out. It is bizarre to see how its high popularity has pushed it onto the first place in UTAU rankings. Scroll to 22:29 or click here to see by yourself.
After being away for a while, pressure for me to post has been building up. I keep finding songs that I really like. These lead to other great ones. I do a small background research and there I have it, a story to share. This time it is about certain Vocaloid/UTAU covers.
It all started with this song. "Ten faced" (十面相). Music: YM, Vocal: GUMI, NicoNico link.
The same song sang by ichiko. Very lovely I'd say (NicoNico link)
Let the last one be a mashup cover of wowaka's (Genjitsutouhi-P) works sung by toco×iciko.
I hope this was enough to either scare you away (which I believe is very unlikely) or make you interested in ichiko's covers. I didn't find any playlist of her songs in Youtube, so you have to search by a tag ichiko (If you know or are willing to make a playlist, then let us know too :). A better source for digging deeper is of cource NicoNico video ( her user profile). You can also follow her in Twitter.
As a last word, I hope that people in Japan can recover from the ongoing humanitarian crisis and that they could regain trust in government which seems to be lacking of decisiveness and openness in handling the situation. If you can and feel that you want to help, you can do it from any part of the world by making a donation to Red Cross.
Hello, dear reader. If you are still here, it means that you have surpassed our expectations and we are truly happy to have you here after a hiatus of over half a year. I had personal matters to attend to and I don't even know where Toomas has been or doing in the meantime, but the matter was, that after a while of posting nothing, it is always difficult to come back - what would be important enough to break the silence? During the past months, Miku has been busy taking over the world, appearing in various parts of the world, being seen in paper articles, news broadcasts and even appearing as a tiny neondroid in an estonian IT paper magazine. If you are a fan, you have already read all about it in news channels like Sankaku and I personally did not feel a retelling would be worth posting.
So here is my idea - I shall use this blog to just share Miku's music, dozens of new songs might pop up on a daily basis, so discovering something good from 2009 is in no way rare.
Here is something different, a home-made CGI video to Miku's song "Escape". The small (or big) visual and physical glitches actually make it feel even more hand-made. The feeling is that some guy with limitless love for our electronic Diva spent ages doing this on his own, on a simple home computer. A feel, that can't be achieved by making something with dedicated graphics computers being controlled by a horde of guys on hire and no passion. The only real negative thing in the video would be Miku's eyes, which just look creepy.
If you feel that you would like to share your ideas, music and passion, please do contact us.
First Miku video on Youtube that uses native youtube 3D player. Put on your colored glasses or cross your eyes and enjoy the video. I don't have the glasses so I chose "Cross-eyed" from 3D menu. For those who are not familiar with this viewing technique, here are a few tips. Try to look somewhere in the air between screen and yourself. You'll see 4 instances of the video this way, probably blurred. You have to match the middle ones and it should instantly become clear. If it doesn't happen, try to choose another distance. I have found that the farther away and the smaller the video is, the better is to get the effect. Still fullscreen can be viewed too when you know the trick.
The embedded player doesn't show the 3D button so I suspect you might not see the "Cross-eyed" version by default. If that's the case, click on video and go to Youtube to see it.
Near Future
One more for your pleasure. No youtube-3D player this time.
White Letter
The brave will also look this random dot noise video with hidden Miku. I saw her there :)
And I'm finishing off with something I would like to have at home, on my TV.
Today it was my graduation ceremony. All the guys in suits and girls in beautiful dresses reminded the time when I sang in chorus. Especially vivid memories were from a trip to Finland where we performed Phantom Of The Opera on stage in multiple locations. I know it is over hyped, but I still like it very much. This lead me to a search for Vocaloid related classical songs, here is my selection of some of the best I found :)
Phantom Of The Opera performed by Miku and a human voice. Background music quality is good and the voice of Miku is touching. I think it was a fun to make piece - singing quality duet with Miku. Among with the good words I still must tell that even if it's the best Miku's performance of this song, I didn't like how the instruments fitted together towards the end. Also I'd like to hear wider dynamic range with such a song. Anyway, I love it.
Didn't like that the male voice was not synthesized? Here's a version for you with Gakupo. He is maybe even more enjoyable than the male voice in previous one. This video might play in mono, so you may want to click here for much better quality.
While Miku and other Japanese Vocaloids are struggling with English, this is not a case with Prima. She is a virtual professional female soprano singer and can sing in English. The next song Eden, originally sang by Sarah Brightman, gets a very cute and lovable twist when sang by Prima.
Here's one cracy one. An instrumental song by Liszt (one of my favorite classics) played through midi with Miku's voice. It is even hard to tell if it is Miku or not, but I think it is. Grand Galop Chromatique.
Let the last be not so classic, but close enough to fit under this theme. Enya - Orinoco Flow sang by Prima. I wanted to put it here, because this is a lovely song and Prima does a great job here too.
This is all for now. New news and songs next time, hopefully soon :)
First of all, we have not been kidnapped by aliens and intend to keep on bringing you, dear readers more Miku delights. As far as I know, Toomas was busy getting his Master's degree and I was busy getting my Bachelor's degree, so neither of us had any time to keep up with the news or write anything interesting.
Yesterday Toomas had his birthday and I remembered it all too late. To make up for it, here is Miku with some chocolate. Congratulations.
