I got into Vocaloid somewhere around 2013. I was 8 years old, and like many kids my age with access to a computer, quickly became obsessed with Hatsune Miku and the songs on NicoNico and YouTube. Vocaloid (and by extension, voice synthesizer software) would later become one of my longest-running interests: it's been 11 years, but I'm still obsessed with it!!
The first Vocaloid song I remember listening to was Madness of Duke Venomania (ヴェノマニア公の狂気), also known as Lunacy of Duke Venomania or the shorter, official English title Dance with Asmodeus. It's a song by mothy-P featuring Kamui Gakupo, and while it may not have been the most...appropiate introduction to Vocaloid for a young kid, I don't think I was even thinking about that at all when I watched it: the ikemen character in the video who sung in a robotic voice was too handsome for me to focus on anything else!! Thus began my obsession with the medium – being a huge fan of handsome men as I was for an 8-year old (don't even ask), I was very quick to add VY2 to my list of "favourite Vocaloids". My favourite VY2 song was The Loquat that Grew on my Forehead Has a Terrible Personality (おでこに生えたビワの性格が悪い) by formerly manbo-P, now Takahashi Yoh. Thanks to manbo-P, I discovered GUMI, my first favourite female Vocaloid, and you can pretty much guess how the rest goes. Kairiki Bear, KEMU, cosMo@bousou-P, takamatt... I was obsessed with the green lady. Because of that early 2010s edginess, I was also huge on Circus-P and similar English producers, which led me to listening to Karma.
Kagamine Rin then became my all-time favourite Vocaloid EVER, even to this day! Rin is my favourite design-wise, module-wise, song-wise... Everything! Some of my favourite Rin-producers are Hikkie-P, Bucchigiri-P, CaptainMirai, Dixie Flatline, KulfiQ, Live-P... My all-time favourite song even outside of Vocaloid, the masterpiece Meltdown by iroha, is also a Kagamine Rin song. I have a modest collection of Rin merchandising, mostly gifts from friends throughout the years (from middle school to college!), including figures, binders, stands and bags... To me, she is the cutest, sweetest Electric Angel ever, but also a mascot and voice that belongs with the most moving and heartrending songs.
Thanks to the aforementioned Hikkie-P, I became a huge fan of experimental music and his self-coined style rindustrialism, named after his album Rindustrial which is basically industrial-glitch-rock-experimental music.
I was also passionate about the Project Diva series, which led to me fully discovering Pinocchio-P in late 2019. I was already familiar with his past hits like Common World Domination, SLoWMoTIoN, and Nice to Meet you, Mr. Earthling among many others, but I became somewhat of a diehard fan after listening to ZERO-GO, an album that I got online almost immediately after listening to Ghost's Play to the Audience. The fantastic Comic and Cosmic, the extremely fun to listen to HUMAN, and his older albums like hana ga nobiru and Obscure questions: I loved every single song of his! Pinocchio-P became my most-listened artist for, like, 4 or 5 consecutive years more or less until God-ish massively blew up. My dream is to go to one of his concerts someday, but I don't live in Japan. Until then, I really enjoy watching recordings of his Live performances (I even own the CD/DVD set of his Matsuri da Hey Come on Live. My favourite songs are probably Happy Very Happy, Strange Animal, At the Mercy of Emptiness, Vocaloids are Lame and Love is Onomatopoeia but I could claim that almost every single song of his is my fav and never stop, so I'm going to move on.
⠀
Some other producer highlights would be Kurage-P (now Wadatakeaki), famous for his song Chururira Chururira Dadada! but also someone whom I LOVE the recent work of, especially PARILA feat Otomachi Una (also a fav!) and Green Green. As a kid, I also loved Teniwoha, his Detective School Girl Series in particular being my favourite (which also spawned a light novel that I have personally archived and that you can read here if you're interested lol!).
Mushi-P, frog96, Re:NG, dennokoP, koronba, Dios-Signal-P, Mitchie M, MARETU, Natsuyama Yotsugi, GonGoss, Haraguchi Sasuke, siinamota, Wonderful★Opportunity, masarada, hachi, Vega-P, lamaze-P, GIGA, KIRA, Jamie-P, ienu, Kikuo, Camellia, rerulili, OSANZI, Marasy, UTSU-P... Just to name a few of the most relevant ones.
But Vocaloid wasn't all there was: I soon found UTAU and UTAUloids. My favourite was Kasane Teto, obviously, but I also quite like Yokune Ruko! CeVIO, SynthV, NEUTRINO... I grew fond of SEKAI and KAFU, as well as of Zundamon, and nowadays I just listen to anything at all. I feel like in the modern Vocaloid community, lots of diehard fans shut down modern, experimental music, which I think is a horrible mindset to have. There is terrible music, just like there are beautiful masterpieces being posted on YouTube every week that get 500 views. That's why I love browsing VOCACOLLE every year and keeping an eye out for new releases! Vocaloid is more alive than ever!
As for genres and sub-communities, I loved (and still love) Vocaloid horror, as well as anything electronic or experimental. Shipping-wise... I liked Gakukai and Negitoro. Lol! That's pretty much it. Thank you for reading my Vocaloid story to the end!!!
The first Vocaloid song I remember listening to was Madness of Duke Venomania (ヴェノマニア公の狂気), also known as Lunacy of Duke Venomania or the shorter, official English title Dance with Asmodeus. It's a song by mothy-P featuring Kamui Gakupo, and while it may not have been the most...appropiate introduction to Vocaloid for a young kid, I don't think I was even thinking about that at all when I watched it: the ikemen character in the video who sung in a robotic voice was too handsome for me to focus on anything else!! Thus began my obsession with the medium – being a huge fan of handsome men as I was for an 8-year old (don't even ask), I was very quick to add VY2 to my list of "favourite Vocaloids". My favourite VY2 song was The Loquat that Grew on my Forehead Has a Terrible Personality (おでこに生えたビワの性格が悪い) by formerly manbo-P, now Takahashi Yoh. Thanks to manbo-P, I discovered GUMI, my first favourite female Vocaloid, and you can pretty much guess how the rest goes. Kairiki Bear, KEMU, cosMo@bousou-P, takamatt... I was obsessed with the green lady. Because of that early 2010s edginess, I was also huge on Circus-P and similar English producers, which led me to listening to Karma.
Kagamine Rin then became my all-time favourite Vocaloid EVER, even to this day! Rin is my favourite design-wise, module-wise, song-wise... Everything! Some of my favourite Rin-producers are Hikkie-P, Bucchigiri-P, CaptainMirai, Dixie Flatline, KulfiQ, Live-P... My all-time favourite song even outside of Vocaloid, the masterpiece Meltdown by iroha, is also a Kagamine Rin song. I have a modest collection of Rin merchandising, mostly gifts from friends throughout the years (from middle school to college!), including figures, binders, stands and bags... To me, she is the cutest, sweetest Electric Angel ever, but also a mascot and voice that belongs with the most moving and heartrending songs.
Thanks to the aforementioned Hikkie-P, I became a huge fan of experimental music and his self-coined style rindustrialism, named after his album Rindustrial which is basically industrial-glitch-rock-experimental music.
I was also passionate about the Project Diva series, which led to me fully discovering Pinocchio-P in late 2019. I was already familiar with his past hits like Common World Domination, SLoWMoTIoN, and Nice to Meet you, Mr. Earthling among many others, but I became somewhat of a diehard fan after listening to ZERO-GO, an album that I got online almost immediately after listening to Ghost's Play to the Audience. The fantastic Comic and Cosmic, the extremely fun to listen to HUMAN, and his older albums like hana ga nobiru and Obscure questions: I loved every single song of his! Pinocchio-P became my most-listened artist for, like, 4 or 5 consecutive years more or less until God-ish massively blew up. My dream is to go to one of his concerts someday, but I don't live in Japan. Until then, I really enjoy watching recordings of his Live performances (I even own the CD/DVD set of his Matsuri da Hey Come on Live. My favourite songs are probably Happy Very Happy, Strange Animal, At the Mercy of Emptiness, Vocaloids are Lame and Love is Onomatopoeia but I could claim that almost every single song of his is my fav and never stop, so I'm going to move on.
⠀
Some other producer highlights would be Kurage-P (now Wadatakeaki), famous for his song Chururira Chururira Dadada! but also someone whom I LOVE the recent work of, especially PARILA feat Otomachi Una (also a fav!) and Green Green. As a kid, I also loved Teniwoha, his Detective School Girl Series in particular being my favourite (which also spawned a light novel that I have personally archived and that you can read here if you're interested lol!).
Mushi-P, frog96, Re:NG, dennokoP, koronba, Dios-Signal-P, Mitchie M, MARETU, Natsuyama Yotsugi, GonGoss, Haraguchi Sasuke, siinamota, Wonderful★Opportunity, masarada, hachi, Vega-P, lamaze-P, GIGA, KIRA, Jamie-P, ienu, Kikuo, Camellia, rerulili, OSANZI, Marasy, UTSU-P... Just to name a few of the most relevant ones.
But Vocaloid wasn't all there was: I soon found UTAU and UTAUloids. My favourite was Kasane Teto, obviously, but I also quite like Yokune Ruko! CeVIO, SynthV, NEUTRINO... I grew fond of SEKAI and KAFU, as well as of Zundamon, and nowadays I just listen to anything at all. I feel like in the modern Vocaloid community, lots of diehard fans shut down modern, experimental music, which I think is a horrible mindset to have. There is terrible music, just like there are beautiful masterpieces being posted on YouTube every week that get 500 views. That's why I love browsing VOCACOLLE every year and keeping an eye out for new releases! Vocaloid is more alive than ever!
As for genres and sub-communities, I loved (and still love) Vocaloid horror, as well as anything electronic or experimental. Shipping-wise... I liked Gakukai and Negitoro. Lol! That's pretty much it. Thank you for reading my Vocaloid story to the end!!!
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