FEE- CeVIO AI Talk announced by U-Stella Inc.

[Deleted member 6215]

Isn't moe a complex term though? It has a lot of different meanings from innocent to questionable(I search about this term before and just now, there's always different meanings to the word, like "an affection towards a character", or just "cute". I feel like these definitions could apply to adult characters too...? and its just confusing idk)...To me, its lolicon trying to be normalized being a huge problem to me... Also, where is everyone getting the age of consent being 13 in japan from? Everyone keeps saying this and I always see 18... I always see that as an excuse from certain kinds of people. It is in one prefecture that is a literal ghost town anyway, but people keep saying that the whole country is like this, which I don't understand lol

Also, why can't they just raise her damn age to be 20(because I think being 18 or 19 is still consider underage in Japan, I'm not exactly sure)? It wouldn't hurt.

Honestly, I hate talking about these kinds of things lol

 

[pico]

Moe is a word of indefinite origin so breaking it down, like, etymologically isn’t really possible and is probably out of the scope of our base of knowledge here, but I don’t think the problem is the idea of moe itself as much as it’s that two very marketable things— moe and sexuality, are and have been combined to terrible effect for profit.

The exact age of consent in the region in question is important on a legal basis but honestly shouldn’t even be the #1 concern here— the age of consent is different everywhere, and the bottom line is that even if her age was changed on paper to 20+, the character is still written, illustrated, and coded in a way that evokes the characteristics of a child. A high voice doesn’t necessarily make a character a child, big eyes don’t necessarily make a character a child, an innocent demeanor doesn’t necessarily make a character a child, but when you combine these things, the outlook doesn’t look good for you. The character itself, in *combination* with the fact that it is below the age of consent, is the issue.

This is an overgeneralization but I think internet users that interact with this sort of media, our community and myself included, are definitely desensitized to this sort of thing, which I think was brought up earlier. Young people coming onto the internet now are being pinned as overdramatic or cultish for ‘cancelling’ questionable products and individuals but honestly I think it’s more of a result of fresh eyes being set upon things that are messed up despite being “normal” to those present online and aware of popular culture for decades. I think it has been normalized to an extent but the fact that people are taking direct issue with this kind of thing is a good start.

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

The exact age of consent in the region in question is important on a legal basis but honestly shouldn’t even be the #1 concern here— the age of consent is different everywhere, and the bottom line is that even if her age was changed on paper to 20+, the character is still written, illustrated, and coded in a way that evokes the characteristics of a child

That's honestly a great point--and it's the very reason why I hate tropes like "thousand year old goddess who just looks like a kid, but she's TOTALLY an adult" because, yeah, right. Suuuure. Of course she's an adult. (Being sarcastic here.)
I've dropped many an anime (Senko-san being an offender for me) because they claimed the character was an adult, yet they were illustrated like a kid and some scenes were REALLY weird and uncomfortable--like they were trying to get away with questionable stuff by claiming said character is an adult.

Young people coming onto the internet now are being pinned as overdramatic or cultish for ‘cancelling’ questionable products and individuals but honestly I think it’s more of a result of fresh eyes being set upon things that are messed up despite being “normal” to those present online and aware of popular culture for decades. I think it has been normalized to an extent but the fact that people are taking direct issue with this kind of thing is a good start.

That's a good way of stating it, and I see a lot of people who'd pin said young people or people like us as oversensitive and proceed to belittle them/us. I am very much in agreement that people taking direct issue with stuff like fee is a good start, and I will hope and pray that something good comes out of all this.

 

[___]

Fee had been changed to 18 year old, apparently they deleted the iffy pictures in question and her character info is less sex doll-y and more like.... like maid robot that helps with everyday life/chores? That's how I understood it.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I'm kinda wondering if there was some backlash in the Japanese fandom we haven't spotted yet that triggered those changes?

 

[lIlI]

To me, she doesn't look close to 18 (nor 17, if I'm being honest), so this doesn't increase my interest in supporting her. Some company choices indicate issues deeper than an edit to a Wikipedia page can redeem.

 

[Rylitah]

Huh, I'm really shocked that they did anything. It's good that they removed the problematic aspects of her character, but a lot of damage was already done and Fee/U-Stella's company image is tainted in the eyes of many.

It says a lot that these aspects were even there in the first place. While I'm glad they were open to change, I personally will still avoid them.

 

[pico]

This is the best case scenario I envisioned, and I’m glad for it, but obviously it doesn’t “fix” all of the inherent issues with FEE. I don’t think the problematic aspects of her character are gone but it is certainly the bare minimum which is appreciated.

I saw a tweet in Japanese that expressed a positive sentiment toward the changes. They also said, though, that because the 18+ content rating didn’t change, it appears that there is demand specifically for an 18+ voice synthesizer and that FEE is the first synth character to be officially R18. I’m not sure if that factoid is true or not, but regardless it does seem that the R18 market is the intended place for FEE. I don’t think this company would have modified the character in the way they did if R18 content wasn’t a money making incentive— it appears that they are trying to have their cake and eat it too, by removing the public R18 content surrounding FEE but changing her to the legal age and continuing to explicitly allow R18 content with her character.

It’s possible that corporate rather than fandom pressure induced this change.

edit: I can’t really read them so take this with a grain of salt, but one of the people that worked on FEE have retweeted some things that seem to imply this is strictly a formality

 

[crtstatic]

regardless it does seem that the R18 market is the intended place for FEE

Perhaps, but making the character 17? That’s still iffy. Glad they changed her age, but, still…..

 

[pico]

Perhaps, but making the character 17? That’s still iffy. Glad they changed her age, but, still…..

I don’t get what you mean, it’s definitely still more than iffy.

 

[crtstatic]

I don’t get what you mean, it’s definitely still more than iffy.

Ah sorry, i meant that it was messed up they even tried to make her underage in the first place. Should’ve worded that better

 

[pico]

Ah sorry, i meant that it was messed up they even tried to make her underage in the first place. Should’ve worded that better

It definitely is, and it’s made worse by the fact that the R18 market appears to be the intended one, despite their removing the marketing content that is explicitly R18. That’s what I mean by their “trying to have their cake and eat it too.”

 

[crtstatic]

I do have to wonder…if they were trying to make an 18+ synth, why choose CeVIO? CeVIO doesn’t seem like the most 18+ synth (there’s already a child vocal on there)

 

[Blue Of Mind]

I do have to wonder…if they were trying to make an 18+ synth, why choose CeVIO? CeVIO doesn’t seem like the most 18+ synth (there’s already a child vocal on there)

I can't really think of any synths that would allow banks explicitly aimed at the R18 crowd anyway. Wouldn't that normally be considered bad PR for an engine? But not CeVIO apparently lol.

 

[MillyAqualine]

I can't really think of any synths that would allow banks explicitly aimed at the R18 crowd anyway. Wouldn't that normally be considered bad PR for an engine? But not CeVIO apparently lol.

Iku Acme (as well as that one Knightloid people have been talking about once)

And even, it was obviously aimed at people liking R18 content (like eroge) and remained rather confidential (plus it was more like a packj of moan samples than a real engine using said samples ? )

 

[Blue Of Mind]

Iku Acme (as well as that one Knightloid people have been talking about once)

And even, it was obviously aimed at people liking R18 content (like eroge) and remained rather confidential (plus it was more like a packj of moan samples than a real engine using said samples ? )

I'd kinda dismissed Iku when writing up my post since she was clearly aimed at a niche crowd. I was thinking more along the lines of "mainstream" (i.e. general purpose) voice synths.

 

[crtstatic]

real engine using said samples ?

Iku actually was released on an engine! It was a TTS program called MAIDLOID

 

[aru ii]

Iku actually was released on an engine! It was a TTS program called MAIDLOID

She also is getting a semi-official vcv vb for Utau

 

[MillyAqualine]

Oh yeah sorry I thought MAIDLOID was only her "codename" sorry x.x"'


Edit: It seems on Japanese side they pointed out too the ressemblance between Fee-chan and characters like UNA and Yukari

 

[___i]

She also is getting a semi-official vcv vb for Utau

UTAU is pretty much irrelevant in the context of arguments like this, with it not being a commercial synth. There's no regulation (unless you count community blacklisting and callouts) with UTAU, whereas with something like FEE and CeVIO, they've gone through the process of getting permission to create a TTS bank for a pretty mainstream editor, with CeVIO knowing full well what her character background and purpose was. it looks pretty bad on them.

You could argue that this might reflect badly on Ameya, but with a synth that gives absolutely anybody the capability to create a voicebank, it'd be near impossible to completely regulate... and most people are likely aware of that.