Honeyworks campfire announcement for their cevio/voisona voicebanks was also crazy and the campaign reached 90% of its stretch goal in the first day alone. I think they concluded with 270% more than what they asked.
we can get caught up in semantics here but what i think is to be said: the character is a "lolicon", the fans that support her enjoy lolicon. the way they engage with her (a character who is a minor) is what many would consider pedophilic behavior. as she has responded to/engaged with messages from said audience, many being adults, that show attraction to her, often romantic or sexual. the wording of 'shigure ui being a pedophile' is more to say that she supports this behavior and engages with it (whether its stream interaction or the content/media/music etc she releases), like making a song that again supports these concepts. lolicon is more often than not put alongside pedophilia due to the content including minors generally viewed in a sexual nature. the character might be referred to as "lolicon" in subject. the creator and audience engage in behavior that falls in line with what many will see as pedophilic/supporttive of it.
They aren't, but my two cents is that most people simply don't have much love for loli-/shotacons because their liking is so heavily linked with the sexual depictions of characters that clearly look like toddlers or elementary school children if we're honest, and this is what they're mostly associated with. Saying someone is just a loli-/shotacon makes me think that they're fucking weird for liking that stuff and nobody would be surprised IF they turn out to be an actual pedo. No one here really accused her of being a pedophile but pointed out the content she produced that has pedophilic connotations.
Someone literally said "It's been pretty interesting watching the community grapple with an engine they enjoy choosing to work with a pedophile" a few posts ago. They also said her work is "openly pedophilic", not just that it has "connotations".
I scrolled back and read them and yeah without tangible proof it's a little bit yikes but I only remembered the last two comments before my first reply, so yeah my bad but I still stand by the loli/shotacon part.
I wasn't planning on commenting, but this is most certainly a false equivalency - yes, the voicebank's creators are incredibly problematic, and I will not buy purchasing or supporting this product myself for the record. However, this is not Techno-Speech "giving" Ui a voicebank, she is not 1st party - she is a third party who paid the dev fee just like Zan-shin with Rosa, Quadimension with Shian (and their other characters). Internet Co, AHS, Dreamtonics, Yamaha, etc. all promoted the problematic third party voicebanks as well, and this is no different. ACE actively employes, to this day, that developer and related parties within his circle have defended him. ACE was not unpopular (initially), but their poor business practices and unethical decisions (the employee, as well as their promotion of unethical AI usage) is why they are harshly condemed now. By purchasing ANY ACE voicebank or subscription, you are funding that specific employee - but the problematic voicebanks on SynthV, VoiSona, and Vocaloid only make money if you buy them specifically. Voicemith's condemnation is due to their working with ACE, poor business practices (see the crowdfund for Oscar), their promotion of AI generated artwork, music, and attending conventions for crypto-bros.
Yes they are; this is a common misconception. 'Pedophile' means "person sexually attracted to children", the artistic medium the child is portrayed in is irrelevant.
