Unpopular Opinions

[peaches2217]

I’m honestly all for AI tuning as a tool for producers! Use of the AI alone isn’t lazy. I only think it’s lazy when someone nabs an SVP/VSQ/Whatever from the internet, puts it into SynthV, slaps some AI tuning on it, then calls the whole ordeal done. And even that’s conditional; some people just wanna hear computers sing, and I think that’s entirely valid. It’s people who build entire repertoires around “Yes, look at this, I made this cover all by myself!” when they clicked two buttons (three if you count the Export/Bounce button) to make it happen that annoy me, and that’s a veeeeery low portion of users.

Basically, I think there’s valid complaints against its misuse, but it’s hardly evil or a sign of pure laziness. God knows it’s saved my ass before.

 

[BiscuitsandTriscuits]

I’ll be honest I can be a lazy person so I love the innovation of ai tuning. My one complaint is when someone uses the ai tuning I feel the credit for tuning goes to the person who created the file used, because the ai altered the file not the user, but I worry that people will use that as an excuse to claim the tuning as theirs ya know?

 

[peaches2217]

I’ll be honest I can be a lazy person so I love the innovation of ai tuning. My one complaint is when someone uses the ai tuning I feel the credit for tuning goes to the person who created the file used, because the ai altered the file not the user, but I worry that people will use that as an excuse to claim the tuning as theirs ya know?

I feel the same way about covers where nothing’s been done except the addition of AI tuning as I do about Plug-n-Play covers: the only credit given to the renderer should be for, well, the render. All remaining credit should go solely to the one who created the original file.

 

[___]

I will always remain critical of Kamitsubaki Studio but I have to be the devil's advocate when their vocals receive criticism for being samey and playing it safe when I feel the opposite is true!

Kamitsubaki Studio has been company who's been the most experimental with the Cevio AI engine, introducing unique voice type that still has no alternative and isn't easily replicable, developing vocals with not only great dynamics range but contributing to the engine with the development of the emotion slider and specialized vocal in rap.

Besides the only two vocals I feel like you can argue in good faith are samey are Kafu and Rime but that's supposed to be case for their vtuber counterparts too.

They definitely have their sense of style but reducing them to "Kafu clones" is really undermining them imo!

 

[peaches2217]

I honestly prefer Ruko’s feminine vocal to their masculine vocal. The fact that their feminine VBs have been forgotten by so many makes me so, so sad.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Not sure if this is "unpopular" more than "just something no one thinks about" but I think it was a very good idea of yamaha to tease what they're still working on for V6. Yamaha works slow (for a lot of reasons), so I think letting us know "there's more stuff coming" made it definitely feel like V6 wasn't going to be sort of ignored like V5- if they hadn't teased new vbs/chinese AI/etc I think it would feel like V6 wasn't going to have any attention at all. V6 honestly had a lot of better planning in general I don't think the dev team gets quite enough credit for!

 

[Infoholic]

I will always remain critical of Kamitsubaki Studio but I have to be the devil's advocate when their vocals receive criticism for being samey and playing it safe when I feel the opposite is true!

Kamitsubaki Studio has been company who's been the most experimental with the Cevio AI engine, introducing unique voice type that still has no alternative and isn't easily replicable, developing vocals with not only great dynamics range but contributing to the engine with the development of the emotion slider and specialized vocal in rap.

Besides the only two vocals I feel like you can argue in good faith are samey are Kafu and Rime but that's supposed to be case for their vtuber counterparts too.

They definitely have their sense of style but reducing them to "Kafu clones" is really undermining them imo!

I think people probably say they're all the same because they're pitched up, but for every vocal aside from KAFU you can use the Alpha parameter to pitch them back down and to great results. Most producers don't do this (or pitch them even higher), but that doesn't mean it isn't possible and it truly shows how different and unique they are.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

So this kinda relates to the recent Dreamtonics drama, buuut... Does anyone else find it weird how parasocial the relationship between the fandom and the various companies and dev teams has become?

It might just be a result of the Western vocal synth fandom skewing so young and me getting too old for this kind of thing, but it bugs me how every time some kind of drama kicks off or problematic thing is revealed, some people in the fandom get personally offended and act like someone's just insulted their mum. And barring official VB pages (like Miku's, for example), most companies involved with vocal synths don't often encourage the fandom to form parasocial relationships directly with them.

Needless to say, while I totally get the anger towards Dreamtonics's latest video, I thought the reaction on Twitter was far too overblown. The way people were talking about it, you'd have thought a video was leaked of Kanru Hua doing something personally horrible. But nah, it's just a company PR disaster. Most other fandoms would have angry people too if something similar kicked off, but I have a feeling there wouldn't be so much of a diluge of "FUK U DREAMTONICS"-style tweets.

Mind you, I am talking about VocaTwitter, the closest candidate to a resident bottom of the fandom. Remember when everyone thought YouTube was the main hellpit for most fandoms?

 

[AddictiveCUL (Add)]

Although I love the whole AI innovation, I can't deny that all AI tunning sounds so similar at the point I feel most SynthV/AI synth related covers are boring.

CUL is best vocaloid, who disagrees is simply wrong! (Just kidding, but she is really the best)

There aren't hard japanese vocaloid voicebanks, this is a myth created by the fandom so people wouldn't buy other vocaloids except for the crypton ones.

Len isn't better than Rin, and Rin isn't better than Len. Both of them sound extremely well because it depends solely on whoever is tuning them. Stop saying that vocaloid X or Y is bad just because u saw some covers/original songs you didn't liked how they were tunned (Guys, they are literally from the same voice provider. How you dislike one and like the other?).

Actually, Gachapoid can sing pretty well when you edit his Gen parameters. Search for his Ghost Rule cover and you will know what I'm talking about.

Kaito and Meiko don't have a bad voice, the real problem is you who has bad ears.

Anon and Kanon as much as Kyo and Will should be the same vocaloid instead of a twin duo and a trio. The motive is just that their voices sound almost the same, different from Kagamine Len and Rin that you can distinguish more. Yeah, I agree that you can make all of them sound different from their siblings, but I don't think we needed totally different voicebanks to that.

Best Ghost Rule covers are from the twin Kagamines, Len simply slays with his growl and Rin simply slays with her realistic scream.

Most vocaloid producers don't know/knew how to tune vocaloid properly.

 

[TheStarPalace]

So this kinda relates to the recent Dreamtonics drama, buuut... Does anyone else find it weird how parasocial the relationship between the fandom and the various companies and dev teams has become?

It might just be a result of the Western vocal synth fandom skewing so young and me getting too old for this kind of thing, but it bugs me how every time some kind of drama kicks off or problematic thing is revealed, some people in the fandom get personally offended and act like someone's just insulted their mum. And barring official VB pages (like Miku's, for example), most companies involved with vocal synths don't often encourage the fandom to form parasocial relationships directly with them.

Needless to say, while I totally get the anger towards Dreamtonics's latest video, I thought the reaction on Twitter was far too overblown. The way people were talking about it, you'd have thought a video was leaked of Kanru Hua doing something personally horrible. But nah, it's just a company PR disaster. Most other fandoms would have angry people too if something similar kicked off, but I have a feeling there wouldn't be so much of a diluge of "FUK U DREAMTONICS"-style tweets.

Mind you, I am talking about VocaTwitter, the closest candidate to a resident bottom of the fandom. Remember when everyone thought YouTube was the main hellpit for most fandoms?

Major synth developers having English Twitter accounts is relatively new and it makes the feeling of personal investment intensely strong. In 2011 I don't remember anyone religiously following any official accounts posts this much except maybe the Oliver one. It's extra funny because I barely even know what the dreamtonics stuff was about, just seen the reactions to it lol

 

[mary34]

So this kinda relates to the recent Dreamtonics drama, buuut... Does anyone else find it weird how parasocial the relationship between the fandom and the various companies and dev teams has become?

It might just be a result of the Western vocal synth fandom skewing so young and me getting too old for this kind of thing, but it bugs me how every time some kind of drama kicks off or problematic thing is revealed, some people in the fandom get personally offended and act like someone's just insulted their mum. And barring official VB pages (like Miku's, for example), most companies involved with vocal synths don't often encourage the fandom to form parasocial relationships directly with them.

Needless to say, while I totally get the anger towards Dreamtonics's latest video, I thought the reaction on Twitter was far too overblown. The way people were talking about it, you'd have thought a video was leaked of Kanru Hua doing something personally horrible. But nah, it's just a company PR disaster. Most other fandoms would have angry people too if something similar kicked off, but I have a feeling there wouldn't be so much of a diluge of "FUK U DREAMTONICS"-style tweets.

Mind you, I am talking about VocaTwitter, the closest candidate to a resident bottom of the fandom. Remember when everyone thought YouTube was the main hellpit for most fandoms?

Hmm I can see where are you coming from but I think the intensity of the backlash has a bit more to it than that
There is definitely a group of people within those who are angry right now who might come at this from a more parasocial "How could you do this to us" lens, I think the bulk of it is a combination of bad timing and pent up frustration.

For the first one, Dreamtonics had many L's in it's lifecycle including marketing, which combined with other grievances (as well as some more silly fanwanks that on their own probably wouldn't put much of a dent on any company's rep where this a different scenario) turned the incident into some sort of final straw to many (I would consider myself more in this camp btw). It's a sentiment closer to "that's it, I am done with this crap" than a personal sense of betrayal.

The second, timing. We just had a controversy because of Diff-SVC which made already existing concerns about AI vocal synths getting lumped in with AI image generators so to have a prominent (in the west and china anyway) company who manufactures exactly that kind of synth platforms a person who not only makes that exact conflation but also dismisses concerns about AI image generators entirely mere days after the first incident was a bit of bad timing to say the least. This caused all the frustration with DT for their past failures to go up in flames like a barrel of gasoline after a lit match was thrown at it.

That's said, there is a broader point to be made about the parasocial aspect of it all: I think V-synth fans in general have this kind of attachement to the products and I don't think it's because of them skewing young or because of cultural differences. (Just look at the Vsinger V5 designs controversy). I think it's simply because of the very nature of vsynths (usually) having humanoid avatars: at the end of the day even thought we know Hatsune Miku or Kafu or Kasane Teto or Solaria are glorified midi instruments sampled from a person's voice with a 2D character slapped on the cover, that 2D character makes them feel more... real? Personal? At the very least easier to form an emotional attachment to. It's not a bad thing on it's own: Humans are social animals, it's in our nature to form a degree of attachment to something that reminds us of, well, us. But big backlashes like this, as well as fans tendency to treat these corporations as their old friend or classmates (even thought, and say it with me now, corporations are not and never will be your friends, yes even if the social media guy is funny) worries me a little.

I think it's good to remind ourselves that at the end of the day corporations are well, corporations. They are not our friend and we certainly should not emotionally attach ourselves to them too much for our own sake

This got very long and rambly and I made at least three typos probably, but yeah, these are my two cents.

 

[peaches2217]

That's said, there is a broader point to be made about the parasocial aspect of it all: I think V-synth fans in general have this kind of attachement to the products and I don't think it's because of them skewing young or because of cultural differences. (Just look at the Vsinger V5 designs controversy). I think it's simply because of the very nature of vsynths (usually) having humanoid avatars: at the end of the day even thought we know Hatsune Miku or Kafu or Kasane Teto or Solaria are glorified midi instruments sampled from a person's voice with a 2D character slapped on the cover, that 2D character makes them feel more... real? Personal? At the very least easier to form an emotional attachment to. It's not a bad thing on it's own: Humans are social animals, it's in our nature to form a degree of attachment to something that reminds us of, well, us. But big backlashes like this, as well as fans tendency to treat these corporations as their old friend or classmates (even thought, and say it with me now, corporations are not and never will be your friends, yes even if the social media guy is funny) worries me a little.

I’d say it’s a combination of that, and the fact that the SynthV fandom has formed a massively unhealthy relationship with SynthV and Dreamtonics as a whole. SynthV itself is a great engine, but its popularity here has been jointly tied to the notion of “Vocaloid betrayed us and SynthV saved us!” from day one — the original engine came out shortly after the release of V5, which was heavily maligned within the Western fandom and especially VocaTwitter. Eleanor Forte was a breakthrough vocal in a lot of ways, but rarely was there any praise for her that wasn’t coupled with some manner of “Vocaloid could NEVER!” (and that’s a practice that continues even now, largely with Vocaloid and CeVIO AI). That’s the foundation a good chunk of the SynthV fandom is built upon: Yamaha betrayed us, Vocaloid therefore is ruined, and Dreamtonics actually cares and will both save us and usher in a new era of vocalsynthesis.

Dreamtonics has long been held on a pedestal as such, and for a time, even Kanru Hua himself was. I say with only slight exaggeration that people treated him like a god. Dreamtonics, its founder, and its flagship engine have never really been held to the same standard every other synth and company on the market is, at least not until very recently. People felt that criticizing any aspect of it was akin to criticizing a friend. (People have literally said “Dreamtonics doesn’t DESERVE to be held to the same standard, they’re smaller and friendlier and care more uwu”.) Taking this long and sordid history into account, it’s understandable why people would find something like this to be such an intense betrayal.

Of course, I think this whole issue stems from treating a corporation like a dear friend. There’s gotta be some degree of separation, otherwise stuff like this happens. The most vicious of the backlash is coming from those who have spent years thinking Dreamtonics is truly their friends before they’re a company, and the reality that they’re not… ain’t pretty.

 

[lIlI]

I agree that vocal synths having avatars creates a personal connection that makes discussions like 'which engine is best' more contentious on both sides. If you see someone saying your favourite Vocaloid is outdated, it's going to be hard not to feel personally offended and want to defend them on 'their' behalf. On the other hand, a lot of the anger at Yamaha stemmed from people feeling like the company had betrayed their favourite Vocaloid and threatened its virtual future. Whether you're jumping to the defence of Dreamtonics because you felt they were there for you when Vocaloid wasn't, or a loyalist unhappy with Dreamtonics because their fans insulted Vocaloid; it's indicative of the emotional connection that Vocaloid's marketing was able to create.

But although it has its downsides, that emotional connection is why a lot of us are here, and why the fandom brings us joy. Maintaining a healthy relationship with the things you love is an unspoken art of being in a fan community.

 

[Infoholic]

I have many thoughts on this situation, and it starts at the beginning.

Moresampler was praised as the best resampler to exist, Arpasing was praised for it's intuitive nature in comparison to English methods that came before it. SynthesizerV became a phenomenon of its own, creating a bubble that would grow larger with time. I'd say that SynthesizerV's success was at it's core built on the backs of the UTAU and Vocaloid communities, especially with Quadimension's support. This happened at a time when most fandoms, regardless of language, felt very betrayed by Yamaha. As it has been mentioned, yes there is a parasocial aspect at play, but it's also been a decade of catering to our groups. With V5, we saw Yamaha perform a complete 180 of the marketing that they had been holding since the late 2000s, leading what arguably caused the vocal synthesis boom (Hatsune Miku) leaving the brand [that's a separate discussion].

This was a huge blow, especially since almost every major company jumped ship with it or simply ceased updates. For an already slim market, English fans had only one alternative (and arguably Chinese fans as well with how slow the progress was on Vsinger). This was the perfect time for SynthesizerV's debut, and as mentioned it launched much higher than expected due to the perfect culmination of these circumstances. I definitely agree SynthV was viewed as a "savior" for the community at large as most felt Yamaha was completely tired of Vocaloid.

The problem arises when that savior is...not sufficient. Dreamtonics has never been good at marketing, but as the bubble increased so did the difficulty to maintain it professionally for Dreamtonics. SynthesizerV R1 had little-to-no controversy (I can't even recall any), but now that we're seeing the brand expand without people who can nurture it we're seeing the bubble burst. It's blatantly obvious that Dreamtonics has no person, or a very inept person, in charge of marketing and PR. For a company and brand that built their success off of a community in the way it did, this was bound to happen sooner or later and it explains why it never caught on in Japan. Japan never felt the betrayal in the same way that China and the English speaking communities did, why would they? They still have Miku, they received the Meika twins, and they've always been very well fed with content and have more options than any other commercially supported languages combined.

Through this latest controversy, I would say the SynthV bubble has finally popped; like it already has in China (or at least died down). People are just fed up, and I think rightfully so seeing as how there still hasn't been an official statement regarding this situation (of which just happened to also be poorly timed with the Diff-SVC attention).

Dreamtonics is not an indie brand, they have the budget needed to be successful, but instead of doing what is owed to their business partners by properly maintaining their brand and product, they're just not even bothering and there's many cracks showing. DT publishes updates and new features without proper optimization, they don't engage or address anything with consumers (and the once or twice they have have been a nightmare), as well as overall having a poor quality of service that isn't their tech. They need to get their act together.

 

[peaches2217]

Maintaining a healthy relationship with the things you love is an unspoken art of being in a fan community.

It's an art that fewer and fewer people are mastering, myself included. I've been around for damn-near my whole life now, and I've never seen such intense brand loyalty and worship such as I've seen between VocaTwitter and SynthV. As sad as this whole situation is, I do hope it helps ease tensions between SynthV fans and overall synth fans and reminds us all that, at the end of the day, corporations aren't our friends, and this community was built not by rich dev techs, but by fans and userbases. It's up to us to create art with what we're given. I think that's more important than anything.

I have many thoughts on this situation, and it starts at the beginning.

Moresampler was praised as the best resampler to exist, Arpasing was praised for it's intuitive nature in comparison to English methods that came before it. SynthesizerV became a phenomenon of its own, creating a bubble that would grow larger with time. I'd say that SynthesizerV's success was at it's core built on the backs of the UTAU and Vocaloid communities, especially with Quadimension's support. This happened at a time when most fandoms, regardless of language, felt very betrayed by Yamaha. As it has been mentioned, yes there is a parasocial aspect at play, but it's also been a decade of catering to our groups. With V5, we saw Yamaha perform a complete 180 of the marketing that they had been holding since the late 2000s, leading what arguably caused the vocal synthesis boom (Hatsune Miku) leaving the brand [that's a separate discussion].

This was a huge blow, especially since almost every major company jumped ship with it or simply ceased updates. For an already slim market, English fans had only one alternative (and arguably Chinese fans as well with how slow the progress was on Vsinger). This was the perfect time for SynthesizerV's debut, and as mentioned it launched much higher than expected due to the perfect culmination of these circumstances. I definitely agree SynthV was viewed as a "savior" for the community at large as most felt Yamaha was completely tired of Vocaloid.

The problem arises when that savior is...not sufficient. Dreamtonics has never been good at marketing, but as the bubble increased so did the difficulty to maintain it professionally for Dreamtonics. SynthesizerV R1 had little-to-no controversy (I can't even recall any), but now that we're seeing the brand expand without people who can nurture it we're seeing the bubble burst. It's blatantly obvious that Dreamtonics has no person, or a very inept person, in charge of marketing and PR. For a company and brand that built their success off of a community in the way it did, this was bound to happen sooner or later and it explains why it never caught on in Japan. Japan never felt the betrayal in the same way that China and the English speaking communities did, why would they? They still have Miku, they received the Meika twins, and they've always been very well fed with content and have more options than any other commercially supported languages combined.

Through this latest controversy, I would say the SynthV bubble has finally popped; like it already has in China (or at least died down). People are just fed up, and I think rightfully so seeing as how there still hasn't been an official statement regarding this situation (of which just happened to also be poorly timed with the Diff-SVC attention).

Dreamtonics is not an indie brand, they have the budget needed to be successful, but instead of doing what is owed to their business partners by properly maintaining their brand and product, they're just not even bothering and there's many cracks showing. DT publishes updates and new features without proper optimization, they don't engage or address anything with consumers (and the once or twice they have have been a nightmare), as well as overall having a poor quality of service that isn't their tech. They need to get their act together.

Forgive the unproductive response, but this is basically what I was trying to say, only Much Cleaner and More Coherent. Thank you! You've nailed it on the head. A lot of people (though that number shrinks each day) still give Dreamtonics grace for the sole purpose of "They're a small indie startup!" when they're really not, and haven't been in some time. I think that's another myth that remains popular because of the fandom's buddy-buddy feelings towards Dreamtonics. Honestly, I'm interested in seeing how the latest controversy affects that relationship in the long-term. This past year has been filled with so many unpredictable twists and turns...

 

[Blue Of Mind]

Of course, I think this whole issue stems from treating a corporation like a dear friend. There’s gotta be some degree of separation, otherwise stuff like this happens. The most vicious of the backlash is coming from those who have spent years thinking Dreamtonics is truly their friends before they’re a company, and the reality that they’re not… ain’t pretty.

This was what I was trying to say in my original post. Truth be told, most if not all fandoms are experiencing the curse of parasocial relationships now - yanno, fans treating creators and companies like their best buddies, when they really don't know anything about them at all. It's really common in music fandoms now, I've noticed, especially when you consider a lot of artists control their own social media posts. What's happened to Dreamtonics recently isn't anything new these days.

Dreamtonics has never been good at marketing, but as the bubble increased so did the difficulty to maintain it professionally for Dreamtonics. SynthesizerV R1 had little-to-no controversy (I can't even recall any), but now that we're seeing the brand expand without people who can nurture it we're seeing the bubble burst. It's blatantly obvious that Dreamtonics has no person, or a very inept person, in charge of marketing and PR. For a company and brand that built their success off of a community in the way it did, this was bound to happen sooner or later and it explains why it never caught on in Japan. Japan never felt the betrayal in the same way that China and the English speaking communities did, why would they? They still have Miku, they received the Meika twins, and they've always been very well fed with content and have more options than any other commercially supported languages combined.

Through this latest controversy, I would say the SynthV bubble has finally popped; like it already has in China (or at least died down). People are just fed up, and I think rightfully so seeing as how there still hasn't been an official statement regarding this situation (of which just happened to also be poorly timed with the Diff-SVC attention).

Dreamtonics is not an indie brand, they have the budget needed to be successful, but instead of doing what is owed to their business partners by properly maintaining their brand and product, they're just not even bothering and there's many cracks showing. DT publishes updates and new features without proper optimization, they don't engage or address anything with consumers (and the once or twice they have have been a nightmare), as well as overall having a poor quality of service that isn't their tech. They need to get their act together.

This is gonna sound super random, but Dreamtonics's current situation reminds me of Glossier's today. Both companies started out small (not quite indie, but definitely not traditional corporations either), and initially gained popularity through parasocial relationships with their fandoms. However, after a certain point, they both lost their way and started pissing off their fans. (If you like makeup drama, go to r/Glossier if you have time to kill lol.)

Forgive the unproductive response, but this is basically what I was trying to say, only Much Cleaner and More Coherent. Thank you! You've nailed it on the head. A lot of people (though that number shrinks each day) still give Dreamtonics grace for the sole purpose of "They're a small indie startup!" when they're really not, and haven't been in some time. I think that's another myth that remains popular because of the fandom's buddy-buddy feelings towards Dreamtonics. Honestly, I'm interested in seeing how the latest controversy affects that relationship in the long-term. This past year has been filled with so many unpredictable twists and turns...

We haven't even reached the end of January 2023, yet nobody predicted Dreamtonics royally pissing the fandom off to apocalyptic proportions on the Vocal Synth Predictions thread.

 

[peaches2217]

What's happened to Dreamtonics recently isn't anything new these days.

I agree it's become a lot more relevant throughout fandoms! I think the Dreamtonics worship is what kickstarted it though; the worst of the worst even now will go out of their way to make pro-SynthV anti-Literally Anything Else posts on non-SynthV-related posts (there were people on VoiSona's recent new vocal teaser commenting that the new vocal - an in-house vocal by Techno-Speech, by all appearances - would be better on SynthV). It's nurtured a spirit of animosity between fans with their own preferences, which in turn has made the feeling of "This company/synth is my friend!" much more common, because the more you have to defend something you enjoy, the closer you're going to feel to it. I have to keep myself in check and make sure I don't become my own Yamaha-brownnosing antithesis for the same reason.

It's not new, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I don't think it's ever been this bad.

(If you like makeup drama, go to r/Glossier if you have time to kill lol.)

And now I'm going to disappear into the bowels of Reddit for the next several hours. Thank you for serving me this fresh tea.

 

[Infoholic]

This is unrelated to everything being discussed, but Alter/Ego deserved better.

 

[BiscuitsandTriscuits]

I think to add onto this discussion we could also address how people have it in the heads nowdays that in order to praise something you have to tear down another thing. Case in point vocaloid is dying, Synthv is so much better than vocaloid etc… they never provide a reason aside from it’s just better like? We can awknowledge the positives of them both at once and state the specific reasons why you prefer one over the other rather than it’s just better the other is trash etc… would also help people make a decision if they are new to the community on what to start with or if the other editor may be worth looking into if they learned that for example Synthv offers tuning on the notes or vocaloid has a massive library of voicebanks to choose from and handles character voices better

sorry I got rambly

 

[mary34]

Pardon me for derailing the topic, but since v-synth character designs came up I just wanted to say two things:

1. Miku V4x is cute the people who don't like it are just mean
2. I think this one only counts as an unpopular opinion in the Chinese vocaloid fandom, but I cannot understand for the life of my what the heckie the Chinese fandom's problem was with Vsinger V5 designs. Like I read a twitter thread once about how vocaloids in China are much more like virtual idols with established identities as opposed to the mostly blank states with the author of the thread suggesting that might be a factor, but even from that perspective I don't get it. Like what was it about these designs that made the characters feel so radically different it deviated from their established identity? Like... It's just them but in slightly different clothes... I don't get it...

Like... this looks cute???? What is wrong with it?