Unpopular Opinions

[lIlI]

Would you mind giving some examples? Maybe there are some in there that are slipping my mind…

Sexualisation is an interesting, but difficult topic to discuss, because our perception is influenced by what we are used to.

We are a culture formed from thousands of years of history. Throughout all of it, the vast majority of creators and consumers were straight men. We as humans tend to draw characters we find attractive, almost without thinking about it. Combine that with a party bag of misogyny and oppression that also made up our past, and you get a timeline where the vast majority of women in media are sexualised. This influences what we view as normal today.

When I was a young teenager, I didn't consider the fact that I had to shave my entire lower body to go swimming anything sexual - but this discomfort is unsurprising when you consider that modern women's swimsuit was designed by a man in a period when legs were in. No doubt if we came from a matriarchy, they'd be more options for comfortable shorts in store. We don't consider one pieces sexual because they are so common that it's no longer a sexual choice, but they are sexualised.

All this backstory to say that I agree that a micro skirt and thigh highs are a sexual outfit. As a result, most female Vocaloid outfits are, though nothing out of the ordinary, quite sexualised.

It's so common because it covers Japan's most popular fetishes (school girl & zettai ryouki), and companies view the idea of not sexualising a female character like they view burning money. It feels normal to us because we grew up with it, so a female character that isn't sexualised stands out more.

Now, you can all draw your own opinions on the pros and cons of this, remember this is a sensitive issue that isn't entirely on topic for this thread (and I am contributing to that ). My closing unpopular opinion is that I would like to see more variety in female Vocaloid designs, exploring avenues that aren't tied so closely to what people find attractive - there's so much we, and the art world as a whole, could explore. I want undead Lena Horne V5. Maybe you'd prefer the next 50 male Vocaloids get thigh highs. Either way, I'm ready for a switch up.

 

[Blue Of Mind]

My closing unpopular opinion is that I would like to see more variety in female Vocaloid designs, exploring avenues that aren't tied so closely to what people find attractive - there's so much we, and the art world as a whole, could explore. I want undead Lena Horne V5. Maybe you'd prefer the next 50 male Vocaloids get thigh highs. Either way, I'm ready for a switch up.

I just want more female Vocaloids with trousers. Flower V4 has been the closest so far (I think), not counting fan interpretations of designs like Cyber Diva. Female designs don't tend to get any more daring than shorts.

 

[BiscuitsandTriscuits]

I just want more female Vocaloids with trousers. Flower V4 has been the closest so far (I think), not counting fan interpretations of designs like Cyber Diva. Female designs don't tend to get any more daring than shorts.

Daina actually does wear pants but yeah we def need more

 

[crtstatic]

Mind giving an example?

I also respectfully disagree that a lot of Vocaloids have sexual looking designs. Like UMA said, the only one that might appear that way is Lily, but she really doesn’t have any defining features.

Would you mind giving some examples? Maybe there are some in there that are slipping my mind…

The ones I can immediately think of are Gumi, Luka V4, and Sonika
Boobs are something that make me uncomfortable, and having to see them while looking at references while drawing is just,,,

Yeah just makes me uncomfortable. Like, it's the only problem that I have with Macne Nana's design

I could rlly care less about some stomach being exposed

And I think I've already expressed that more of the females need to have outfits that don't involved skirts

 

[REDD]

I highly disagree with the notion that skirts and large breasts are inherently sexual. They can certainly be drawn and designed to look that way, but I highly disagree with the notion that these things inherently make a design "sexualized". (Especially when it comes to the latter notion. Women who have a larger bust are not more "sexual" than women who are smaller. That notion annoys me to no end.)

But i digress. When it comes to Vocaloid designs, the majority of designs with this trope seem to try and give more of a "cutesy" feel to the design rather than a "sexy" one. Skirts are a very feminine and cutesy thing, and every Vocaloid company feels the need to have their own feminine cutesy moe mascot girl because Miku, so of course they're gonna slap that on everything.

SLIGHT TANGENT

The only really thing that comes to mind when i think of Vocaloid devs being disgustingly horny was that one time they made an official body pillow for Una. like seriously what the fuck was that? shes like 12 dudes that's gross (also on that note what is it with child Vocaloids and their fanbases being disgusting? like this is why we can't have nice things ffs)

But yeah, it seems like people are only doing the whole "cute" thing because those kinds of voicebanks seem to be the only ones that sell well.
And that in and of itself wouldn't be a bad thing if it didn't suffocate any motivation to try anything other than that. Though i guess i kind of understand why they think this way. Ever since Miku became a thing, Vocaloid has almost entirely been financially upheld by a very niche part of Japanese otaku culture. If its original audience, (professional music producers) were more of a factor in paying their bills, then there'd be more motivation to cover more ground with different musical styles. (kind of like what Zero-G was trying)

But since most of those producers can't be bothered to work with Vocaloid, they're essentially stuck catering to people who like cute, anime schoolgirls. And those people aren't really interested in anything that doesn't suit their tastes. And now that they've run that trope into the ground, and their cash cow Crypton is seeking other ventures, Vocaloid essentially has no viable market to cater to anymore. They couldn't make the technological advancements necessary to attract their target audience, and now the IP is suffering for it.

 

[___]

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@bishidayo I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as an attack on you, that's not my intention. I realize you have strong opinions on Yamaha/Vocaloid and the direction they've taken and such and you're very much entitled to those opinions and I might even see where you're coming from as I too am not too thrilled with some decisions Yamaha has made over the years but there's appropiate time and place to voice those dislikes and to have discussions about that, it's just very disheartening to see the topic inappropriately shift to Vocaloid dying/taking bad direction in terms of voice synthetizer technology/failing at any other area whenever you add to the conversation. This isn't me trying to silence you or me inherently disagreeing with you ( in this conversation rn I'm choosing to remain neutral on those points ), it's just me giving you a heads up. If you're feeling frustrated, which you have every right to, by all means start threads discussing such topics, post status updates voicing your opinions. It just seems you always come back to the same topic, no matter what's being discussed.

And since I don't want to go off topic! I made it no secret that I love Macne Nana I actually love the accent in her english voicebank! Atta girl, fk those "r"s drftgyhuji who needs them anyways?

 

[peaches2217]

God, YES. I think Nana's missing Rs are extremely charming, plus her English in and of itself is surprisingly easy to work with. I loved her trial, and I've been tossing around actually getting her, because she has so much potential.

 

[Scarlet Illusion]

I highly disagree with the notion that skirts and large breasts are inherently sexual. They can certainly be drawn and designed to look that way, but I highly disagree with the notion that these things inherently make a design "sexualized". (Especially when it comes to the latter notion. Women who have a larger bust are not more "sexual" than women who are smaller. That notion annoys me to no end.)

But i digress. When it comes to Vocaloid designs, the majority of designs with this trope seem to try and give more of a "cutesy" feel to the design rather than a "sexy" one.

I agree very much with this. I don’t have much to say as you’ve already done a good job expressing my thoughts.
However, I do want to mention that while breasts =/= sexualized, some designs (not necessarily in Vocaloid, but other media forms as well) with larger er… proportions aren’t designed in good conscious. (Some of the designs in anime, for example, can be very questionable.)
(Edit: I just realized you already said that. Whoops! )

Anyhoo, back on topic here. I haven’t listened to Nana’s English, but I wanted to say I actually like voicebanks with strong foreign accents a lot. I don’t mind that some things are mispronounced and I think it adds a certain charm to a bank! (For example, I like that Miku’s V4 English still pronounces that short “I” sounds like the Japanese “い”.)

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Rin and Kaito's English banks have such painfully bad tone that they tend to ruin songs for me.
(Miku V3 also has problem imo this but V4x is much much better on that front. Well, on a lot of fronts lol)

 

[peaches2217]

Rin and Kaito's English banks have such painfully bad tone that they tend to ruin songs for me.
(Miku V3 also has problem imo this but V4x is much much better on that front. Well, on a lot of fronts lol)

See, I personally love the tones of all the Crypton English banks. Regarding their actual English, they range from "Hey, that's pretty good!" to "Who funded this", but I think they all have lovely tones. Even Len's much-maligned English bank, tone-wise, sounds nice to me. I just. I like them all, and I hope their updates on Piapro will improve their practical use for that reason.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Honestly, while Len's English is meh I think his actual tone is fine? I don't like Len in general but I don't like his english bank significantly less like i do Rin and Kaito

 

[ThatGirlMyra]

So I know this will be very unpopular, so sorry in advance, but I find all the popular western producers to be relatively overrated. I like Circus because he's a nice guy and I like some of his music, so I'm going to exclude him from this for the most part.

Crusher is so edgy it hurts. I would prefer if she did more songs like OBEY, because that was actually cool. (To be fair, I haven't checked on her in a long time, so she could've changed her genres or whatever) Alsoalso, can anyone tell me what on earth happened between her and Circus? Because I'm still sort of lost lol.

Ghost has the same issue as Crusher, but his/her songs just sound like noise. I can appreciate the fact that there is storylines in their songs, but can we please relax with everyone being insane...? It just... began to grate on my nerves.

Circus' music is exactly how he sells it: overly-emotional. His music is either one of two things: super edgy or super depressing. But I like his older stuff and his newest album, so it's not all bad for me.

CreeP is just... I don't even know what going on with that producer but they truly scare me. I choose not to listen to any of their music, but the topics they discuss are just so... why? does that need to be sung about?


KIRA (is he western?) just sounds like pop music, which is fine, but boring.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are the ones I see most often. I'm not saying anyone should stop listening to them or whatever, these are just my personal opinions (so please don't attack me because I've already been through that)

 

[Mika]

Totally get where you are coming from but:

Not even sure if this is unpopular, but regarding the stand on "edgy music" in the english vocaloid community... why do people have to criticize that the music is "edgy" anyway? We all know that Circus-P was in a really bad headspace back then (which resulted in Goodbye and that song is.. telling) and both Ghost and Creep-P suffer from depression. "Edgy" music is their way to cope (probably) so criticizing it just because of that is not cool. Everyone has a different music taste and that's good, but I often hear people say their music is bad just because of that and... yeah. Don't do that. Just don't listen to it if you don't like it.

CreeP is a really nice guy (at least when I interact with him he's really nice), and he had to go through a lot. Music is a medium in which people express their feelings and their experiences. There are no rules for what music can be about so yeah. If he feels like these topics need to be sung about, then that's how it is.
Also yes, KIRA is german.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

And uh, to be honest, CreepP is incredibly tame compared to a lot of JP producers like maretu, kikuo, masa, Deadball, etc

Songs about creepypastas are much more tame than a few songs that quite honestly nearly made me vomit

 

[Rolo]

I think the biggest difference between JP and western producers who make “dark or edgy” music is sound and understanding tbh. Like I also don’t listen to a lot of western producers or English vocaloid songs especially the edgy ones because I just hate the sound of English vocaloid. It’s rarely pulled off well and combine that with lyrics that I can understand that are negative it can be hard to listen to. Meanwhile with Kikuo and Maretu or other producers even if I have an idea of what the song is about while I’m listening I still don’t know what’s being said, I couldn’t listen to each line and know what dark imagery may be being expressed (especially in Kikuo’s case when his music has a deceptive sound) I can’t speak for anyone else but that’s just my opinion on it. It just comes down to personal bias

 

[DefiantKitsune]

I really don't like Quadimension as a company, they're very creepy with how they treat their characters.

(Kiritan/Itako and Una are guilty af here too, but they seem to get more crap for it in the West)

obvious disclaimer, this is the company and not the banks. I don't like all their banks but that's just cuz i don't like em

 

[REDD]

@patuk Thanks for letting me know. I kinda got carried up in various tangents in my own head and i didn't really realize i was derailing. Im sorry if i was annoying anyone, i didn't mean to be a downer.

Anyways, on topic. While i value freedom of artistic expression very highly, i'd be lying if i said i absolutely love everything the Western fandom makes. I appreciate it from a "yay! more content!" perspective, there's also the fact that a lot of Western producers are not as experienced as the ones in the JP counterpart. So there's gonna be some discrepancy.

As for dark/edgy music, i really dont mind music like that, i dont really think theme/subject matter is the problem, but rather, i feel the execution can be lacking sometimes. I get the feeling that a good portion of "edgy" songs from the West voca fandom sound kinda... samey??? It feels like the melodies dont really have a lot of thought put into them most of the time, and it just fails to leave an impression on me most of the time.

There's also just the fact that I have certain musical tastes and most of those songs just dont fit in there to begin with. (which is why i wanna get into making my own stuff with vocaloid, though tbh im prolly not gonna be much better lmao)

 

[ThatGirlMyra]

And uh, to be honest, CreepP is incredibly tame compared to a lot of JP producers like maretu, kikuo, masa, Deadball, etc

I know that, trust me. I've listened to my fair share of songs because I didn't know what I was getting into, only to have it torture me at night. But (at least to me, anyway) I see more of Creep than the others. And his stuff still unnerves me, that doesn't change.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

I know that, trust me. I've listened to my fair share of songs because I didn't know what I was getting into, only to have it torture me at night. But (at least to me, anyway) I see more of Creep than the others. And his stuff still unnerves me, that doesn't change.

I relate; there's one song each by kikuo and maretu that i cannot recall any of what sounds like but are literally seared into my memory.

 

[Sherbet42]

I think that the reason 'edgy' Westen P music gets popular is a few reasons:

> [largly] pre/teens are into Vocaloid because anime and yada yada, they like edgy stuff, that's normal
> the style of 'poetry with a tune' is easy to write when it's just you on your own, so people just make more of it
> popular breeds popular, and that poppin' rant sounds that you wrote when you where 15 with Oliver, for example, does stick around and become people's first introduction to Vocaloid, making it seem like that's all there is so people stick to listing to that type of music. Like Miku and all the songs written with her in 2007 that people still give a lot of attention too.
> Quite frankly unless you're as good as Kira, nobody is going to listen to something that you made unless it's got an edge to it, these people found that edge. More conventual stuff has real people singing, and since so many [Eng]loids are super-specialized (or old) or just 'for pop; more experimental music like that comes out.
> Vocaloid just isn't mainstream enough to have less edgy people take the Western spotlight for the time being. People seem fine with all the more mainstream music being done with the Japanese side of producers and idols.

I think it's just a minor form of the Markiplyer effect in action, tbh. GHOST has even taken back their era of 'edgy' music in a 'yeah alright I can see how this was lame' fashion and I think the others are more or less the same. I'm pretty neutral on it all, because at least we have something interesting as little as we have.