Unpopular Opinions

[Prism]

I like his design more than most english male vocaloid designs I feel like it works well for power fx intention and is pleasing to both markets. It's a inoffensive blank canvas that you mold into what you want. I love avanna but her design is too spicy and hard to redesign without her feeling like a different character

 

[Overcast Immortal]

As far as I can tell, there is a strong correlation between detailed, creative character designs and financial success along with popularity in this market. Blank or dull canvases don't bode well for sales even if the product can produce excellent results. If Yohioloid had a more interesting design, Yohioloid could have become much more popular both in and out of Japan. For better or worse our community is as much driven by character designs and animation as it is by vocals, if not more so.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

OK that's not really accurate like, at all? Some of the most distinctive designs like SeeU, Akaza, and Mayu have done rather poorly, while the OG Crypton designs are honestly not that detailed or creative but obviously they did super well. And that's not even accounting for, say, the VYs.

Honestly I think y'all are overthinking why Hio didn't do well - he simply had the bad luck to launch against Miku V3 and never had a chance bc of it.

 

[crtstatic]

A bit late, but here I go:

Personally, I actually LIKE Hio's design. While it may not be the "flashiest" design of any Vocaloid, its one of the more simple designs. plus, Cubi is adorable, change my mind
Compared to a design like Miku, he looks easier to draw, which as an artist, I appreciate

 

[Stardust]

As sad as it is, the design can matter with how well a VB performs. Many people wrote off Amy, Chris, Ken and Kaori just because of their designs and ignored the potential the VBs had.(Putting the V5 drama aside of course).
Also, I do not think SeeU, Mayu and VY2 are good examples. SeeU is very popular in Korea, and would have most likely done even better had the incident with her VP not happened, and Mayu has a fanbase in Japan. I see Originals with her and she has even been included in a few of Hitoshizuku's 8-vocaloid songs(I believe the two are Alice in N.Y. and the Phantom Thief one).
VY2 however? He was one of the most pirated VBs at a time. Not even Roro's popularity could help him either, VY1 was always more popular then him, and she lacked a popular fan design.
Miku V3 did ruin Yohioloid's chances, but a bland design does not help either.
(Also, thank you for posting that picture TheStarPalace. I thought he was more into Visual Kei, but I did not know sometimes he would wear other fashion styles)

As an artist as well, his design does not look much easier to draw then Miku's or the other Cryptons, but to be honest, I never thought Miku's design was hard to draw personally, so that may be the case. Also, it is difficult to mold it into something different because you are just working off of a real person's anime design, which feels odd and almost a bit creepy to change it, like you are changing the person to suit what you want or desire. I do not know why it is, but it is to me. Perhaps I am taking it a bit far, but that's how I feel about it.

 

[TheStarPalace]

Well, designs do influence fandom popularity, but I think Overcast was talking more about voicebank sales. SeeU has a lot of fans, but when she was released she sold so poorly that stmedia almost went bankrupt. I'm not sure how well mayu sold, but a lot of producers were commissioned to make songs with her around her release, which made her everywhere for a while. I agree with kitsune about how hio failed mostly because of miku v3 releasing around the same time (same reason why people remember miku's birthday more than lumis...)

 

[Stardust]

Well, designs do influence fandom popularity, but I think Overcast was talking more about voicebank sales. SeeU has a lot of fans, but when she was released she sold so poorly that stmedia almost went bankrupt. I'm not sure how well mayu sold, but a lot of producers were commissioned to make songs with her around her release, which made her everywhere for a while. I agree with kitsune about how hio failed mostly because of miku v3 releasing around the same time (same reason why people remember miku's birthday more than lumis...)

I was referring to both fandom popularity and VB sales, and how those two can sometimes connect. I apologize if my post was not clear enough about that.
I did not know SeeU sold that poorly. That really is a shame.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

SeeU was also near rock bottom of NND's Vocaloid rankings in 2014 (granted, xenophobia didn't help, but she lost to GACHAPOID- the only JP bank she beat was Chika who had only been out for a few months at that point.) I honestly don't get why everyone acts like she was popular when she flopped so hard. VY2 may have been most pirated, but he's sure maintained his popularity and sales better than Mayu, if only due to default status- EXIT has basically had to pay people outside Mayu's small userbase to keep her relevant. Honestly I think Yohioloid's design was the right balance of distincitve and malleable. There's a lot you can do with it but the colors and the c u b e are memorable. He's way more distinctive than ZOLA's default art (and trying to do a ton of "alt" designs just confused everyone) or kokone, just to pick a few that were close in release to him.

Fandom popularity honestly doesn't seem to correlate to sales too well; SeeU, Maika, and Fukase are all very popular in the fandom and all were known to have sold worse than expected. A nice design and a lot of fanart just doesn't sell the VB.
Speaking of Chika she had a relatively unique design but she still managed to not get a single upload on NND in 2019 rip

Oh also Lapis was the 13th most popular Vocaloid on NND in 2015 which. makes me think she did a lot better than the west gave her credit for lol. (For context, that makes her the 3rd most popular V3 during the last year of V3, which she was already 3 years old.)

EDIT: Although I just remember I've always thought the source of the "Fukase sold poorly" info was way too narrow to quote as gospel.

 

[Rylitah]

Even not taking sales into consideration, SeeU was disliked in Korea too. Japanese Vocaloid fans didn't like her because she was Korean, Korean fans didn't like her because she had a Japanese bank (which may seem like weird reasoning since there are a lot of Korean Vocaloid fans who love Miku and such, but there was definitely resentment towards this because they didn't like that SeeU wasn't solely Korean and promoted to only Korean fans) - she was in a weird situation where she was being marketed to two different audiences, and both audiences didn't like that she was being marketed towards the other. Then there's the "English capability" that people laughed at (why "I only speak Konglish" exists), the drama over her misleading demos...

She's been controversial since the beginning, way before her VP incident ever happened. This is why Uni only released with a Korean bank to start with -- ST Media didn't want to make the same mistake (and Uni was much, much better received).

People have warmed up a bit to SeeU since then, but it's too little too late and she's just a tragic tale from beginning to end orz

 

[Stardust]

This ended up by accident to be much longer then expected, so I am spoiler-ing it to keep the wall of text from being over-bearing.

Long

I don't know if NND would really count here though because of the xenophobia you mentioned. She was never advertised for Japan either, she was advertised as "First Korean vocaloid". The Japanese bank, as far as I know was just a additional VB they added to see if it would help her popularity(I wonder if her ENG VB had released, she would have seen decent use in western communities). It was Korea where she had the most popularity.
(I am not sure of how popular Gachapoid is exactly, but I would assume he is popular in some way simply because of how he is based on a mascot. But that is just a guess.)

I was not around to see the late V2-V3 era, but most of VY2's popularity was covers. He barely has any originals as far as I can see. Exit Tunes did commission producers for Mayu songs, but she still had some use in originals(Though she was relegated to covers a lot as well).

This part is really going to boil down to pure opinion, but, the colors are not really good to me. The yellow and brown-ish grey(I am not sure what the color is exactly) are memorable only because it is probably the only time I have seen those colors used. That is because they are generally not used much because it is very difficult to get them to match, and part of me wonders if someone can get them to match at all.
The cube is just okay to me. It has lore, but it is kinda generic. For the longest time I thought it was the NND logo because it was not distinctive.

I have to argue that his art is not distinctive from the Zolas, and that the Zolas are much more distinctive because of their art style. Even if you do not care for Amano's art style(which is a valid feeling), it is a breath of fresh air from the usual Anime style that most Vocaloids are designed with.(Not that anime styles are bad, I love it and it is a good style, but if we are talking about distinction, the Zolas are much more different).
While I agree that their design itself is not memorable, as each one is just wearing a different colored shirt, the intention was to make them as concept art(Which Amano is famous for) and to encourage others to make designs of them. Even if Carnelian's design ended up being the most popular(Something they share with Roro/VY2), the point was to make alt designs of them, and I think the art succeeded in that.

I personally think Kokone is much more distinct because of her color scheme, but that is again, me just having trouble with Yohioloid's washed-out(I think that is the correct word for those kind of colors) color scheme.

I agree. I am surprised to hear about Maika selling poorly considering she was designed to be a multi-lingual VB essentially, but I guess that was not enough. I agree that the source on Fukase seems odd. His voice is very unique, he is bilingual, and Sekai no Owari was incredibly popular at the time. But again, it could be a Maika situation or something like that.

I never knew the west considered Lapis unpopular. She was definitely not popular in the west, but in Japan she had many originals and was very popular from what I saw.
On the topic of Lapis(who is a fairy), on an official Vocaloid 3 poster, she is apparently fairy-sized and not human-sized. I am not sure if this is canon or just a design choice, but I thought it was very weird and funny, so I wanted to share itI think I will stick with human-sized Lapis, even if that means it is a head-canon.

I apologize if this was a mess grammatically.
Edit: You may want to ignore my SeeU portion. I posted this after Rylitah's post.

 

[peaches2217]

This part is really going to boil down to pure opinion

Hey, it’s Unpopular Opinions. You’re entitled to that much! But I’m with you. I like Hio’s design as like a casual, everyday outfit, but as a primary Vocaloid outfit... it’s not great.

 

[Stardust]

Hey, it’s Unpopular Opinions. You’re entitled to that much! But I’m with you. I like Hio’s design as like a casual, everyday outfit, but as a primary Vocaloid outfit... it’s not great.

Good point But since I was arguing about facts, like if Mayu and VY2 were popular, I wanted to make sure that my opinion on Hio and the Zolas was purely opinion, while the rest was a debate(If that is the correct word, but that seems a little too harsh, like a fight occurred when it did not.)
I never realized that it would work better as a casual outfitThat must be why it seems so dull to me since all other Vocaloid designs are more extravagant.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

SeeU actually sold WORSE in Korea, supposedly. Honestly SeeU is basically a lesson in how NOT to market a voice synth, they made so many strange decisions

Gachapoid has always been one of the absolute least popular vocaloids, which shouldn't surprise anyone too much

VY2 has quite a few originals though, almost certainly more than Mayu- Hitoshizuku, EZFG, and momocashew for starters used or still use him a lot for starters. (and I'd point out Prima was well known as the most pirated v2, but still was the best selling ZG vocaloid prior to Avanna)

EDIT: I looked into it and VY2 does have fewer originals than Mayu on vocadb. I'm gonna go ahead and amend my statement to say Mayu was bigger than him around the time of her release (when she was hyped a lot and the yandere fad was big) but they've been about equal in popularity/use since.

 

[Stardust]

While they did make some mistakes in advertising SeeU(Though Kafu may beat her at this rate), I am not sure if she sold worse in Korea, especially if it is not confirmed. I just cannot see how that could be possible considering that would be the market able to use her(Japan would too because of her JP VB, but the xenophobia affected her sales there). If I am wrong that is fine, I am just confused at how that could happen.

It actually surprises me. He is a good VB and works for techno, not to mention the hype of him being voiced by Gachapin's VA. But Vocaloid and popularity is a strange thing, and his voice is very peculiar and would be hard to make an original for if you do not know a good way to utilize his voice.

(Even though you amended your statement, I just want to apologize if my statement sounded like I was saying VY2 had no originals at all. He of course has originals(Every Vocaloid has an original), but just not that many.)
Them being around equal use/popularity nowadays makes sense. I see Mayu content as much as I see VY2 content.

I am not sure if Prima counts. I looked into it, and it seems that she was only pirated to turn the V2 UI into English, and users were not actually interested in her voice. She was apparently expensive at release, so that could have been a factor, but it seems the UI was the biggest one. The real question is, why Prima in particular and not just any V2 Engloid?
(While searching for this, I found out that Mayu was pirated around the same amount as VY2. A rather funny coincidence, perhaps someone should have them sing a anti-piracy song together.)

 

[peaches2217]

Pardon going off-topic, but something I thought of while trying to drown out a customer pitching a pyramid scheme sale to me today:

A lot of non-native English VBs are either mocked or considered not very good, and I’m 100% convinced it’s just because of their accents. Gumi’s and Fukase’s English banks are highly celebrated, and they have very neutral accents; Crypton’s English VBs are often considered weak (except Luka’s and MAYBE Miku’s), but they’re all actually quite HQexcept Len V4X English, I won’t even try defending him but heavily accented. Kaito gets the worst of it, but any JP->ENG bank that had more than a very slight accent tends to get pulverized.

 

[BiscuitsandTriscuits]

Pardon going off-topic, but something I thought of while trying to drown out a customer pitching a pyramid scheme sale to me today:

A lot of non-native English VBs are either mocked or considered not very good, and I’m 100% convinced it’s just because of their accents. Gumi’s and Fukase’s English banks are highly celebrated, and they have very neutral accents; Crypton’s English VBs are considered very weak (except Luka’s and MAYBE Miku’s), but they’re all actually quite HQexcept Len V4X English, I won’t even try defending him but heavily accented. Kaito gets the worst of it, but any JP->ENG bank that had more than a very slight accent tends to get pulverized.

I think or at least for me the issue with non native english voicebanks tends to be their optimum range and tempo? Like it tends to be smol at least with the early Crypton English voicebanks I can't recall Gumi's and my bias is saying that Nana is perfection but that is at least my issue with them. Meiko English is heavenly but the range and tempo do impede her ya know?

 

[TheStarPalace]

IDK, opinions on engloids of any flavor are so mixed ...there's many people who find using japanese vocaloids for English easier, people who think the non native voicebanks are better or more quality, people who prefer the ones from zero-g or powerfx for their uniqueness....sometimes it feels like actually liking engloids with british/american accents is an unpopular opinion

 

[peaches2217]

I think or at least for me the issue with non native english voicebanks tends to be their optimum range and tempo? Like it tends to be smol at least with the early Crypton English voicebanks I can't recall Gumi's and my bias is saying that Nana is perfection but that is at least my issue with them. Meiko English is heavenly but the range and tempo do impede her ya know?

Yeah, that’s fair! I know they have their issues from a producer standpoint, and I’ll hardly defend them as perfect (except Nana, who is literally perfect). I mostly speak from a listener’s standpoint: people who don’t work with the banks but listen to music made with them will mock the way they sound, which often just comes down to the fact that they’re not singing in a Perfect Neutral English Accent, and I just... don’t think that’s fair at all.

 

[___]

That is definitely an issue tbh but I do think the accent plays huge role, like Fukase's range is itty bitty while Nana's is huge, she probably has the widest tempo and vocal range of any engloid.

 

[DefiantKitsune]

Imo AHS exaggerated Nana's range and their other ranges by a LOT but it's still the biggest of the non-natives along with gumi

Although I could throw that out as an opinion- Internet and AHS's recommended ranges are soooo exaggerated sometimes. Kiyoteru Rock is an example i can personally attest to, AHS says he can get down to A1 when realistically like D2 is where he bottoms out.



However, I gotta say:even if Fukase's range is small, Nana just isn't anywhere near as good as he is. Like...sorry, but she's got some serious problems with vowels and such.

Starting to wonder if not liking Nana Eng is an unpopular opinion around here lol, but it's not an accent thing I just don't like her voicetype. i like nana eng and jp equally