New Vocaloid- Gachapin
I haven’t been around recently and so have missed blogging about a lot of good news. Many, many videos were made featuring Lily’s demos, and now she’s been released. Perhaps I’ll look into more depth in a later post. Mizki had an album released and I believe she will be released soon. Again, I’ll look more into it later.
But recently two new Vocaloids were announced. I didn’t post on the first one, Rio, because it turned out a lot of the information was incorrect: the mascot, the character name… All we know for certain is that Sanrio and AH-Software are working together to create a Vocaloid. (Sanrio is the company behind Hello Kitty, leading to fan fears of a Kittyloid.)
Well, now we’ve got a Dinoloid… a Vocaloid based upon a popular kids TV show mascot. I’m not familiar with the TV series it was based on [HIrake! Ponkikki], but apparently the dinosaur character dressed up as a character from an anime called Gatchaman and became infamously popular because of it. (Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2010-08-27/gachapin-mascot-gets-vocaloid2-voice-synthesis-pack... You can also see what the character looks like, too.]
There’s also (supposedly) a demo up: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm11900185
I’ve gotten use to Vocaloids that imitate the natural human voice closely. So his voice, which sounds more cartoony and less human, originally made me feel skeptic. I’m still a little skeptic if this is a true demo. [It probably is though; the preorder is already up.] But the voice fits pretty well for a dinosaurloid.
The thing is… Despite the fact the voice sounds a bit unnatural, I really, really, REALLY like the way this demo sounds. I could listen to it on repeat again and again. It’s cartoonish but highly enjoyable. I can’t describe why I like it, but I do. I might even be willing to forgive the concept of a Dinoloid. Well, ‘forgive’ implies I’m angry... I'm not. Some fans are angry, others are laughing (out of despair), and a few others don’t seem to mind that the mascot isn’t human. Well, the mascot shouldn’t count anyway…
I hope that another demo gives it a less robotic voice. However, if that’s not the case, he would have a nice voice for techno-ey videos.
You can preorder here, if so inclined: http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0040X354G/nicovideojp-22/ref=nosim
Summary: A Dinosaur Vocaloid. Yeah. But from what I can see, it’s got a really nice voice, sooo…