Wiki Wednesday #1 - Akiro Sakene / 酒音アキロ

Who is Akiro Sakene? Where can I download 酒音アキロ? Who made Sakene Akiro?

Wiki Wednesday #1 - Akiro Sakene / 酒音アキロ

Sometimes I find things in this fandom and I'm confused. Akiro Sakene is one of those things. Released in December of 2018, it's understandable that there aren't many uses of Akiro. However, what makes no sense is that there are no usages of Akiro. I went to seek out any covers posted by the voice provider, but the only information I had to go off of was the name "SapphireP". Amazingly, searching "SapphireP UTAU" lead me to a Furry UTAU Amino. 

As you can see, that wasn't exactly helpful.

By going to the UTAU Wiki and checking revision history, I was able to find SapphireP's usual screen name "GleamingSapphires". Through some intense Googling, I was able to find his YouTube channel. There's no mention of Akiro! 

Generally, I'd assume that this was just a failed idea that the voice provider burned all mention of. Akiro has a really cool website, though!! Someone spent time making that website look super cool, and then never used the bank the website was for.

So what in the heck?!

The Bank Itself

So, I know it's not exactly fair to harp on OTOs. But these made me go "huh?"

huh?

Redoing OTOs or paying Ryan a few bucks to fix them isn't a big deal. The honest truth is that OTOs don't impact the quality of the bank, only the user experience. But the OTOs are all like that. Who taught GleamingSapphires to do this??

If you honestly prefer it that way, then you do you. You don't have to change. But I'm still really, really confused about it.

Apart from that one really weird quirk, Akiro Sakene's "Stellar" bank is pretty good. The "r"s are unaspirated "d"s and the "d"s are aspirated to show the difference. The vowels aren't perfect, and the palatalized consonants aren't palatalized, but that's really, really nitpicking. If you don't flip out over tiny details, the bank's accent is on point!

The bank has CVVC samples, but of course I don't mess with that. As a CV bank, it's pretty solid. There are some cases of noises in the background, and the microphone quality is pretty standard.

It's a pretty standard bank. Whether you use it or not has more to do with the design.

The Character, Akiro

Akiro is a furloid, but not your typical furloid. 

Official Art Packaged with Bank

His design reflects his young age of 16 years old. He likes coffee, hates alcohol, and is part of the LGBT community.

I'm sure that if SapphireP continues work on Akiro Sakene, he will eventually grow into a more typical furloid design with time. But, we will only learn that if he keeps on working on him! With the complete lack of content, I'm not sure if that will happen.

The Website

Ok, the website is really cool. I know that with modern tools, it isn't that difficult to create cool webpages. But I have been using the Internet religiously since at least 2003. I'm easily impressed!

But I'm really confused about the Japanese. Why? There's no English in sight! The grammar is strange. When I put my conspiracy theory hat on, I almost think that SapphireP never meant for people to link him and Akiro. Maybe he wanted to fool us all into thinking a Japanese user created Akiro! But, romanizing "ページ" as "pezi", using a bit.ly link, and using Mega to upload the bank told me instantly it was a Western user. Also, uh, all of the documentation inside of Akiro's bank is in English. So, I'm pretty sure it was just a design choice and not a conspiracy theory. 

Where to download Sakene Akiro?

Download Sakene Akiro on his download page. The link is the "bit.ly" link next to "ダウンロード". The link is not a hyperlink, so you need to copy and paste it into the address bar to access it. 

I went into this confused. How could there be no content involving this UTAU?? I came out even more confused. The bank is decent and SapphireP is still posting UTAU content not about Akiro to this day! Maybe soon, there will be Akiro content out there. You never know.