Wiki Wednesday #95 - 旅猫ラキア / Rakia Tabineko

Happy New Year! Or maybe not! There's a chance that I messed up the dates on some articles and this gets shifted around. But, if I didn't mess anything up, this is the first Wiki Wednesday of 2021! And I'm writing it on May 17th! I'm not exactly sure why I've just written so much in such a short time. I set up a silly game that got twenty articles done in a week, but I'm still doing it. Well, I do know. I want to take care of the beginning of my spreadsheet that I keep forgetting about. Rakia here is #2 on the spreadsheet, and I haven't touched them until issue #95. If I didn't take this attitude, this NB fella would just get ignored forever. 

Wiki Wednesday #95 - 旅猫ラキア / Rakia Tabineko

I edited the Wiki page to have Rakia's voice provider's BowlRoll as the link as opposed to the original VCV link. Instead of clicking VCV, clicking the uploader's icon, and then downloading the banks, I removed two steps! I also added the link for another UTAU's latest act onto their page. I thought I was going to take care of them first, but they're #14 and this is #2. Also, that article will be really political. I mean, I try not to be, but I'll spend half of it clapping at the progressive actions taken by the voice provider. But ya know what they say! There are two genders. Male and political. And speaking of political!

Who is Tabineko Rakia?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #105 - 蕃茄音尋 / Tomatone Hiro

 Merry Christmas!

Forgotten Friday #105 - 蕃茄音尋 / Tomatone Hiro

I seriously underestimated how much families would throw a wrench in my plans. Which sounds a little weird! What I mean is that my plan was to write out all the articles in the spreadsheet, and then post them in the order in the spreadsheet. But, I have a rule to not spam families. Especially if someone is bingeing the archive (of my blog, not the Japanese wiki). It would be like "oh. Shirushine. Oh. Shirushine. Another Shirushine." And they would just walk away, because that's boring.

Trying to avoid people just walking away without clicking "read more"!

Who is Hiro Tomatone?

official icon from bank

Wiki Wednesday #94 - サマラ / GraySlate's Samara

Ya know, I don't know why I included this bank in the first place. There's no Japanese bank, only an English bank using an icky list. But, it was in my spreadsheet, so I gotta do it. That's how life be some times - you make a weird judgment that you wouldn't normally make, and then you gotta follow through. That's life, ya know.

Wiki Wednesday #94 - サマラ / GraySlate's Samara

Alright! The GreySlate UTAUs do have a working website, but Samara's download link on the website is 404, and GraySlate edited the Wiki page two-hundred and forty-five days ago which has the correct link. Or.. I could have said 245. It's a nice looking number.

The collective is named zephyrutau, and I believe there are around twenty-five UTAUs belonging to it. However, I ain't making a testing UST for Italian or Korean, so some UTAUs that only have Korean or Italian banks will never be touched by me. I believe that instead of Samara - Italian append, there is an UTAU for each language, and then that UTAU's genderbend, which is recorded as a separate character. I bookmarked the page for the future, because... Well, I have a problem with collecting UTAUs. Just going through the Wiki isn't fast enough sometimes.

Who is Samara?

official icon packaged with bank

Forgotten Friday #104 - 維音アオ / Yuine Ao

 So! I will be processing these really out of order, but for a good reason. I wrote them all in order of the visual archive, barring ones that I was having computer issues to download. I can't spam families, so I'll be breaking up all of the families, but there are a lot.

Forgotten Friday #103 - 維音アオ / Yuine Ao

So, there's always been a desync issue between Wiki Wednesday and Forgotten Friday. I just enjoy Wiki Wednesday more, so I write more for it.

Well, uh, it got rediculous and it was about to get worse if it weren't for the rubber part of my right earbud just flying into the nether.

I was doing poorly and I set a goal. I was going to finish all the Wiki Wednesday articles I had the banks for. I started writing the bulk of the articles on my phone. I wrote fifty-thousand words on my phone and pushed the articles out to August 2021. While it was August 2020. I was faltering processing the samples, but pushing forward. I had a goal!

Well, uh… a small problem causing a small meltdown (mania problems) led me to redirect and find out… there were about one hundred and fifty Wiki Wednesday articles I would need to do to reach my goal. If you round fifty-two weeks in a year down to fifty, I would have Wiki Wednesday hanging out in 2024 while I'm still living in 2020. 

So, my brain quieted by playing plenty of modded Stardew Valley, I figured out the best plan of action. 

Forgotten Friday using my original method is tedious. There's one link on Ruto.yu, and there's no telling if it's even the correct one. The project was abandoned in 2013, and is completely controlled by…. I call the person Ruto.yu in my head. I should know who ran it by now. 

I originally wanted to switch to the Visual Archive for Wiki Wednesday just because it felt more polished than the Wiki, but I found out that out of three-thousand entries, two-thousand chronologically belonged in the Forgotten Friday category. I didn't want to "double dip", so I pulled all of Ruto.yu into a text file along with all of the titles of articles on my blog. I put the kanji names of all the Wiki Wednesday UTAUs left in that text file, and started searching through the Visual Archive.

This means two main things. 

The first is that we're taking a break from nostalgic UTAUs from 2010. Everything from this batch of articles is from 2013 at the earliest. We'll jump back to 2010 eventually, so don't worry!

The second is that these articles are going to be insanely Japanese centric for a while. Ironically, though, that was kind of the plan. I didn't realize how many overseas UTAUs were created prior to 2013. I thought it would mostly be Japanese UTAUs in Forgotten Friday somehow. And, it it weren't for cool chaps like The Elemental Griffin porting Visual Archive articles to the Wiki, Wiki Wednesday would have been mostly overseas. 

So yeah, just a heads up on why Forgotten Friday is suddenly different!

Who is Ao Yuine?

Official Art from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #93 - アックア・行夫 / Yukio Acqua

I'm in a not too awful place with my memories at this very moment. I contacted Idoltrash, the voice provider, about this UTAU previously. I knew that, but I forgot entirely what they said because... well, I'm halfway there. I tried to find the tweet or DM where we talked, but I legit couldn't find it despite cutting back my tweets significantly. I think the conversation went "Hey, Yukio only has one bank?" "Yeah, the CV was bad." "Okay, I can write my article then." If that wasn't how it went, well, whoops. Yukio got cheated out of more samples being rendered. 

Wiki Wednesday #93 -  アックア・行夫 / Yukio Acqua

This is the second time recently to stop and try to figure out Asian name ordering. It's Family name, Given name. So, Acqua is the family name, and Yukio is the given name, and it is mirrored by the romanized name being Given name, Yukio; Family name, Acqua. And thank goodness. My fingers would be tied from typing Acqua after a while. (I think words and then I type them. I have no idea where the keys are. So I have to type something I don't have memorized (i.e. Acqua) and I have to pause and think "okay but... where is the 'c'?! I don't know!") Somehow, Japanese escapes that issue and I can copy it no problem... half the time. Then it's my dyslexia making me say "Is it Fuyuyu or Fufuyu?!"

So, anyway!

Who is Acqua Yukio?

official art by irunabara

Forgotten Friday #103 - 音波多キク / Owata Kiku

Oh look! A Japanese UTAU! It's been a while, hasn't it? 

Forgotten Friday #103 - 音波多キク / Owata Kiku

Okay so, this UTAU was made in 2009 in Japan. It took like five years after that point for RuPaul's Drag Race to stop using a transphobic slur every episode, and that was in America. I was sure that this UTAU was a drag queen (hence the term 'okama'), full stop, until the person who made it listed that her heart was female, also. 

I think that we can put this in the "well-meaning enough to not be overtly problematic" pile. It's just a father who does her best to raise her kids after their mother died. I think she passes well enough that no one really realizes it (i.e., she is stealth). The lips and stuff, I think the art style was just wonky. I believe her makeup is described as "perfect", and she's constantly trying to seem younger than she is... And lip fillers are all the rage for doing that.

It's really difficult to touch on trans issues with vocal synths, and can go really, really bad really fast. But, given everything, I think Kiku gets a pass.

Who is Kiku Owata?

Image from Visual Archive

Wiki Wednesday #92 - Lumina Silaeta

No fraction starting off this article. I technically started it in time to get one last article in and actually beat the dice, but that's kind of silly after I did a write-up on how I did! I'm planning on just going to the top of the list and continuing onward. Lumina was #7 in the spreadsheet. She only has two before her who haven't been done. Those two actually have a lot of banks to look at, so I just was like "okay, short and simple. This is only one bank. I can get down to serious in a day or two."

Wiki Wednesday #92 - Lumina Silaeta

So, when I started this series, I contacted Lumia's voice provider... and I don't think I ever heard back. Now, I can't even find the voice provider at all. This is legit scorched-earth territory saying "Please do not associate me with UTAU in any way." But, the download is still up, so... That's that.

Watch someone comment telling me where Lumina-P is and how it was super obvious and how did I not know that?!! (I did it to myself. Lumina's character art isn't packaged with her bank, so I needed to get it from the Wiki. I dragged and dropped it into my folder and saw the username that uploaded the image to dA. I got really excited because she last posted in October of 2018, meaning she was definitely still active because it just became 2019! No, Mae. 2018 was two years ago. It is 2020. It is half way through 2020 at time of writing.)

Who is Lumina Silaeta? 

Official Art, Yoink'd from the UTAU Wiki

Forgotten Friday #102 - フルウト音真愛 / Mai Furuutone

I have "Kids Don't Play with Too Many Knives" stuck in my head. "How do you choose between Fresh and Fly? And believe me, there is a difference!" (Crash Stuntman going to save some lives!)

Forgotten Friday #102 - フルウト音真愛 / Mai Furuutone

I think I have been getting too deep recently, and I should be more uh... More straight to the point. Articles have been taking me longer because I get side tracked, and having fireside chats isn't the purpose of the articles. I really, really want to be able to download more UTAUs, and I have like a hundred articles to get through to do that. So, yeah! Picture, sample, links.

Who is Furuutone Mai?

Official Icon from Wikia

Hopefully this isn't Goodbye, Clyp.

Clyp isn't shutting down as far as I know, but there is writing on the wall.

Recently, Clyp announced that they were moving to a fully premium model. SoundCloud and Photobucket have already pulled that. SoundCloud backed down, but Photobucket just seemingly stopped existing aside from emails telling me my bucket was full.

There's virtually no reason to choose Clyp over SoundCloud, so I do not see a reason that Clyp will make enough money to keep the lights on indefinitely. (Especially seeing as people mention using Discord to share all files under eight megabytes.)

I downloaded everything from my middle school Photobucket and deleted enough to get them to stop yelling at me for having too much stuff, so my first instinct was to take all of my files off of Clyp and move them to Google Drive.

Well, there's no option to download everything at once on Clyp. Even if there was, I would need to go through every single one of my 145 Clyps and enable downloads for each one.

Even if I downloaded everything, there's another hitch. I just rendered off WAV files and dropped them onto Clyp. So, on top of downloading all 145 Clyps, I would need to convert 145 Clyps to MP3 files. And then, on top of all that, I would probably need to clip the sixteen second samples down to my normal six seconds for storage reasons. 

If enough people buy Clyp premium, then Clyp will keep their lights on and I won't have to do anything. I do hope that enough people buy it - not just for my laziness, but also because I don't want anyone to lose their job because their company folded. 

I will slowly download all of my content from Clyp so that if their site goes down suddenly, I will have all of the audio files. But, unless that happens or Clyp disables embeds, all of the articles with audio from Clyp will continue to have audio from Clyp. 

Here's to hoping that Clyp makes enough money to keep the lights on!

Wiki Wednesday #91 - あんとんこうた / Anton KoUta

3/2. I tied the dice! It may be tomorrow by the time I finish this, but I'll still count it as breaking even with the dice, because like, why not? So, I learned a lot through this experience. I have new rules for the next time I do it. Forgotten Friday, when dealing with abandoned, one pitch CV banks, it can make sense to use a six sided die. However, using a six sided die with Wiki Wednesday isn't good. I can hunt down as many one pitch abandoned banks as I can, but I'm tossing what I need to do to get my download folder under control out the window. Maybe, I think for Wiki Wednesday, the goal should be "how many voice samples" and not how many articles period. Either that or just three sided die. Furthermore, I think I've decided what I'll do for NaNoWriMo. Keep up with word counts and try to write 50k words worth of articles over the month. Fun? Maybe... maybe.

Wiki Wednesday #91 - あんとんこうた / Anton KoUta

Alright! I put off looking at this UTAU because I had the link to the CV bank that I never got around to downloading. I checked it, and the link was dead. So, as far as I know, there is only one available bank. The website is 404, and the Wiki page is run by the people who made Anton. I could go on a magical adventure to see if there were any bread crumbs that led to a bread house, but naw.

Anyway, let's go!

Who is KoUta Anton?

Official Art Packaged with Bank
But on the Wiki, it said is "created by app"
What app?

Forgotten Friday #101 - 怪奇音リヴィ / Livy Kaikine

Happy 100th Forgotten Friday article, everyone! (oops, I messed up the numbering) I wish I could say this is a special article about a super special UTAU, but naw. Just a normal article like any other one. Not too interesting or anything.

Forgotten Friday #101 - 怪奇音リヴィ / Livy Kaikine

Just a little public service announcement from some stuff that has been happening. At any time, you are fully allowed to just ditch your username, retire your UTAU, and just make a new one with your new name. I was in middle school when I made my UTAU, and like... It was a lot of bad choices. Her outfit was literally a bad version of Miku's outfit. No one is going to ding you for just making a new UTAU, especially as plenty of users make more than one UTAU. 

But, don't try and start up with a new name to avoid getting harassed. When they find out it's you, they will come at you twice as hard because they know that hurting you... actually hurts you. If you can't come back with your old name and fit in, then you would need to put a lot of effort into being someone else. If you're like me and have a distinctive voice, you'll never be able to have an UTAU again. People in this fandom are really good at figuring out who recorded what, and even if they aren't correct, they're not afraid to just decide you're someone you're not. 

You'll need to change your art style, change your style of music, change your tuning style, and change anything that would vaguely link back to you. If you think I'm a Nancy Drew, you'll be surprised how far people are willing to go to hurt people. 

The best option if you want to be in the fandom is to just try to stay under your original name and just hang back for a bit while they forget you. You'll never be able to go to the forums again, and you'll never be able to go into the chat rooms with the bad people (which is basically every chat room) but you will get to a point where you can enjoy the software and do this to everyone who hurt you. If you stick to places where you can block people who hurt you and never see their names (like Twitter), you can weather it out and report people for harassment. 

But the forums and chat rooms? Yeah, getting transplanted into a body of a completely diametrically opposite person wouldn't stop them from mistreating you in those places. So, best to just forget those exist. 

Who is Kaikine Livy?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Wiki Wednesday #90 - 迷子再生 / Saisei Maigo

2/2. Whoo. I have a hard time saying good enough is good enough until I get really sick of it, and then I can't be done soon enough. But then I see a little glimmer of glimmering and really jump into it again. I thought, after this article, getting my two required and letting myself lose to the dice, I'll take a break. But then, I realized I'd need another to tie the dice, then another to beat the dice... And then, you know, I should at least push these out until 2021! I'm so close, right?!

Wiki Wednesday #90 - 迷子再生 / Saisei Maigo

So, one of the nice things about the old UTAU Wikia was the sections that were almost always off. Like, the name meaning. Often, there were just errors in assumptions when it came to kanji. The UTAU Wiki gets rid of that and doesn't make people explain themselves. Luckily, the voice provider still pulls through here.

Give me a second where I try to remember Japanese naming conventions. I'm a wreck right now. All I wanted to do was sing, but I could barely do it, and it hurt my throat something awful. If this blog was a car, I would have a bumper sticker that would say "My Other Car is Tuning USTs". Okay so, Hatsune Miku is Miku Hatsune if she immigrated to America and had to write her name on a test in an American classroom. So, Maigo is "Lost Child" which is her family name, and Saisei is her given name, which means rebirth. Got it!

Saisei wasn't her original name. It was Sais. I get why it was changed. It was supposed to be a reference to "seis", for six in Spanish. It was always meant to also be a reference to Saisei, so it made logical sense to change it.

Who is Maigo Saisei?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #100 - 岩座サクラ / Iwakura Sakura

I dare you to watch this. It has been stuck in my head for a decade straight. It is catchier than "Tight Pants" and "Baby Shark" put together.

Forgotten Friday #100 - 岩座サクラ / Iwakura Sakura

So, to be completely honest, I really want to be working on USTs at this moment! The issue is just that my YouTube channel is pushed out to 2021 already, and there's a limit to how far you can push out scheduled videos on YouTube. The blog hasn't made it out to 2021, so I know where my focus needs to be. 

But, I was working on YouTube and not my blog because my wrist injury popped up again and I had to wear a brace for a bit. I didn't want to stress it out by typing, but it's mostly better now!

Anyway, this UTAU was I believe... Meant to be an OC in a digital animated series? Or something of that nature? But UTAUs like Softly Deerla (aaa I can't get over the depth and nuance of a story a little tiny baby made up) have legit full backgrounds and worlds they inhabit. Maybe there was supplemental information that was deleted, but I have no idea who Sakura and what world she inhabits from her character file, readme file, and Wikia page. This isn't a ding on Sakura, it's just an excuse to bring up Softly Deerla. 

Anyway!

Who is Sakura Iwakura?

Official Icon from Wikia

Wiki Wednesday #89 - 水音アクア / Mizune Aqua

1/2. So, yesterday... Yesterday was just an hour ago and I've already forgotten it. I couldn't even hop on my PC for some reason, so I told the dice, "Hey dice. I'm taking a day off. Is that cool?" And the dice did not speak because it wasn't even a physical object. I was really lucky to roll a 2 on my final day so I can catch up. If I do catch up, then I will win if you believe the dice gave me permission to skip a day. But, I think I deserve it because like, to beat the dice, I will have written like twenty articles. That is many articles.

Wiki Wednesday #89 - 水音アクア / Mizune Aqua

Y'all, y'all won't believe this. The Kun'yomi of water is sui. The Kun'yomi of sound is ne. It's a two kun'yomi package! There ain't no dang on'yomi hanging around. All Kun'yomi.

So, I have covered another UTAU that came from this bowlroll. I have no idea how I found these UTAUs, by the way. This one has been downloaded over two hundred times, but I haven't seen her like... acknowledged? There's a major break in the case. This UTAU is romaji encoded and a tester UST is included. The UST was made using an UTAU named "Angel OTO" and belongs to someone named "Vinicius Ohkawa". "Oh" can be a stylized way of saying "Oo" as in "Ookawa". But the given name is... Not... exactly pronounceable in Japanese. And... Was Aqua's original name Angel Oto? Or was this just something made to help make the OTO for a bank named Angel?

Here's my head canon, because I doubt anyone will challenge it. Vinny is half Japanese and uses the name Hideki in most formal situations. (The kanji name they give on the bowlroll is usually read as Hideki, but for some reason the author is listed as Kiseki. Not sure about that.) He prefers English to Japanese at any chance he gets, which is why the bank is encoded in romaji. He has a little sister who has lived in Japan longer than she has lived anywhere else, and that's how the pronunciation is really spot on.

Or, due to the "u"s being slightly rounded and some "r"s rolled, they are just Latinos living in Latin America.

Now, this usually belongs in the how is the bank section, but people are coughing and talking while the kid is recording.

How did I find this.

Who is Aqua Mizune?

Do you still call it official art packaged with bank when it is a render of a 3D model?

 

Forgotten Friday #99 - 日暮れキキ / Higure Kiki

1. If I do five articles every day for ten days, that is fifty articles. If I extend that to twenty days, that is one hundred. If I went all out and attempted for forty days, I would be allowed to download more UTAUs. I love downloading UTAUs, so I'm going to work very hard to get that achievement. The numbers serve the same purpose as the numbers on the Wiki Wednesday articles that should be coming out soon, but it is not a competition against dice this time. Just a number and little more.

Forgotten Friday #99 - 日暮れキキ  / Higure Kiki

Everyone loved Yoyopines! I don't know of a single person who didn't. He was a little reclusive and had to quit UTAU for years while he was enlisted in the military, but all of his work was stellar for the respective era, and he never made anyone feel bad. He was always ahead of the curve; his 2014 work was above average in 2014. He never fell off quality-wise. (Note on the military: both Israel and South Korea have compulsory enlistment unless there is a valid religious or medical issue. Him doing his time in the military isn't a reflection on who he is the way that being in the military could tell you who an American is.)

Higure Kiki is one of his banks, though the voice provider was Kawaiikikio. I actually have no memory of Kiki, so this will be fun!

Who is Kiki Higure?

Official Art Packaged with bank

Wiki Wednesday #88 - Peskaroo's October

2/4. Without just rushing through and skimping on the word count to just give you "picture and sample", I can't do more today. The reason is dumb, though. Hemorrhoids. I had to take a break from sitting at my computer, and I ended up watching a bit of TV. I've got just an hour to get this done, but I'll still count it for today if it bleeds over to tomorrow.

Wiki Wednesday #88 - Peskaroo's October

Y'all's all know how I feel about UTAUs with basically unsearchable names. It makes finding if an UTAU qualifies or not difficult. It's not really a big deal that I care about, but for like three minutes before I just give up and say it qualifies, it is annoying. 

I forgot what I was going to talk about. Oh right. Doing these articles will be a little annoying if I'm not doing them from 2 AM to 8 AM (at night). We have a fifteen gigabyte data cap. It resets on the 27th and we just ran out on the 14th. It's manageable and I can do almost everything I want, except for the fact that Google Drive will just tell me I'm offline and won't let me do anything. Everything else works, only slowly. It's just Google Drive that likes to be a diva. It works eventually most of the time... but that waiting for it to work is annoying.

Who is October?

Official Art Taken from UTAU Wiki

Forgotten Friday #98 - 転歌セカイ / Tenka Sekai

Who is excited for an article on a Japanese UTAU?! It's been a while, huh? I think I might focus more on Japanese UTAUs for a bit after I get my download folder all nice and cleaned out in... two hundred articles. I really want to get banks specifically from the Visual Archive, just because the Wiki dot is just... less easy to see where I have been.

Forgotten Friday #98 - 転歌セカイ  / Tenka Sekai

I was all "whoopah!" I am no longer depressed! (If you didn't know I had bipolar disorder, that sounds really bad and very "thanks I'm cured", but I do have that and the depression always goes away eventually to get replaced by mania.) But then the daily exhaustion hit and I'm like, am I misguided? Does reading my dreams for clues of my present state not work as well as previously believed? And then it's like oh wait, my daily exhaustion happens no matter what without fail when I'm not too depressed to be even more exhausted. 

I ate a brownie and drank a diet soda, so I hope I'll be good to write!

Who is Sekai Tenka?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Wiki Wednesday #87 - 比音チキト / Korone Chikito

1/4. I think it's a little easy to say that this UTAU's name is not romanized as Chiquito, which is a shame. The name is basically just a gender bend of the other UTAU distributed by this distributor, which is Chiki. Chiquito is Spanish and means li'l baby boy. Chiquita is the feminine version which means li'l baby girl. 

Wiki Wednesday #87 - 比音チキト / Korone Chikito

So, this is one of those UTAUs that doesn't really have much to them. For Overseas UTAUs, the best way to learn about them is by doing sleuthing in the included text files or poking around their website. Unless they're old and their voice provider filled the UTAU fandom page with random details, it's mostly within the bank itself.

However, for Japanese UTAUs, UTAU Visual Archive is a lifesaver. Unless it's a case like the assassins uploaded into computers to take care of partially deleted insomniacs, they tend to have almost all of the available information in one place. Nicopedia is an alternative for really obscure UTAUs, of course, but that tends to be really outdated if the voice provider continued on past 2010.

So, yeah.

Who is Chikito Korone?

Official Icon from Bank

Forgotten Friday #97 - 菊龍 / Kiku Ryu

The name is supposedly meant to be Kiku N. Ryu, but that only shows up on the Wikia page and the voicebank. The most recent covers with her by her voice provider excluded the "N". The "N" is absent in the Kanji rendering, so I do believe it's safe to remove it from the title.

Forgotten Friday #97 - 菊龍 / Kiku Ryu

Kiku's voice provider is still active outside of the vocal synth scene! Her art is really nice!

Who is Kiku Ryu?

Official Art from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #86 - 怠惰音プチン / Taidane Puchin

4/2. Does this UTAU technically exist? I actually have no idea. There is no visual archive entry. There is no website that I can find. Other than the archive itself on bowlroll... Nothing. Of course, you might be wondering how I found it. By snooping in someone's bowlroll, of course. If you don't want random Americans snooping in your BowlRoll and downloading your UTAU's, put a password on them!

Wiki Wednesday #86 - 怠惰音プチン / Taidane Puchin

I have no idea if the last name is right. I have no idea how the name is meant to be romanized. It could be Putin, for all I know. But, ya know, that would be weird to talk about a girl named Putin.

Anyway, this whole bank is a really weird trip that makes no sense. So, the bank is romaji encoded. This does rarely pop up in Japanese banks, but usually for a reason like a Japanese user recruiting an overseas user to record for them. The voice provider, Yukarin, does say she is bilingual... but the only language she speaks on Twitter is Japanese. The accent is oddly hit or miss with sounding Japanese vs American, which is really weird. This is all really weird.

Who is Puchin Taidane?

Official Art from Bowlroll

Forgotten Friday #96 - ブルタ・ヴラム / Bruta Vlam

I was curious about some stats. Forgotten Friday officially started on December 28th, 2018. This article is getting posted in October of 2020. I have downloaded around 300 banks for Forgotten Friday and around 300 for Wiki Wednesday. At the time of writing, including those scheduled out already but not published, I have written approximately one hundred articles for each. I was legitimately worried that I would run out of UTAUs to cover, especially for Forgotten Friday, but naw. Getting to one hundred articles, with how there are 52 weeks in a year, rather fittingly, took about two years. Two years more of Forgotten Friday and two more years of Wiki Wednesday... Just with what is already on my computer.

Forgotten Friday #96 - ブルタ・ヴラム / Bruta Vlam

Bruta Vlam is discontinued in the way that only old UTAUs can be. Every single account the voice provider had related to that name has been torched. There are no surviving YouTube videos. There is no full body image of her. She simply does not exist outside of the one link on her Wikia page. I am glad that link exists, and has not been removed due to inactivity.

I do support people asking admins to delete their pages when the hearts of the voice providers are ripped in twain by the fandom's evil nature. However, old banks are part of the history of UTAU, and deleting their existence just for the sake of bookkeeping feels icky, especially when the links to the banks still work.

Who is Bruta Vlam?

Official Icon Packaged with bank

Wiki Wednesday #85 - 吸血霊 / Kyuuketsu Rei

3/2. I do not like uars. They're fancy ZIP files that will instantly install into UTAU. I don't believe in keeping voicebanks in program files because it will eat the OTO files. On top of that, I have to whip out 7zip. I know most people prefer 7zip to WinRar, but I really, really don't. It may just be my own biases, but I feel like the bank would have unpacked faster with WinRar.

Wiki Wednesday #85 - 吸血霊 / Kyuuketsu Rei

I have no idea why, but today the headers are wonky. I'll set something to be a header, and then when I set the next paragraph to be normal, the words are large as if they were part of the header. But... They aren't. It's strange. 

For the first time in a bit, I'm actually covering an overseas UTAU! The whole home page situation was strange, so I actually wasn't fully sure of what was what until I found the contact page, which led to the voice provider's Twitter. They're not American, I don't think. But, it's not a Japanese UTAU made by someone who will never, ever see this. If you just tuned in, get ready for tonal whip lash. If you've ignored the last few articles where I'm focusing on Japanese UTAUs, then you'll never notice any difference.

Who is Rei Kyuuketsu?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #95 - 紫マイ / Mai Murasaki

So, as everyone has probably heard a thousand times by now... I have a mental illness. The current manifestation is that my brain is porridge. My energy levels would concern a sloth, and my words don't come out right. I'm a little buzzed from being up for twelve whole hours (which is an accomplishment), so I think I can get through one or two articles before becoming Adam Frankenstein.

Forgotten Friday #95 - 紫マイ /  Mai Murasaki

So, the name as written almost everywhere is Mai. I changed it to Mai in the heading because that is what the banks are named. However, Mai was intended to be May by the creator of the bank at one point. May in Bulgarian is "Май" which is romanized as "mai" (with diacritics, of course).

So, while my name is めい because in America, that is how May is pronounced, Mai is まい because that is how May is pronounced in Bulgaria, which is where VampireNekoSan is from. (Apparently Mai's actual name is Maria Georgieva.)

Who is Murasaki Mai?

still from video by the voice provider

Wiki Wednesday #84 - 冬野さい / Fuyuya Sai

2/2! Whoo! I thought this was the second to last Vegedol that qualified, but when I last checked, Kako didn't have a bank uploaded... And I found out that her bank was a 404. I sent a message to the contact form saying that much, but I was too lazy to write it properly, so I just said "Kako's bank is 404" in Japanese. Will they know what that means? Will they even read the message? Who even knows!

Wiki Wednesday #84 - 冬野さい / Fuyuya Sai

I had to look up what hakusai is. It's napa cabbage! So, this UTAU's personality is cabbage. I am literally going to make everything up, because like... The personality is cabbage. What personality does cabbage have? None.

Who is Sai Fuyuya?

Official Art from Website

Forgotten Friday #94 - 賢い音ユタカ / Yutaka Kashikoine

This bank has one of the most interesting mistakes I've seen in a while. A zip archive of the bank itself, is inside the bank itself. I believe there's absolutely no difference between what's outside the zip and inside the zip... But imagine a modern bank doing that! "Oh, my UTAU is one gigabyte! Oh... Why? I put the zip file of the entire ten pitch VCV inside the folders with the ten pitch VCV!"

Forgotten Friday #93 - 賢い音ユタカ /  Yutaka Kashikoine

So, there is no readme file. No character file, and yep! No OTO file. I can't get the search feature of deviantArt to work anymore (thanks Eclipse!), so the only art I have is from the Wikia. There is a really nice pixel art icon for her... but guess what! I have no idea how to save the icons easily! I can take a screenshot, but I just had to open the original file of the character art and drag it into my folder. That's all I had to do, and it's the official character art, so! I'm just like, okay.

Who is Kashikoine Yutaka?

Official Art from UTAU Wikia
it was 2010, okay?

Wiki Wednesday #83 - 印音ヒルダ / Shirushine Hilda

1/2. Okay, Kenan Thompson has basically perfect comedic timing, but you never see it because the audience at SNL laughs at everything for longer than they need to, which messes up the timing. I never liked "What's Up with That" or his David Ortiz Weekend Update things. But, when they were done for the At Home edition, they were both so hilarious. Watching him on the show where he just has to sit around and wait to get to the next line, it drags and gets boring. But oh goodness... When he dictates the timing, he is so hilarious. 

Wiki Wednesday #83 - 印音ヒルダ / Shirushine Hilda

Okay so, I was in contact with Hilda's voice provider, because I called her a sweetie when I wrote an original song for her other UTAU. I have no idea how much contact I had, though. It was a long way back, and I can't even remember... Well, I can't even remember a lot of stuff. Stuff sticks out, but mostly stuff I regret. I guess that's good that I don't remember regretting my actions during interactions with Hinano? But, that being said, I did have contact with her at one point, and I didn't completely fabricate a possible friendship.

Who is Hilda Shirushine?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #93 - MonochromeSong's Eli

I just had to take some allergy medicine because I started feeling sneeze-y. I don't like feeling that way at all! But as awake as I had gotten, I may get really tired because of the medication. I was going straight up the list for Forgotten Friday downloaded banks, but sadly since this UTAU and the other UTAU from this voice provider were like, released at the same time, I will need to skip the next one in the list and come back to it in a bit. There's almost no information on this UTAU, so this article will have padding, of course.

Forgotten Friday #93 - MonochromeSong's Eli

The UTAU comes with very little supplemental information, and I had to poke around the Wikia to find the image. I would have sworn it was an incorrect image, because the filename had no reference to Eli if my vision is not too horrible. But, well, it was found eventually. And I apologize if my writing voice sounds very disjointed and not very me, but I really feel as though I need to do this, even if my state of mind is not the best.

Who is MonochromeSong's Eli?

Official Art from UTAU Wikia

Wiki Wednesday #82 - 頭音タマキ / Kashirane Tamaki

3/2. I accidentally crashed my computer really badly. I went to search an UTAU's name in my download folder... And I accidentally pasted nearly an entire article that I had copied to paste into the word counter. It was stressful, because even logging out took forever. Thankfully, it looks to be doing fine after shutting it down and giving it a few minutes to cool off. 

Wiki Wednesday #82 - 頭音タマキ / Kashirane Tamaki

You may have noticed that all of the recent articles had just one or two banks. Well... That changes right now. Why? Because I really need to be getting the UTAUs that take like three gigabytes of space zipped off of my computer. 

I actually have to ignore half of this UTAU's banks because there are so many. I simply ignored the old banks, because they're outdated anyway. If the manager wanted us to use them, they'd be on the same page... right?

Who is Tamaki Kashirane?

Official Icon from Website

Forgotten Friday #92 - 亜音レグロ / Aon Reguro

There's a part of me that thinks I should go "lazy vegan." I ate much more meat than I am used to recently, and my stomach is mad at me. I'm allergic to cheese and eggs, and I seem to be intolerant to meat. I wouldn't give up honey or baked goods made with things that I'm allergic to on their own. That's why it's lazy. There are people who think that's great, because reducing your meat consumption helps the environment and saves the lives of animals. If anyone knows a better term for someone who just kind of avoids animal products but will knowingly eat a cake made light with meringue, please tell me. (If the oceans weren't laced with plastics, mercury, and declining fish populations, I would be a pescetarian so fast your brain would explode. But tuna is a rarely allowed snack, and not even the rivers and lakes are fully safe to fish from here.)

Forgotten Friday #92 - 亜音レグロ / Aon Reguro

I like that name. Aon. As an American, I read is as Aeon. That's not how it's meant to be read, but I'm most likely never going to say this UTAU's name out loud, nor will I say aeon out loud, so this is the only proof you have of me making this strange series of mistakes.

This is another UTAU that has virtually no information. There is information and character art, but that's only because the UTAU Visual Archive compiled it. There is no character information, or even art, in the bank itself. That's not fun at all! But I do have some information and also character art, so I can do this article without making up things.

Who is Reguro Aon?

Movie Capture by UTAU Visual Archive

Wiki Wednesday #81 - 兎角トマレ / Tokaku Tomare

2/2! The daily exhaustion is real. It gets so bad that even sitting up feels painful because it just... is so much work to even sit up. I did eat a snack cake and I got better after probably thirty minutes. But it was so uncomfortable. I didn't go back to sleep, but that was more so just because I wouldn't lay down and let myself sleep. I never can take naps the majority of the time... but now I can for some reason. I'm just so tired haha

Wiki Wednesday #81 - 兎角トマレ / Tokaku Tomare

I am praying, praying that there is no reason to cancel this UTAU. It is so adorable and I adore it, and I will be really sad if there's a reason to not like it. Only one way to find out.

Who is Tomare Tokaku?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Downloading from Axfc In The Year of Our Lord 2020

 Well, I'm glad I can make this article, but I'm sad that I have to.

Downloading from Axfc In The Year of Our Lord 2020

This advice may stop working tomorrow, and it might stop working next year. It may hold well for a few years.

Of all the websites that we say "the company is killing it", "they hate their users", and so on in America... None of them are as infuriating as Axfc. 

I don't know if it's a Japanese thing, or if even Japanese people can't stand this. But, with the help of nmasao and a few blog posts, I figured out how to make it work right at this minute. 

All the steps and so forth are under the "read more". 

Forgotten Friday #91 - 病音ゼン / Zen Yamaine

I had been going on with Wiki Wednesday so far out, that I had not realized I skipped a week. To skip a week would throw off the alignment with Forgotten Friday articles. So, I said, "oh no." I then fixed the dates. Unfortunately, articles that say things like "First issue of 2021!" will be incorrect. I could fix that, but I must put ducks in a line before I criticize the line. And yes, I am so deeply tired at this moment. 

Forgotten Friday #91 - 病音ゼン / Zen Yamaine

Good news! This UTAU has several banks! (yay!) Bad news. Only one can be found. (no...) As opposed to linking to the banks in the videos, the creator of the banks, JoouChiyanmon, explicitly only posted links to the UTAU Fandom page. And the UTAU Fandom page only has the Act 1. This is sad, as I can tell the Act 2 was very loved, with updates to it as in 2+. I wish I could find it, but that's life I guess. There are many UTAU fish in the UTAU lake.

It's unwise to look everywhere for things that were not meant to be shared... Though I did.

Who is Yamaine Zen?

official icon from bank

Wiki Wednesday #80 - 桃李モン / Toori Mon

1/2. Whoo-hoo! I finally rolled a low number! Yesterday, I rolled extremely poorly and couldn't keep up. Today, I should be able to catch up... And I will show that computer dice who goes nyoom nyoom!

Wiki Wednesday #80 -  桃李モン / Toori Mon

Let me start by saying that I need to make an effort to write the articles almost immediately after downloading. Banks just sitting around don't make the issue - voice providers releasing new ones is the issue! I have to wait for a specific time to download the new banks, which means that UTAU, once again, doesn't get looked at. There was even one in my spreadsheet that I apparently never even downloaded one bank for. What's up with that?

This is another collective UTAU. By which I mean, this UTAU belongs to 森のほとり. However, she is so important, she gets her very own spot in the header that sits atop every page. Good for her! 

So anyway, here we go.

Who is Mon Toori?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #90 - 黒い音ミツコ / Mitsuko Kuroine

It's unfortunate when someone falls on 9/11 when you don't mean for it to. This is being written in June. I'm not sure how reverent I'm supposed to be? I feel like I should be reverent. But, I'm just going to pretend that this article doesn't come out on that day. It has to for bookkeeping purposes, but ya know.

Forgotten Friday #90 - 黒い音ミツコ / Mitsuko Kuroine

I feel like I should recognize this UTAU, but I don't. She was updated until late 2011 and started off in 2010. 

So, uh... I guess let's go?

Who is Kuroine Mitsuko?

Official Art From Bank

Wiki Wednesday #79 - kasiranelibrary's エリオ / Erio

3/5. I got so annoyed this morning when I rolled the dice. Five again?! I honestly thought about switching to a d3 die instead of a d6 die, because that's silly! That's one below the maximum two days in a row! And I rolled it twice each time and... Maybe, just maybe, Google has a wonky thing set up with their dice and stuff. Trying to make DnD players like it more? Or should I find a physical dice? Maybe in the future if this idea continues.

Wiki Wednesday #79 - kasiranelibrary's エリオ / Erio

Well, this is a strange backstory. I mean, I do kind of have to vamp for a bit because of the fact that the backstory does not go in this section. Oh my goodness, I am simultaneously so burning up and so freezing. I'm sick. My mental state can guard me from illness, but the moment it is gone, it is bye-bye feeling well. My throat is icky, my head is icky, my skin feels two extremes and neither is nice. If I turn off the heater, I become cold and sweaty. I leave the heater on... and I still feel chilled. This is no fun at all. I am writing this during Spring. As a child, I truly loved Spring. I loved just laying in the grass and braiding clovers.

But now? I spend nearly the entire time sick. Don't worry - it's not the virus. Just the same allergies I've lived with for years. I can't even say that it was better in Los Angeles, because when I was really sad, I got really sick. Never with a fever or vomiting, so some may take objection to label my severe seasonal allergies as a sickness. But I feel sick. Unwell and shaking. Why am I taking the time to do this in sickness? Because it makes me feel good to be uncomfortable doing something as opposed to being uncomfortable doing nothing. 

Who is Erio?

Official Icon from Site

Forgotten Friday #89 - 草音フキ / Fuki Kusane

If y'all wouldn't mind, would you post your favorite song from your mother language in the comments? I want to start making lists and videos with languages I am not familiar with, but I have no idea where to start looking for songs and such! You can also post your favorite songs from other languages, also if you like! For example, "Kahit Maputi Na Ang Buhok Ko" is in Tagalog, but it's one of my favorite songs ever. 

Forgotten Friday #89 - 草音フキ / Fuki Kusane

So, I almost lost my dang mind over something silly. (I'm exaggerating!) This UTAU has one available bank, and it was made in 2012. Now, how in the heck you're going to tell me that this bank hasn't appeared on YouTube once, even after it was released?! The last video was from seven years ago!

But then I stopped and realized something. "2020 - 2012 = 8". Oh. I... Wow. That's insane. Once you get to adult age, years all mash together and you get shocked when like three years ago is actually eight years ago. Dang... I mean, seeing that 2010 was ten years ago doesn't bug me. But 2012 being eight years ago?! It's simple math, but it feels wrong. 

Who is Kusane Fuki?

Official Art from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #78 - 秋葵ネリ / Okura Neri

2/5. Please don't make jokes about when September ends to the man who makes the lead vocals for the band Green Day, because it is a sad song written about a sad thing that makes him sad. If no one said anything about the first day of October, he would be very happy. Many people still say those things. It's not very nice, but people are human beings and I think he is resigned. That's not very fun and happy, which people assumed their jokes would be.

Wiki Wednesday #78 - 秋葵ネリ / Okura Neri

Okra!! This UTAU is based off of okra! So, my family actually did very poorly at introducing me to Southern foods. One side of the family was very prepackaged meals and canned food, and the other loved things like spaghetti and enchiladas. I've never eaten homemade fried chicken. However, there were Southern things that got slid in like fried okra. I love love love fried okra. The slime-y and the squishy and the seeds that go pop! pop!

Once I was having dinner with someone and they started saying that they knew a way too cook okra so that it wasn't slimy, and it took all of me to not tell them to shut their dumb mouth... the slime is the best part!! (If you dislike the slime, your mouth is not dumb. That person in particular said it as if hating the slime was a universal condition, when it is not.)

Who is Neri Okura?

Official Icon from Site

Forgotten Friday #88 - 水歌ナツ / Mizuka Natsu

Let me start by saying that AXFC is a freaking jerk. I use adblock, and the site doesn't limit me because of it. Which is great, because it had the worst ads to show up on a family computer years ago. Ya know, when there stopped being random popups of real people, but the anime characters made it even worse? No idea if that's gotten better. No, the reason it's a jerk is because you can try to download a file ten times, and then come back an hour later and it downloads the first time. And it's not that it's an old server or anything. They just recently added "ape" and "pepper". So, if anyone can explain why the files just randomly go to different servers that don't want to work... Like, it's a problem.

Forgotten Friday #88 - 水歌ナツ / Mizuka Natsu

Natsu has her own distribution page! Hurrah! And she has a biography that states more than her outfit!

Who is Natsu Mizuka?

Official Art from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #77 - 碓氷ホノカ / Usui Honoka

1/5. So, everything will be different by the time this is published. I will feel differently and I likely will act differently. I wrote "humorhorse" as an intentional misspelling of "humorous" and laughed for like a minute straight. I have to rewrite every word. That doesn't really sound like depression, I guess, laughing at stupid jokes, but it's kinda just what it is for me. My brain is bye-bye. I don't know how well I'll do at this, but it's making me happy somehow.

Wiki Wednesday #77 - 碓氷ホノカ / Usui Honoka

I saw I had put a collective in my spreadsheet with a note that I hadn't downloaded from it. The first four banks were simple. One or two banks, nothing major. Then the last two? There was about six gigabytes of zipped UTAUs there. That's a lot of voicebank! I had just downloaded eight gigabytes. So it's all "aaaaa". Thankfully, my satellite internet does not have any restrictions at certain time periods. When I'm the only fella in my area up, then it's nyoom nyoom fast. I remember it was really bad before, and very slow. But, since they've put a new satellite in space, it's really nice. It's not nice when I run out of data, but it's okay. It's dial up speeds and I lived with those for forever anyway.

I do like writing and expressing myself even if I'm not feeling well. It isn't fully fair to the UTAU to just talk about myself and say "oh btw, this exists!" But, I'll just stick with Japanese UTAUs that you literally would have never heard of on your own. (hehe... humorhorse...)

Who is Honoka Usui? 

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #87 - 霧音コカ / Kirine Koka

I won't make jokes about the name in the body of the article. But I have to make one small one. Did they know what the given name means? Is it meant to be Coca? The password (whoops, I'm sharing passwords because it's relevant) is koka, but like... That could be to hide the subversive nature. I don't think there's much information on this UTAU at all, so I have no idea. 

Forgotten Friday #87 - 霧音コカ / Kirine Koka

So! I love acquiring things. I'd rather have money in the bank than objects in my room, so I don't really shop... at all. So, if I can't spend money, how can I acquire things? I download UTAU banks.

I really do have an issue. I just really feel happy when I do it. However, my computer has limited space on it. So, I tell myself, you can't download anything more until you delete the banks you have. Well, how do I do that?! By writing an article on them. Bank goes bye-bye and I've been productive.

Now, that's all great, and I'm going to do my best to start where I stopped and go on up as far as I can. The issue is that well... The articles are going to be a bit... This is kind of weird to explain. 2010 kind of feels more like 2009 than 2010 when you're running through the list and finding how many banks are just gone. Almost every overseas UTAU from the last few months I've looked through has just been gone into the aether. Most of the Japanese UTAUs seem to be linked to on a nicovideo and that's it. No page, no Wiki, nothing other than a link on a NicoVideo.

I can completely understand that 2009 people were exploring a new world and kind of wanted to stick around because they had roots. 2010 people weren't the first to the party, and felt safe saying "deuces" and skipping out. Or, 4Shared and MediaFire had a massive purge. That one doesn't strike me as correct because all of my stuff on there is still there. (As a note, I had no idea how often my UTAU had been downloaded from MediaFire. Some of her VCV banks had been downloaded over five hundred times?!)

So, Forgotten Friday episodes will be a mess for a bit. They'll all have a picture, a sample, and a link... But will I talk about Hostess Snack Cakes? Will I talk about the weather? Who knows! I just know that I want to download more banks and need to work through the ones I have first. 

Who is Koka Kirine?

Image from video on Nicovideo