Forgotten Friday #77 - 孜音シアナ / Siana Shion

So, I have no idea if technology hates me or if there's an issue, but I can't get the C# library to create UTAU plugins to work. I asked Masao if he knows of any Java libraries that do something similar, as Java was my "first language" that I seriously studied. (Even if it was like the... fifth? that I actually used to any degree and that C# was the first I released a program in.) He'll probably be like "no", but I did learn something important which is dope. Getting a plugin to run in UTAU is relatively simple if the information I read was correct. 

Forgotten Friday #77 - 孜音シアナ / Siana Shion

I'm actually kind of shocked that Siana even has a Japanese name. Don't get me wrong, Shion is very Japanese... But it was never written in anything other than English from what I remember. Even her listing in the ruto.yu page was in romaji.

Her voice provider was one of the sweetest and kindest people I've ever met. It took forever to log into dA, but I was able to comment on her voice provider's latest post... from 2020! It's 2020 now! I hope he responds because I would love Siana to get more love and new banks!!

It's insane how amazing his art has gotten since his previous last post!! I'm so happy for him! I wish I knew alternate contact info, as the Siana Shion page might be abandoned again due to it literally being a page about the UTAU, and not other stuff. But wow!! I'm so happy to see Robin is still thinking of his little baby!

Who is Shion Siana?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Credit to Ren/thefalleninfant!

I... Actually have no idea who Siana is as a character. You are allowed to use her in roleplays and such, and her catch phrase is asking people to not get mud on her floors.

She is some undefined mystical being whose soul is contained in the gem on her head. And I absolutely love that characterization. She is cleanly and tries to be "kuudere" but fails. And that is so awesome, because it gives the roleplayer so much room. 

Kuudere is a combination of "cool" and "dere". I don't actually know what "dere" refers to other than it's half of "tsundere" and "yandere". What that means is that she does her best to always be cool and emotionless, but that's a personal choice that she makes, like me trying to make che my catchphrase. 

So, how she fails at it is largely up to the writer. For example, a writer could make her a proper kuudere who is cool and calm until she meets the love of her life and ends up blubbering at the first sign of affection. Or, they could remove the romantic aspect of it entirely and make her calm and collected until anything major happens and she breaks down. Another aspect could be that she slips up almost constantly. For example, she is hanging out around town and someone brings their new kitten up to her and offers to let her pet it. She goes from cool to excited instantly and pets the kitty. She realizes what she's doing almost instantly and regains her composure as best she can. But then, like, baby kitten!! She drops the act and pets the kitten more. 

And then, I don't think there's anything that really says that the body and not the gem is Siana. Think about it. The gem is Siana, who is cool and collected. The body is just a host. And that's why Siana seems to "try and fail" to be kuudere. The gem is calm and collected, but human bodies override all of that with their hormones and brains. Maybe, the gem is broken and falls from the body's forehead. Someone picks it up and the halves embed themselves in that person's wrist. Siana the gem goes on a plot to get herself back to Siana the body, no matter what it means for the new host.

I just really, really love writing. 

How is Siana Shion's bank?

Well, first, there might be more banks somewhere. But, with Robin's YouTube being no longer with us, and no blog that I know of, what we can get from the UTAU Wikia is all we can really hope for at this point.

I know I made a new OTO file for Siana at some point, but it was probably pretty bad because, ya know, 2010.

There's some really weird mistakes in the OTO, though. "ra" has the alias for "ri". That's strange, but I get how it could happen. The alias for "ri.wav" is... "i" ??? 

The microphone quality isn't the best, but that's okay because UTAU's default resampler sounds amazing with it. What would be robotic ten years ago is now muffled and adorable. 

Seriously, with advances in UTAU's resampler, this bank has aged like wine. The accent is just so perfect and sweet and everything is just so nice!! I really, really love it so much. 

Where can I download Shion Siana?

The only download link I actually know of is on her UTAU Fandom page. 

I love, love, love this UTAU. I'm torn on whether or not I'd want a VCV bank for her, though. The CV is just so perfect in that 2010 lo-fi way. I'm so happy that the voice bank is still up for download, because I absolutely adore it.