Forgotten Friday #84 - 和奏悠 / Yuu Wakana

I know for a fact that this UTAU isn't illegal! Yay! I mean, that should hold true for every UTAU I cover, but you know... Who even knows in this mixed up world where you can't just trust people. Reminds me of a time when someone figured out how to manipulate me so well, that I defended them blindly, just do find that they had done to me what others had accused them of. And I was like "but like... do... I even?" And I done did and it was awful and was just bad decisions until I gave up... a decade later. And the best part? Ain't no one going to read this thinking it's them, because ain't no one going to read this who done did anything like this. 

Forgotten Friday #84 - 和奏悠 / Yuu Wakana

So, I had no memory of this UTAU, but then I saw the blog of the person who made this UTAU, the piano-chan, and I was like... I know them! I really think I know them! And then I rolled through my mental Rolodex and was like... Did I know them? Because I remember them being one specific person. I think I used one of their UTAUs. But I went through my videos and saw... I used a lot less UTAUs than I thought I did apparently? I mean, I had hundreds or something, and I did make a 100 UTAU Chorus at one point.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't know this person at all. Unless... no. That makes no sense either. Because, I like, The UTAU's name feels so insanely familiar also, but like... Anyway, picture section.

Who is Wakana Yuu?

Official Icon Packaged with Bank

Wiki Wednesday #73 - 寿吹ふく/ Fuku Kotobuki

2/5. I really want to be tuning USTs now, but I can't. My allergies are being a jerk. I'll wake up and feel pretty normal... then I run into my parents and they ask how I'm doing. I just open my mouth and go "crroaaak". (Okay, not really that severe. I just don't sound normal at all with my voice being really deep.) So, no singing, no USTs. Besides, I'm playing this really silly game to keep my spirits up while writing articles.

Wiki Wednesday #73 - 寿吹ふく/ Fuku Kotobuki

So, this is one of those UTAUs where there's not really much to say. It has its own website all to itself. But, only one bank... An extremely sparse bio... Well, I feel like I should bail and go with a bank that has ten different appends to be more interesting... But I have to write about less interesting UTAUs sometimes, and putting it off just means coming back to it later. And I'm playing that silly game, so I need to knock stuff out pretty fast. I just... I'm not in as much of a ranting mood. 

Anyway, here's Conway Twitty. (hehe... Family Guy.)

Who is Kotobuki Fuku?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #83 - 琥酉のあくあ / Kotori's Akua

Okay, I'm going to do something bad for this article. But, not too bad. Let's start with some basics of why what I'm doing is frowned upon. When you create something, you own the copyright. Nobody is allowed to touch what you make without express permission. But, UTAUs feel like a weird grey area on the condition that there is no explicit statement that reuploading is against the rules. And, this UTAU has no such mention of any kind of rules. This UTAU, now that the release video is gone, is simply a bank and a four line readme file. That's it. No design, no character. Nothing. Now, you may be thinking that it's important to honor the original copyright. Here's the thing: the only way for anything to happen to the person who is infringing is to be given notice by the person who owns copyright to take it down. Does Kotori even exist anymore? If that person does not ask for it to be taken down, then it is fine to keep up given there is no clause requiring for the bank to not be redistributed. I will take the file down in a second if the original rights holder, Kotori, contacts me asking for it to be taken down. Is this iffy? It's archival, dang it.

Forgotten Friday #83 - 琥酉のあくあ / Kotori's Akua

So... There's no information on this UTAU at all. Which is actually strange, because unless this is literally just a copy and paste of another UTAU, a lot of work went into this. I'm kind of thinking this might be an illegal copy of a different UTAU... The samples are nearly perfect.

I take back what I said earlier about only taking this down if Kotori herself tells me to. If this is a copy of a different UTAU, I'll put it on big red letters at the top of the article that this is an illegal UTAU and how to use the real UTAU. I mean... If someone tells me that this is freaking Kasane Teto or something, I'll feel really dumb. But then again, like, it doesn't really sound like Teto... Right? This isn't Teto?? Or... For someone running a blog about UTAUs, I've really forgotten what most popular UTAUs actually sound like. 

Who is Akua?

All of these images, generated by AI, are equally as likely to look like Akua

Wiki Wednesday #72 - 亜留郷静か / Shizuka Arugo

1/5. In last week's article, I said I'd play a little game where I try to beat an imaginary opponent. I can pretend that it's someone writing a competing blog, but it's really just a virtual dice roll. Today, the dice said five. If I can write five articles today, I tie with the dice. If I write more, I win for the day. But, if I have a day where I can do nothing, I can make up for it by writing more other days. Anyway, we'll see how this goes. It may seem rushed, but there are so many Wiki Wednesday banks that need to be covered before they get more banks and my articles are out of date!

Wiki Wednesday #72 - 亜留郷静か / Shizuka Arugo

Jiisan UTAU! It's a Jiisan UTAU! If you want to be technical, it's not fully a jiisan UTAU as it is recorded by an American dad (heh) and not a lonely old man who put work above finding love. But, from one sample I listened to, the quality and tone seem to make it sound like it will definitely sound like a jiisan UTAU, only slightly off due to the accent. 

So, with that said, let's get on to the article.

Who is Arugo Shizuka?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #82 - 刻音イオ / Kokuon Io

So, first things first. This is another UTAU whose availability depends solely on the nicovideo video staying up, despite being completely accessible without a password on getuploader. In case the video goes down, I wrote down the link in my spreadsheet just in case. No more getting eggs on my face this time!

Forgotten Friday #82 - 刻音イオ / Kokuon Io

This UTAU is just the kind of UTAU that doesn't exist. I found one mention of her existing on a list of UTAUs, but that resource didn't give a reading for her name. I plopped it into Google and got Kokuon. I looked up the kanji on Jisho and got Koku also. It could be Kizane, possibly, but I'm guessing most people who spoke Japanese would just go straight to Kokuon. So... I'll stick with that.

So! Here's a diet tip for all of y'all for no real reason. Junk food is good for your soul. And, like, you'd be really shocked how low calorie it is. One spoon of canned frosting is like 160 calories. One Little Debbie Frosted Fudge Cake is like 160 also. Potato chips are like that, too. There is one exception, and that is drinks. Sodas are just empty empty empty and you don't feel much different than if you drank diet. Drinking full calorie soda won't make your heart feel happy the way a Taco Bell burrito or a can of ravioli will, and those have just about a hundred more calories than a large coke from McDonalds. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to take a break to drink a diet Pepsi. I am trying to be coherent but I'm not doing the best. I should eat real food, but I kind of want a soda more. Why did I talk myself into wanting a soda!?

I really prefer Pepsi Zero to diet Pepsi, but I think I prefer diet Coke to Coke Zero. Diet Pepsi is insanely sweet. I took one sip and was like, "Wow. This is very sweet." Anyway, onto the picture section.

Who is Io Kokuon?

Official Image from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #71 - 来唄ホタル / Koiuta Hotaru

I love when things are games or contests, even if I never win. I thought about a way to make the blog into a bit of a game. Alright, so, for one month I am competing against dice. Every day, I roll a d6. That is the score of my "opponent". I gain points by finishing an article. So, if I roll a three, and I write three articles, we are tied. If I roll a six and can only do three articles, then they win for the day. However, I can cram as many into a day as I want, whereas my opponent can only roll once a day. I'm getting really excited about the idea to compete, even if it's just with an imaginary dice I rolled online. I may start this mess tomorrow, on Sunday. I'll just try it for a week and see if it's fun or... unbearable. If I did it for a full month and had horrific rolls, I'd have around 180 articles written. Which is over a year of content!

Wiki Wednesday #71 - 来唄ホタル / Koiuta Hotaru

Hello Project UTAO! It has been so long, I have completely forgotten what their entire thing is. I think it's just a loose collection of cool designs and voicebanks, whereas last week's episode covered an entire expanded universe.

But I may be wrong! 

With as many UTAUs that have been straight up abandoned, it's strange to see someone state that a bank isn't updated anymore. People usually just kind of slowly walk away and never definitively state that it won't happen. However, UTAO's manager isn't Hotaru's voice provider and the manager still manages the website. They stated that Hotaru's voice provider can't be contacted and the UTAU will not get an update. So, it's cool to know that it will never happen as opposed to having any hope it would happen.

As another note, when I saw her official art, I assumed that she would be some kind of ghost or magical being due to it being so blurry. Nope! That's just how the artist draws.

Who is Hotaru Koiuta?

Official Art Packaged with Bank

Forgotten Friday #81 - Haruhiko Michea / 晴彦ミチェア

Here's a fun fact about this name! So, Ruto.yu has it stylized as 晴彦Michea. The Wikia says that the Japanese is simply 晴彦 . The katakana version is just a small line in the name origin box, and nowhere else. The name Michea actually comes from the voice provider's last name. Or, you know, it comes from what he says his last name is, because people can make up their last names online!

Forgotten Friday #81 - Haruhiko Michea / 晴彦ミチェア

I had this UTAU mixed up with a different one in my head. I have no idea who the other UTAU is, aside from her design. All Meiko dress red with brown hair, and a girl. So, I literally can't remember this one, because I thought it was a different one.

Alright, I coherently got through last week's article, but like, okay so... I have a bit of a morbid goal with this blog. I want to push it out so far, that if I pass, people will feel so weird and haunted when articles are coming out for ten years after I scuttle off of my mortal coil. My quick typing things into a calculator math tells me that if I wrote four articles a day for 260 days, I would achieve pushing it ten years into the future. That's really unworkable. However, like, I think I will become less coherent as time goes nyoom for a bit, because like, I'm at "eating canned frosting as ice cream" level of worrying right now. But, I only have Forgotten Friday pushed out a month and I want it to be longer than that so that I can forget about it and not worry for a month or so, I guess.

I will follow the rule: picture, sample, link. Every article will have a picture, a sample, and a link. I'll also throw in my personal rule of "over 600 words". Requiring three nouns to make an adjective will make that easy, but I hope I don't get to that level of not all there in my head. 

So! Less housekeeping and more UTAU reviewing!

Who is Michea Haruhiko?

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Wiki Wednesday #70 - 忘音ネム / Nem Wasurene

I will start by saying that I want to do this logically and start at the top of the list of UTAUs I know I have a complete collection of and then go down. However... This collection has over twenty UTAUs that qualify. Most are just one pitch CV banks that were made to justify an OC, as opposed to being made because they wanted to make an UTAU. That would be boring. So I do need to jump around a bit to not get too boring. As before, I'll try not to do two UTAUs from one group in a row... But these may pop up every other week if I'm too out of it to render samples for five different banks for one article.

Wiki Wednesday #70 - 忘音ネム / Nem Wasurene

My ex was ultra into rap. I think he faked some of his musical preferences to be "hip" and "cool", but he truly did love rap. (He's the reason I love jazz. So, if you ask me if I like jazz as a meme, the answer is unironically yes.)

This character's backstory is that the are a robot who had a massive power failure and were thrown in a trash can. Which instantly reminded me of the 2Pac song, "How Do U Want It". I remember we were listening and I just looked over at my ex confused. "Did he just say growing up like an n-word in a trash can?" My ex, who bragged about understanding Fall Out Boy without subtitles, just confirmed it. I was stuck having the incorrect lyrics playing in my head for a few years before I finally Googled it. It's "Coming up as an n-word in a cash game."

So, that was all to say that this UTAU has nothing to do with 2Pac.

Who is Wasurene Nem?

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Forgotten Friday #80 - 弦音ジェン / Jen Genne

Hey there - I borked it. There are likely several articles that link to banks that are impossible to download because the password was in the description of a deleted Nicovideo. When I went through and downloaded each bank, I assumed the description would stay up forever. I mean, part of it is hardcoded into the thumbnails. I tried editing the code of the thumbnails to make it show up in full... But no such luck. Here's the thing about redistributing banks: only the person who made it can tell you you're a poop face and it hold weight. If you have any of those banks or know how to access the password, let me know! I avoided giving out passwords because that is literally why half of the most talented MMD artist straight up quit (users giving out passwords publicly). But... Ya know, if someone has been AFK for a decade, maybe, just maybe, giving out that specific password won't hurt in the future. 

Forgotten Friday #80 - 弦音ジェン / Jen Genne

In depth UTAU biographies! I love those things! Like, they tell you who the UTAU is and let you imagine stories in your head about what exactly the UTAU would do. I mean, you'll see what I end up doing when the only defining character description is "vegetables" in upcoming Wiki Wednesday articles. 

And let me tell y'all, this UTAU's whole thing could be classed as "cringe", but, her age is listed as 15, and I think that younger users will always make their UTAU around two years older than themselves. So, I kind of think that her voice provider or manager was pretty young at the time of making. I will not make fun of anything because, even if she was fifteen, being a minor and expressing yourself and having fun... Can't we have that again? The fandom is so cutthroat now. I just want to have fun reading biographies that had love and imagination put into them. 

Who is Genne Jen?

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Wiki Wednesday #69 - 重言シズミ / Shizumi Omoi

heh... nice.

Wiki Wednesday #69 - 重言シズミ / Shizumi Omoi

editor's note: I talk a lot about the second design, "R". But, because it's inappropriate for the character as described in the bio, I'm not posting it. If you're curious, just go to her Wiki page to see it. Wiki page is linked in the download section. 

It's always strange to me when UTAUs have huge differences in designs for each append. Different clothes, I can get, though I wouldn't do myself. Character references are character references for the entire character, not just a subset of it. But, this all started with Miku and how different append design was from her normal design.

As long as the original design is recognizable to the append design, there isn't much issue. Even things like skin tone can be changed slightly with the explanation of "there was a difference in the amount of UV radiation that they were exposed to in that time frame." I mean, humans can put on different outfits, wigs, and all that stuff... But there's a difference in cartoons I guess? If a human puts on a wig and colored contacts, they're still the same human with many features that make them unique. In simplified anime styles, the only thing separating many different characters are eye color and hair color. It's just like, do what you like y'all. I just am not on the train.

Who is Omoi Shizumi?

official icon packaged with bank