Forgotten Friday #86 - 汀メジロ / Migiwa Mejiro
So, I tend to not listen to samples before doing this. I like being surprised. Mejiro's art is really androgynous in the way that a lot of art from specific styles is. When you learn how to place features, but don't really learn how to differentiate between male and female features, you end up with everyone looking androgynous unless you lean hard into one gender more than the other, and then everyone looks that one gender instead of the other and it's a whole thing.
Mejiro is a dude! I'm sure Mejiro is a very masculine name in Japan, but I don't know Japan, man. I know very little about Japan.
Who is Mejiro Migiwa?
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| Taken from UTAU Visual Archive |
Alright! Let's play "Google Translate"! Mejiro is a twenty-six year old man. His voice provider also goes by the same kanji as Mejiro's family name. He has no official outfit and can wear whatever you want him to. He loves cute things and uh... Like? uh...
Like? I mean? Okay... So? I don't think problematic properly sums up the biography? It's like, I mean... I guess?
If this was an overseas UTAU and the biography read like that, it would go in the trash. Not covering it. Thank you, bye.
But, I feel like you do have to give Japanese UTAUs a bit of wiggle room because it's literally a different culture. And I mean like, a really different culture. And, this is an older UTAU, so it's a different time and place. But like... Read it for yourself if you want to. This kind of UTAU should probably be one to avoid using, but it's history, ya know?
Japanese UTAUs from this era feel like history, while overseas UTAUs kind of feel like... existence? This UTAU has its own website. That's a lot of care and effort, especially with the bank hosted on the website itself. And, if I never google translated the character information, there'd be nothing to say. Heck, I bet it couldn't even translate it well enough to be uncomfortable back then.
But okay, yeah, I'm uncomfortable relaying what Google Translate is spitting out. There's totally a chance that everything, if read out by a human, would shake out to not be so creepy. But there's a chance it wouldn't so... Next section.
How is Migiwa Mejiro's bank?
He only has one bank, a one pitch CV. The OTOs are not very good at all.
I can't really think of how to describe the voice. It phases in and out of sounding like a girl imitating a man and a fourteen year old boy trying to sound older. Here's my logic as to why it's a grown guy, though.
A Western woman attempting to sound like a man sounds like a younger Japanese man. That's just how the world works. The closest analogues to this voice overseas, to me, are Tomero Chii and, well like, all of the manly banks by people with girly vocal chords from this era. How Japanese people speak is just like... It is weird how the voice types all line up like that.
Thankfully, it's not really a bank I could recommend.
Where can I download Mejiro Migiwa?
You can download him from his web page.
this utau is like being rickrolled but 10x less fun.
ReplyDeletei've always complained like "can we get one crossdressing male utau that actually sounds male instead of like a cis girl who isn't even attempting to sound masculine?"
well, i read the preamble and got excited, but then the 'problematic' parts happened and... yikes. the monkey's paw really had it out for me, huh?
anyway all this to say that i recently found your blog and have been literally binging it since the beginning because i think what you're doing is so cool <333 (also, cool utaus to collect, heh)
Thank you so much for your kind comment :D ! I'm so glad you're enjoying it :)
DeleteI can think of one female presenting utau with a noticably male voice: Kyuuketsu Rei. However, she's a trans woman, so she still doesn't count for what you want.
I think I do remember a few UTAUs from Japan that are "trans??" and have female presenting art but male voices - but for the life of me, I can't remember their names! (I say "trans??" because they live their lives as women and everyone treats them as women, but because of Japanese culture they're still described as being men and not trans.)