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?
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| Image from Visual Archive |
Kiku is a 42 year old single parent, though when she works she insists that she is younger. And, that's really all there is to say that wasn't already said before the break.
Well, that is until you dig deep into the Readme file, and then there is a ton. Her nickname is Mamam, because... I actually don't know what's going on. I think maybe, she works at a shop? And is the Mama at the shop? What does the shop do? Is she a bartender? But if anyone thinks of harming her daughters, she will jump kick them in the face.
I just don't think there's a good translation what what a Mama does at a bar. I've watched a movie with a Mama who worked at some shady place, but I wasn't even sure then. Maybe she cooks the food? Makes the drinks?
But, I believe one section says that her entire family frequents a salon where only one person knows she isn't cis.
And boy howdy, I was looking through it through Google Translate. I'd be up all night putting words into a dictionary if Google Translate wasn't there.
There really isn't much to say about Kiku, but like, Google Translate is great for Japanese now. I actually use it to double-check my Japanese. It has a "did you mean...?" feature, which helps me realize I left out a particle or even an entire word. Though, my main use case is writing Japanese and translating it back to English to make sure it scans. With how variable English is, I completely see how Google Translate could do poorly translating English to Japanese. But Japanese to English? Usually if it's wrong, it's because I messed up and used the wrong kanji with the same reading.
How is Owata Kiku's bank?
You're kidding me! It's missing samples! And not the ones that only show up in on'yomi... It's missing "bi".
So, the first thing is that the vowels are wonky. I believe this is because Kiku's voice provider is Komane Kuu's voice provider also. The reason is that 独楽音 is listed as the author in Kiku's readme. The UTAUs that came with her, Ichigo and Sakura are obviously by cis men, but the author is listed as someone else.
This makes total sense, because well... The vowels kind of stopped being Japanese because the voice provider had to darken her voice to make it male. The only one that sounds outright wrong in most cases is "a".
All things aside, if you like male banks made by female users, you'll really love this one. It's well made aside from some samples clipping and the fact that some are outright missing.
Where can I download Kiku Owata?
Kiku isn't distributed on her own. She is distributed alongside her two daughters. Here is the blog post with the link. It's an interesting bank, but the missing samples feels like enough to say that maybe this UTAU belongs in the past.
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