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

Haha! It was a ruse!

There's nothing political about how Rakia handles gender. The character has male and female voices, and the character adjusts to each specific bank. For example, when you use the magical girl bank, Rakia shrinks by over a foot. If you go from magical girl to jiisan (YES THIS IS A YOUNGIN' DOING A JIISAN BANK THIS IS NOT A DRILL), Rakia nearly doubles in weight. 

The voice provider probably cares little about the "story" and just wants to experiment with what their voice can do without commissioning more art.

There are five banks to look at, so I'm going to just briefly recount the strangely translated bio on the Wiki page. Rakia is somewhere between twelve and twenty-five in age. They were created by 0371. And how in the heck is "いったりきたりするやつ" translated? "行ったり来たり" is a common phrase meaning back and forth. So, after that, suru means "doing" (so going back and forth) and "yatsu" means "guy", but derogatory. So, (猫と人間をいったりきたりするやつ） means that this is a fellow who goes between a cat and a human. This is listed under race, after "???". So, not only is Rakia able to shift from a twelve year old girl to a twenty-five year old man, Rakia is also a shapeshifter who can turn into a cat. Cool!

Another random thing, the Wiki has "aisu" translated as "ice", when it means "ice cream". I said I was just going to go over the translated one to get over with it quicker, but like, you know. I'm not editing it because, like, I don't want to get into an edit war over anything. Maybe I'm wrong. So yeah, there's five banks, so let's nyoom.

How are Tabineko Rakia's banks?

There are five banks. In order, there is Magical Girl, Strong, Ojisan, VCV, and Soft. 

First, we'll look at Magical Girl. This was the first uploaded to this bowlroll, though there may have been some before it. Which is kind of weird that the first available bank for a primarily male UTAU is a magical girl append. It is a one pitch VCV. The OTOs are uniform, but the consonants are so long in some places, they don't fit. 

There might be a chance that it's against the rules to post this, as this is not TMBox, but it's... It's not on Nico? The voice provider made it clear that they aren't sure if it's possible to use this and make it sound good. I still really love it.

Next is strong, a one pitch VCV. The voice is hard to pin down exactly. I don't know if this was meant to be a masculine or feminine voice, but it's nice.



And y'all know how I feel about jiisan banks. Ojisan has an average pitch of A2, while I believe the previous ones both had an average pitch of C4. It, again, is a one pitch VCV bank. Now, this may be named Ojisan, but this is definitely not a jiisan bank. Why? The recording quality is nearly perfect. Some consonants get eaten from the singing style, but it's just a really good, low pitch voice. 




Next up, VCV. This was the only one linked to on the UTAU Wiki page. Now, unless the Omake is a dang different person, DANG this 0371 fella is a voice actor. The omake included has the voice provider (I assume) saying some stuff in just like, recording quality and talking like they're in an anime and it's like?! And then you listen to the UTAU and it's androgynous and??? This is a one pitch VCV with an average pitch of F3. It is just a really, really good bank, and likely the only one actually intended for release. But it sounds so good!



Then, soft VCV. I bet you can guess - it's a one pitch VCV. The average pitch is C3. It's another really nice bank! I think it's the least androgynous outside of Ojisan. (I mean, no one can mistake that one.)

Where can I download Rakia Tabineko?

You can download Rakia from the link on Rakia's Wiki page. If they revert my edit and it only links to the Nicovideo release for VCV, you can find the other ones by clicking on the uploader icon on bowlroll and just go wild in the guy's bowlroll. I think that some amazing things could be made mixing and matching these banks into a killer multi-pitch.