Forgotten Friday #203 - 偲ばせる / Shino Baseru

 Remember those specials Nickelodeon would do on dates like 11/11/11 or 03/03/03? It's a little sad that we won't have any more of those fun dates until 2101.

Forgotten Friday #203 - 偲ばせる / Shino Baseru

That name doesn't mean what the Wikia claims it means, but this also isn't the UTAU's original name? Luckily, the Wikia page had a talk page! And the resident Japanese speaker Damesukekun said that the name needed to be changed immediately, so it was! 

Baseru is a seventeen year old dude who hides his face with bandages and loves knives. He hates boredom and fills every moment with random violence. No one likes that, so he's lonely.

Who is Baseru Shino?

image from Final Reason cover - I really am struggling with these icons being low resolution lately

So, this whole flashback was to meet Belinda. Let's get to know her better on this installment of A Spectrum of Apple Skins!

"Belly?" Franz called out as he opened the door to the guest bedroom. He stepped back as the smell hit him. It was organic and metallic, and it made his eyes sting. He took a moment to remember forcing himself to get eggs from a horribly neglected chicken shack as a child and stepped into the room.

"Blegh…" Belinda groaned as she rolled to her side. She was flayed out on the bed while her mother was laying face down on the floor next to the bed. They were both wearing gas masks with their limbs pinned down with weights. "It's my appointment with the psychiatrist?"

Franz nodded slowly. Because he spent the first eighteen years of his life on Earth, he just had to wear weights and take calcium supplements to be able to go home. However… Marissa and Belinda had never been to Earth. They needed to take strange and artificial supplements to build up their bones and wear even heavier weights.

The weights alone would be fine, but the supplements were a nightmare. Her bones hurt. She had inherited her mother's reproductive issues, and even then her stomach and intestines put her period cramps to shame while on the supplements.

Franz stepped back before helpfully pointing out, "You can take off the weights for your appointment!"

"Yay." Belinda sat up as she twisted the ties that kept the weights around her wrist from slipping off before shedding the weighted vest she was wearing. She looked down at the chunky rings around her ankles. She looked up at her father and plainly stating, "The ankle weights have to stay on. I will vomit if I bend over."

She slowly turned and planted her feet on the floor before standing and shuffling to the door. Without her saying anything, Franz knelt down and quickly removed the ankle weights. Belinda gave him a genuine smile before pulling off her gas mask. She immediately regretted it as she fought back the bile rising in her throat. She swallowed it back and jumped past the doorway and into the living room.

"I'm sorry they won't let you video call," Franz sighed. He winced as he picked up the ankle weights. They were unreasonably heavy. All of the weights he was forced to wear felt lighter than her ankle weights. Belinda was just fourteen - an age that might create a continuity error because I can't find if I wrote down her age earlier. 

It felt cruel that they were saddling a child with weights that a grown man had trouble lifting, but he didn't look into it. He just trusted that people born on Mars needed extreme measures to not immediately collapse on Earth. 

"How long until we can leave?" Belinda looked back at her father, her eyes wide.

Franz slowly nodded his head. "One year. Then the trip is seven months. We'll be able to celebrate your sweet sixteenth a few weeks after we're scheduled to arrive on Earth!"

"Best birthday present, Dad!" Belinda did her best to sound as grateful and appreciative as she actually felt. She was a cynical, dry, and sarcastic person, and she often had trouble sounding genuine. Her father understood that, but it warmed his heart to see her put so much effort into changing her speech patterns and facial expressions just to show she really meant what she said. 

"Want help walking to the taxi?" Franz smiled brightly. "They moved the psych department to another habitat, so you need to ride in a climate controlled vehicle."

"Can you come with me?" Belinda took a deep breath. "I'm really nervous."

"Of course!"

Next time, we get to see Belinda talk to a psychiatrist. How will it go?! Find out in the next installment of A Spectrum of Apple Skins!

How is Shino Baseru's bank?

Baseru has a one pitch, romaji encoded CV bank. 

This is a really good voice. I was shocked, because I didn't listen to any samples while doing the OTOs - and my thought was "how does someone record samples in this way? This 'm' is concerningly long." But, it turned out great! Muffled and accented, but that is really appealing to many people. It is a male young adult voice that may remind you of a way calmer Hibiki Shinji... With bandages like Hibiki Shinji... Huh.

There are weird errors, like "ni" randomly ducks out. I left it in the sample just because I wanted to see what happened, and there wasn't enough space to feel comfortable cutting it out with left blank.

Where can I download Baseru Shino?

You can find the link on his Wikia page. I'm genuinely shocked at how good this bank is!