Forgotten Friday #143 - v.m.g.のシキアイ / Shikiai

 Okay, this is the last v.m.g. UTAU in a good while!! Hurray! I know I broke one of my most fundamental rules here, but like I said, time crunch. If I don't meet my arbitrary and pointless harsh deadlines, what am I even good for?! But, I believe after this that's just fifteen articles left to process. I can do five articles in a day! Then I need three days, and it is December 24th, and my goal is to get the blog to 2022 before 2021 starts, so mathematically I can do it!

Forgotten Friday #143 - v.m.g.のシキアイ / Shikiai

My mom asked me what I did today. I explained that my brain is broken and I can really only do one thing: work on my blog.

She asked what I do on it, and I gave the slightly snarky “write!” with my arms hung in the air as punctuation to my really dumb joke so that she would know it was a joke. But then I explained that I wrote about the free voice characters, and how every article had a minimum of six-hundred words. That blew her mind! Six hundred sounds like a lot!

Though, I spent more time on the research portion today. The reason that post-2013 UTAUs are easier to write about is because, well, I’m only finding them because someone took the effort to make a Wiki page for them. Some older UTAUs didn’t have that honor. So, I went through the start of my original spreadsheet. I found the best and most complete source of information for each one and verified the download links still worked. I even made four Wiki pages for it!

I’m always worried that my work on the Wiki will get taken down due to fandom politics. I’m just over here trying to make writing articles from bed easier!

So, of course, I’m padding the article so that I have less I have to say about the UTAU themselves. And it’s for a silly reason. I do not like zombies. 

Who is Shikiai?

Official Art from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #132 - 鈴音ハナ / Hana Suzune

 So, I am going to try to get this pushed out to 2022 before the stroke of midnight on the last day of 2020. Or, I could say, I'm going to try to get this pushed out until 2022 before New Years Day 2021. As part of that, I'm just going to run down the list of UTAUs and let families stay together. I know that I promised I wouldn't, but I'm in a weird space where I just one added aspect of going out of written order is enough to make me quit because things are too hard. So I apologize!! Especially because this family will be a doozy. 

Wiki Wednesday #132 - usa-utau's 鈴音ハナ / Hana Suzune

If you're wondering how many words can be in a Google docs document before it's so unstable on my phone it won't stop crashing, the answer is 30,000. It was crashing once or twice, but only when I was selecting stuff too fast. But, the last article it was crashing constantly. So, I really needed to make a new document so that I could easily switch from Chrome to Docs and back. So here it is! I mean, it won't look any different once it's on the site, but I'll know the distinction.

Editor's note: Some of the things referenced won't really make sense because this was written in my drafts after other articles about this family, but will be published later.

Who is Suzune Hana?

Official Art from Site

Forgotten Friday #142 - v.g.m.のウィル／シャル / shallwill

 I got really distracted for a really silly reason, but now I'm back at doing articles! I think maybe the distraction will speed me up in the long run! 

Forgotten Friday #142 - v.g.m.のウィル／シャル / shallwill

I really like vmg UTAUs. Like… a lot. I even commented on one of the vgm UTAU’s release videos, and that made the manager happy. That makes me happy!

I am so confused about this one, though. There’s two characters, but only one bank. There are two strong pitches and two weak pitches. I believe that the intention is that the lower pitches are Shall and the higher pitches are Will. (Note! I did finally look at the visual archive page. It’s a little sloppy because the bio for Will isn’t there. But, Shall is just Will with “g+15”. I don’t do the gender bend thing due to my no flags rule, so the sample will just be for Will.)

Who is Will?

Official Icon from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #131 - にんとね れいちぇる / Reicheru Nintone

Okay so, I was confused because Reicheru Nintone was on my list, but she was giant in popularity. Huge. How did she get on my list?! Well, here's how it happened. Reicheru was originally a super adorable black haired girl who wore yellow and white that no one knew about. That bank was from 2012. After I made my spreadsheet and downloaded the bank, Reicheru's new design and banks dropped. And people loved it the way I love it. She does not belong on this blog in any shape, form, or fashion with her current status... But look at her! I just want to protect her and keep her safe!

Wiki Wednesday #131 - にんとね れいちぇる / Reicheru Nintone

Okay so, future Mae here.

How did this UTAU get on this spreadsheet?! I searched if this Chiquita qualified in 2018 or so. Well, one of her videos that disqualified her with multiple thousand views… was from seven years ago. Was there a sudden jump in interest? And, I don't even know if I downloaded her, because everything is an exe and I wouldn't download those! 

But, her voice provider was a sweetheart and answered immediately when I asked if they would be willing to upload as a zip or RAR. That behavior made me say, "This little chiquita is worth breaking the rules for."

Okay now back to past Mae!

I was just looking at the early entries on the list and seeing how many of them I was unsure about writing on at this very moment. Some had no information, one had no kanji name, and a few just stopped being. So when I saw Rachel here with no kanji in her name, I started looking for a way to contact the voice provider to ask if there was kanji until I saw her site. It is, by far, one of the prettiest UTAU distribution sites I've seen, and her name is stylized without kanji, fully on purpose. 

Then I really looked at her design…

Who is Nintone Reicheru?

Official Art from Site

Forgotten Friday #141 - v.g.mのヘイス / Heiss

 My grandmother just brought over food for us because it's Christmas Eve and Christmas is cancelled. It was chicken and gluten free dumplings for my mom. She brought nothing I could eat, but it's okay. We literally never told her anything she could make for me that was vegan because we were going to take care of that to make sure there were no mistakes. 

Forgotten Friday #141 - v.g.mのヘイス / Heiss

I thought I’d just address the fact that I am fully aware that chiquita isn’t the correct word to use in this context. It’s “Chica”. But then I see the little chica and she’s so cute and little, so she’s a chiquita!

It always made me feel happy inside when the manager of the room I rented added the “ita” to the end of my name. So, I guess I just think about how I felt when that happened, and the word reminds me of that time, and I feel happy. 

Learning time? Learning time. First tangent that goes nowhere: modern Filipino in general was heavily influenced by Spanish (as y’all know), but Filipino doesn’t have “c” and Spanish doesn’t have “k”. This does kind of go somewhere. In Spanish, “c” does double duty. It covers hard “k” and soft “s” at the same time. When the “c” is “s” or “k” is entirely context dependent. “ci” will always be soft. “Ca” will always be hard. So, how do you say “ki” if there’s no “k” and “c” doesn’t work that way?! “Qu”. Que for “ke” because “ce” is “theh”. Qui for “ki” because “c” is “the” (if you’re in Spain, at least.)

Who is Heiss?

Official Art from Bank

Wiki Wednesday #130 - リャパミュパ / Lja pamju pa

 Well, I realized after writing this that this UTAU was a "fictional language" UTAU, or, as many may say, a joke UTAU. I was like, well, uh, I guess I won't write an article? But I'm also like, I dunno. Let's see how usable it is. 

Wiki Wednesday #130 - リャパミュパ / Lja pamju pa

I am so confused right now. This UTAU says it's a fictional language. I kind of thought. Oh. Esperanto. But no. The name is gibberish in Esperanto. I listened to a sample and… it just sounded like Japanese? Garbled and I didn't just… I had no idea what was going on. The voice is absolutely adorable, and if it's some garbled mess that doesn't have the required samples, I'll be annoyed. But I think, and this is my guess, all the samples are recorded as something else, so what comes out is a fictional language… I guess? I'm really not solid on this at all.

Who is Lja pamju pa?

official icon from site

Forgotten Friday #140 - v.g.mのマヌー / Manuu

 I was curious, because this is stringed CV, if it could be used as a CVVC. I did run it through moresampler to generate a CVVC OTO, and I do believe if you are willing to mix palatalized consonants and the regular versions, with the exception of "n C" samples, you are able to use it as CVVC! But that was just a silly test, because it was intended to be CV, so I will treat it as CV.

Forgotten Friday #140 - v.g.mのマヌー / Manuu

I love singular they. I even conjugate it to be grammatically correct sometimes. That’s definitely not because I was raised around people who butchered the English language while being completely monolingual… haha…

Seriously, I did some Duolingo and had a few years of Spanish class in elementary school. Had an easier time talking to an old Mexican man who barely spoke English than my own grandfather half of the time. The real problem is that my grandfather doesn’t always wear dentures, but ya know, that’s less humorous.

But, sometimes he becomes default because Google Translate makes it default. Manuu is genderless and asexual. But Google Translate puts “he” in there. I’m going to try and make an effort to use singular they because I believe that Manuu is a three pitch bank with the pitches being labeled as “male, normal, female”. 

The design also makes me think singular they is better because the design is really androgynous. The outfit and curves make the design look male, but the visual symbols included in the face make the design look female.

This isn’t addressed in the biography because gendered pronouns are 50/50 a thing. Because I’m on my chromebook, I don’t know how to type Japanese. So, “kare” is “he”. I believe this is the same as the English singular they in that it’s the default when you don’t know. “Kanojo” is “she”, and only applies to women. “Karera” and “kanojora” make them plural. However, it was explained to me that “kanojora” only applies when every person referred to is a woman. If one man jumps into the mix, it’s “karera”. 

But those don’t really come up as much as you’d think, because once you say someone’s name and they know you’re talking about that person, you can just… not use pronouns or nouns to refer back to them at all. Or just use their name. Japanese is confusing.

Who is Manuu?

Official art from Bank