Board Thread:English VOCALOID discussion/@comment-2601:646:8D81:87EB:AD14:6AF:983A:B947-20180321204952/@comment-53539-20180405203944

To me, the only issue I've had with DDR is related to design.

Daina basically were created purposely so their designs weren't like the other Vocaloids. For example, Daina has ginger hair and trousers, both of which were not things that the Vocaloids had seen yet. They were things fans had also raised in the past, that there were no gingers and all the girls were wearing skirts, with exceptions of shorts.

Ruby's design is more or less somewhat along the same lines, but different. My biggest issue with Ruby was once the original design was shown, any design that the illustrators on board with Syo and Misha showed would have been instantly accepted. What we got was a design that had few original elements or was that stand out compared to other Vocaloids and frankly... I wasn't impressed because there wasn't anything new. In Vocaloid3, there was a complaint about too many "moe blobs", which was fine but despite all things... Ruby isn't that stand outish at all. I know she is trying to look the opposite of Miku... But... To be frank she isn't that different either to what we've had once you break down the design itself. You don't have to make a "moe blob", just create a design that... Basically even outside of Vocaloid isn't too inspiring.

With Dex and Daina, at least they stand out due to the beast theme among the other vocaloids, but Ruby has no theme. The lack of a theme is the issue, it doesn't allow her to stand out and she comes off as "generic" for this reason. If I think of Kanon and Anon, for example, I think "twins" straight away. A lot of the Vocaloids have a slight theme or gimmick to their Design to stand out because of how many Vocaloids there are, from Mayu's Yandere to Tone Rion's "from the future" theme. But Ruby... Basically has nothing. Other then dark skin, which Merli already did and a coupe of the Macne family (if they ever become Vocaloids, they will technically be the first dark skinned vocaloids) before Ruby. It pretty much seemed the gimmick they were pushing with Ruby was "latino" and not much else. :-/

As I said at the time of the original artwork and the drama, at least the one first shown had flame hair which no other Vocaloid had. That was a style that stood out. Then again, the rest of the design was already done by Sonika so that was its only thing.