KAITO

KAITO is a Japanese male Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media. He utilizes the older Vocaloid engine developed by YAMAHA. He claims the spot of the last vocal to be released for the Vocaloid engine and is the first Japanese male Vocaloid to have appeared from Crypton Future Media. The voice was supplied by a Japanese male singer Fūga Naoto (風雅 なおと). The illustration was done by Takashi Kawasaki.

Vocaloid
On 24th July, 2003, a CD album "HISTORY OF LOGIC SYSTEM", which included a song using Japanese vocaloids commercially for the first time, was released. It was a duet song of "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido (That Wonderful Love Once More)" and it was covered by prototype version of Meiko and Kaito before their release. Meiko was released 1 year after this and Kaito followed her 2 years later.


 * Nico broadcast 【VOCALOID遺産】あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度
 * Nicozon broadcast【VOCALOID遺産】あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度

Also in 2003, Yamaha gave out his first demo song, "Kimi no Uwasa (Rumor of Yours)" 3 years before his release.
 * Nico broadcast 【プロトタイプ KAITO】 ヤマハが作ったデモソング『 君の噂 』(フル)
 * Youtube broadcast Yamaha vocaloid KAITO DEMO song "Kimi-no-uwasa" 君の噂

At the time of his original sale, Vocaloid was not yet a well known product, and synthesizing software was only considered successful if it sold more than 1,000 units. However, Kaito managed to sell only 500 units—deeming him "a commercial failure." In contrast, his counterpart, Meiko, had sold 3,000 units in her first year.

Kaito's initial failure was one of the main reasons why other male vocaloids have not been developed for a long time after his release. The male voicebanks had so little demand at that time. However, later interest in Kaito arose and Kaito sold well enough to later claim the second best seller of the year in Nico Nico Market in 2008. From 2009 up until late 2011, he was in the top 10 best selling software of Crypton Future Media often competing not only with Vocaloid 2 era voicebanks, but on occasion outselling them.

His software comes with the VSQ file for 'Seven Baby Crows' ('Nanatsu no Ko' / 七つの子) which is a popular Japanese children's song.

In 2012, Zero-G confirmed that all Vocaloid vocals were unsupported due for retirement "in the near future".

Vocaloid 2/Vocaloid 3
''It is unknown when production switched from Vocaloid2 to vocaloid3, however, it is noted that even Crypton Future Media themselves did not know if this update would be Vocaloid2 or Vocaloid3. Use of the Vocaloid 2 version is noted in Project Mirai''

Kaito Update; 2010
Crypton announced in December 2010 that they were updating their old Vocaloid vocals.

Recording of Naoto Fuuga's voice started on December 10, 2010. Several voicebanks of different expressions like the Appends have been produced for the product.

On the 17th December 2010, 4 appends were mentioned;
 * "Mellow"
 * "Serious"
 * "Solid"
 * "Sweet"

Kaito Update; 2011
On February 17th, 2011, Crypton released a temporary silhouette of Kaito's Append. They said that it has not been decided whether he will have a transparent muffler or not since there was previous outcry from fans.

On the 13th April, 2011, it was confirmed 6 vocal expressions had been recorded, two of which were dropped and the remaining were being brought forward with one having reached a completed alpha stage already. The Character Vocal (Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len and Megurine Luka) series Appends had been created from vocal performance of their voice providers. The new Kaito Appends were created by adding echo, force and tension to the samples.

Crypton Future media also noted that several voicebanks had been recorded with new high tech microphones through a series of trial and error instead of the standard U87ai, these were;
 * "Vivid"
 * "Solid"
 * "Power"

The first commercial usage of the Kaito Append was from the album "VOCALOID民族調曲集", which features Kaito Append singing the song "千年の独奏歌 (kaoling mix) / yanagi". The VOCALO APPEND album later used beta voicebanks of Kaito's "Normal", "Soft", and "Whisper" voicebanks singing "Lost Destination" with Kagamine Len Append.

On the 11th of May 2011, Crypton went back to Yamaha to announce the current Kaito development, whose demos were at the time suspended. Crypton apologized for the slow development to their fanbase and enhancements to Kaito's Whisper Append were being made.

On the 28 of May 2011, demos of Kaito Append "Whisper" and "Power", along with Miku's English voicebank, were posted on Nico Nico Douga.

On the 3rd of June 2011 the demo からくり時計と恋の話 was released using an alpha version of Kaito's "Soft" Append. Kaito's "Soft" Append was considered by Crypton as Kaito's most natural vocal and was noted to require little editing to make it sound good. According to Crypton, lowering the gender factor on Kaito's "Soft" Append renders sounding like a female vocalist. Although it was cute, it was considered a blunder on their part.

Crypton also finished recording Kaito's vocals after work was previously suspended for an interval. Crypton was in discussion with Fuuga, Kaito's provider on the image and vocal outputs. A classic Kaito Vocaloid style recording had also completed recording, one which will sound close to the vocal tone of the original voicebank that users were familiar with.

On the 14th October 2011, Crypton updated us on their twitter about allowing Kaito to be capable to sing in English. Not long after, it was announced via Piapro and Miku's FB that a surprise concerning Kaito will be revealed at the 2011 New York Anime Festival. There was a relationship between the two, because when the 16th of October came, the panel revealed a demo of Kaito Append's English VB. Footage of the demo was captured and uploaded onto YouTube:


 * Kaito singing "Top of the World" by the Carpenters

It was later tweeted that Kaito's English voicebank was in its alpha stage and that it still needed brushing up on.

In December was also confirmed that the order of progress was Meiko, Megurine Luka and then Kaito.

Crypton Also ran a contest involving Kagamine Len Append, where the winner received exclusive information on Kaito's update.

Kaito Update; 2012


Crypton Future Media began looking for Japanese producers who can use English capable Vocaloids to work with for the English version. Kaito himself is currently being compared to overseas male English Vocaloids. On 23rd of Feb it was announced that they were able to talk about the progress of both Japanese and Kaito voicebanks in production. The company is exchanging VSQ files with producers to see how the current English Vocaloids compare with Kaito. Several overseas producers were now taking part with Kaito's production. Kaito's double vowel and vowel to vowel sounds had been adjusted after a report came back on him.

It is confirmed that Kaito's clothes would not change in March 2012, they will just get a facelift. The boxart will also use a 2.5D style drawing. In early March 2012, Kenmochi Hideki was given the voicebank to make further adjustments to.

A English demo of Miku and Kaito was shown NYCCon 2012, both are still in Beta version. Kaito's V3 "whisper" and V3 vocal were shown. Kaito's release of his English vocal was expected "by the end of this year or the begining of the next".

News on the update of Kaito is due within the next few days, he is currently set for a Feb 2013 release.

Concept
Crypton did not set his character and profile except his package design, as well as Meiko, for not having a concept of giving a certain character to a synthesizer application software.

Kaito was created as a counterpart of Meiko and developed together.

His age was never given officially. In Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix he is usually portrayed as a middle aged man by KEI, however, what he depicts in the comic is not official settings as he mentioned in a magazine interview.

Because of the story of his rediscovery in 2008, Kaito was often depicted with ice cream. This gave birth to the "Item War" Internet Meme tradition.

Etymology
The product's name was invited from the public, and "KAITO" was selected from among applicants, which was the idea of Shu-tP. One of the reasons why his name "KAITO" was selected was that it would be easy for non-Japanese speakers to pronounce, and that it looked fitting to the name "MEIKO" when they were put next to one another.

Marketing
The act of putting a character on the boxart was carried over to the following vocaloids to encourage creative activities by free individuals and expanding the characters based on each user's individual needs.

Figurines
Kaito has had a few figurines based on him. Despite being older than the CV series Vocaloids, Kaito's merchandise tends to sell particularly well. The Nendoroid Kaito figurine had a high demand, causing a second re-issue of the figurine. A second version of the Nendoroid Kaito has been released, apart of the Cheerful Japan line.


 * For more see Figurines

Guest Appearances
In Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Kaito look-a-likes are seen in the waiting queue during the auditions of the role of Meru Meru, however they do not have Kaito's known colours.

Birthday '12
In 2012, CFM held the Kaito "Birthday '12" event. This lasted the full week of the 14th-17th 2012.

Calender
Crypton Future Media Vocaloids have also appeared in 2013 calenders.

Vocaloid

 * Comparison between the Vocaloid and voice provider

Kaito

 * -|Kaito =

Kaito V3
Unreleased

In his upcoming software package, this will replace the original product and it will be retired from sale. This originally was intended to be a Vocaloid 2 release. This product has been stated several times to be a far different extension to the Character Vocal's Appends. Whereas their extensions are meant to be expressive vocals, Kaito and Meiko's are still focused on singer performance, therefore the tones within these voicebanks are more natural sounding tones in comparison. There are 3 vocals within this package in Japanese and 1 in English.


 * -|Straight =
 * -|Soft =
 * -|Whisper =
 * -|English =

Examples of Usage
To our readers and editors, for section notes please read; Notes; Examples sections.

Popularity
Kaito's rise to fame was only by circumstance, since Kaito was "a commercial failure" and few had any interest in him. Kaito is now amongst the most popular of the Vocaloids in both Japanese and Western fandoms. However, despite that fact he is very dated in terms of engine and newer, better Vocaloids have been released.

The story of the sudden change in opinion of him occurred on September 16th, 2007, when Tatsunami uploaded a parody of the song in Higurashi no naku koro ni, "A Request From Hatsune" onto NicoNicoDouga. During this time, Miku was extremely popular on NicoNicoDouga, yet almost nobody knew of Kaito let alone produced songs using him. The video begins with the words "please sometimes recall [KAITO]," as well as Miku saying "where are you and what are you doing now?" which is from the song Dear You. About four hours later, "An Answer To Hatsune Miku" was posted by Ice-P. In this video, Kaito responds with, "yes? I was eating an ice cream," and then proceeds to sing a cover of The Ice Cream Song (originally sung by Saeko Shuu in 1960). Kaito's last dialogue in this video is "Miku, let's eat it together next time." It just so happened that Ice-P was producing the cover when he saw the video Tatsunami uploaded.
 * Nico broadcast / Nicozon broadcast 初音ミクからのお願い.
 * Nico broadcast / Nicozon broadcast 初音ミクへの回答

At the height of his sale he was the only one of the two Vocaloid engine vocals to have a consistent ranking as one of the Crypton's Top Ten Products. 2010, Kaito was ranked as the 7th most popular Vocaloid product they sold. In some instances, he was even more popular than the Vocaloid 2 engine Appends for Miku and the Kagamines. His design has also spawned many producer based derivatives.

A independent Vocaloid search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most Vocaloids had less than 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in between July 1 and December 15 2011. Kaito managed to make it into the top six of a few lists. Kaito was the 6th most popular Vocaloid in terms of uploads, recieving 1404 uploads. KAITO had the 6th highest number of views with 1561894 views and 118479 mylists. Kaito did not make the top 6 average list, however, he was the 3rd most popular Vocaloid based on the mean number of views, which is a more truer reflection of his popularity with 414 views and 19 mylists.

Trivia

 * Since Yamaha and Crypton printed different dates for Kaito's release (Yamaha; 14th, Crypton; 17th), some fans within the Japanese Vocaloid community celebrate Kaito's release date anniversary during all days between the different dates.
 * When it came to the Kaito update, the voicebanks went under much experimenting throughout the developing process. This was because although Crypton were veterans at producing Vocaloid voicebanks, they did not have so much experience with masculine toned vocals such as Fuuga Naoto's. This was due to the fact all of their other Vocaloids intended for the consumer market had come from female vocalists.

Notable for...

 * Was used in the oldest known Vocaloid related song ever released
 * First Japanese male vocal ever released
 * Only Vocaloid voicebank announced as a "failure"
 * Subject to a sudden opinion change around
 * Most popular Vocaloid voicebank
 * Last Vocaloid voicebank produced
 * First Vocaloid voicebank to be updated

Gallery
[source]
 * -|Boxart =
 * -|Promotional art =
 * -|MMD models =
 * -|Game art =
 * -|Misc. =