User blog:Angel Emfrbl/2014 end of year report

So at approx. the end of every year I talk about vocaloid from a fans POV.

Being a Engloid fan
I think I said halfway through the year, for the first time I suddenly got the dread that some folks within the fandom felt I specifically over valued vocals from PowerFX and Zero-G, even though I've never been closed about my feelings both good and bad. The fact I had de-valued Japanese -> English in the past was because Luka V2 English was a bad vocal and there was no other for a while. I actually felt Sonika was better then her in other directions, despite the LQ feeling of Sonika overall. I tried to explain I welcome any new English vocal because the software fell behind the Japanese version in V2 and it was nice for it to get development. I'm not just a Engloid fan, I'm a fan of English Vocaloid.

With Oliver and Avanna getting a lot of attention despite the addition of several English vocals for popular Japanese vocaloids, I wasn't as fearful of their releases. Only that one comment about "move over Oliver we have Kaito now" got my blood boiling and that didn't come this year, thus I never had any serious TRUE angry moments as a fan. Bare in mind also that comment wasn't because it was directed at a Engloid either it was directed at the ignorance of the one saying it because Kaito isn't a "can do everything" vocal and has his limits. Basically... though I am a Engloid fan, remember that I'm a Vocaloid fan firstly and Engloid fan secondly, so certain things spoken that were meant as anti-engloid don't always get a reaction from me because of this.

I love correcting people because I feel it gets a lot of the "truth" out about vocaloid and betters a person's knowledge. Am I always right? No.

The trouble is being a Engloid fan is either way, you get a lot of digs at you, people seem open and feel the need to troll and lie about English vocal. Its been the case since day 1 I joined the fandom and at the time I didn't particularly choose any direction of interest, ergo I was yet calling myself a Engloid fan.

As someone who values language overall it makes sense. My only reason for saying "don't buy a Japanese Vocaloid" is always "unless you know Japanese" because its actually a sound and safe advice to give someone. The aim isn't to put off, but to encourage someone to actually take the time to learn Japanese to stop themselves embarrassing and help to learn how to edit a Japanese vocaloid. With so many slap-in VSQ/VSQX file cover artists out there, they need to stand out. Half of them don't know how to mix vocals correctly - least learning the langauge is one less issue to deal with.

The one thing that has puzzled me most of all though, this year alone, is how one minute some of the Anti-Engloid fans are downgrading the English vocaloids, then another they are over praising ones like Galaco's prize which are disappointing. When people do this it feels so "V2-era" in the attitude, yes you don't like English vocaloids, but honestly... If you praise a Japanese vocaloid for things that you've already down graded English vocaloids for, isn't this a contradiction? I still don't understand why people feel the need to compare languages nor run down a particular language for Vocaloid. They are aimed at different markets and have different rules to abide by within the langauge, with English vocals taking a year longer for good results. I appricate the time and understand its going to take longer to bring English vocaloid up to snuff then it will most langauges.

Besides, I've now seen how low people stoop with Chinese, Korean and Spanish vocaloids, so now this not just a problem with English vocaloid getting hate.

The new langauges
Maika's reasons for being "popular" for her language amount to mostly her design as this was the reason Bruno and Clara's original art caused them much remarks before they changed it. I've seen people overstate the extra phonetics capabilities, which I still feel spoils Maika's extra phonetics value, as they make Maika out to be something she isn't. the trouble is prior to Maika's release, there wasn't an issue and the reason it exists because those making the claims come from the crowd that has claimed great capablities over SeeU and any Japanese vocaloid. I like the Spanish vocaloids but I'm beginning to wonder if any langauge will be free from BS and I likely will end up loving a new language that comes in without issues.

In regards to Korean Vocaloids, as I said to Otter, people are seemingly not seeing things about SeeU and are seeing what they want to see. You go one place, you think she is popular, you go another you don't see that popularity. My disappointment with SBS is now gone with the hope of what Uni will bring and I'll prob. attempt to think the rocky start for Korean vocaloid to focus on Uni myself. Hopefully she'll get a voice type I like too.

Chinese vocaloids are following Japanese vocaloids almost to the tee, we have 4 girl vocals. Its expected as there is a lot of overlap in Asian cultures in regards to certain elements. I think with them its finally starting to hit home that there are people who wantt o express opinion on Vocalodis like Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese and that their opinions are often misplaced. When people complained about 2 more females, I actually saw some guys here come in and defend the development finally it ending with "their not meant for you" which is the point I've been saying for 4 years in defense of English vocaloids ("their made for you - help them instead of putting them down constantly). Also once again as proof of how swallow people are or how they only see the surface, we had to put up with BS about a vocaloid whose vocals were not even known at the time of announcement. ¬_¬

Overall I've related as a fan to all 3 cases and look forward to the future for the 3. Hopefully things will get better for Korean vocaloids and we can forget SeeU's problems and SBS's BS that put Korean Vocaloid through.

Japanese Vocaloids
I'm actually getting really bored of Japanese Vocaloids. ther quality has improved a lot between V2 and V3 but at the end of this year I find myself looking at half of them and wondering why I have little to no interest in them. We're now hearing so many vocal types we've heard before, that I long for something different... Not Gachapoid different, but Miku different. Something new and exciting. Apart from Zola, nothing has really caught my eye this generation.

Part of me also has worked out the last couple of weeks about Gumi and why I'm loosing interest. Its not just the addition of vocaloid clones Kokone and Chika, but her new voices, excluding Native are "flatter". The trouble with trying to get a high quality product is during the clean up stage you filter out all the bad things and issues with the vocal. In cleaning up gumi, I kinda feel they removed some of the qualities of the vocal which made her feel more natural or "human". Its becoming a point that why the cross-synth is even needed I feel is because these vocals are getting so clean their have almost NOTHING to separate some of them at times. The new function encourages producers to use the vocals within a song, instead of relying on just one tone for a song and I actually like this fact. It means flat-lifeless songs suddenly have more feeling and expression to them.

This is good for the vocaloid as the problem I've been noticing since Gumi - Native was released is getting annoying. In other languages where there is more variation fo tone and sound, it doesn't notice so much so as Spanish and English, but its been really bugging me with most Japanese vocaloids.

Overall
I'm actually content as a fan this year, aside form my anger at Alys and Jewel, I think this is the first year with nothing happening that makes me want to leave the Vocaloid fandom.

It makes me laugh reading Sad Machine and Bee and Puppycat comments that people can at this point hear Vocaloid tech, but how they can't identify the vocal without help. I think I've posted the link to Oliver and Avanna's pages in response to peoples lots and lots of times. Its a good sign people now know Vocaloid by hear, despite the knowledge of the vocal being absent.

The overall improvements to the fandom, with more people acknowledging more vocaloids, means slowly things are sinking in. There are still that crowd in places like VO who would rather criticize the fans then help them and there are still fans holding onto 2007-2009 like it matters at this point, but overall things are just better.

When people stop doing things like reacting to Anon & Kanon just to call them rip-offs of the Kagamines...And when people stop bashing Vocalodis bashed on langauge... when they finally realize that certain vocaloids are aimed at certain crowds and their opinions from an outsider don't matter... I think we'll be more or less "fine". you'll always get "weaboos" who consider anything Japanese the best thing since slice bread because this is why western anime gets targeted for criticism by those crowds. So certain things will never get better. We just need to loose the BS to get there.

Ignorance and bias we can live with, because the trouble is it all amounts to personnel taste and opinions, we can prove anything spoken as wrong because of this reason which can often lead to embarrassment and humiliation for that person. Almost people get bored and fed up with these person. I watched the "How to train your dragon" series, and there is one character in it called "Mildrew" that I felt often reflects that part of the fandom. A lot of the things that went wrong for the dragon riders was all down to the fact the village of Berk listened to him and didn't punish him for his actions. I'm sorry, but putting him "as far away from the village as you could" as a big enough punishment. Several times his actions could have caused the death of the Dragons and one time he almost did. Other times he practically attempted to destroy the village and endanger its inhabitants to get his way.

Eventually it got to the point I wondered "why does anyone still listen to him?". I kinda found him pretty much just like anti-fans within the vocaloid fandom. As bizarre and weird as its seems.

In final note, if trends follow, next year we might get even better.

Happy new year guys! ^_^