Shiki Rowen (式狼縁), also known by his stage name Kemonone Row (獣音ロウ), is Japanese vocal developed and distributed for VOCALOID6 by MUGEN Co., Ltd. in April 2024. He was originally released for UTAU in March 2010. He received a singing voicebank for DeepVocal in March 2020, and a text-to-speech library released for A.I.VOICE Junior under his real name, alongside his great-grandfather Shiki Taigen, released in March 2022 in celebration of his 12th anniversary.
His voice and original design concept and illustration were provided by his creator yuuma, a Japanese voice actor, Virtual YouTuber, motion actor, and synthetic voice producer.
With the release of Rowen's VOCALOID6 voicebank, yuuma transferred the rights to Rowen and Taigen to MUGEN, having fulfilled the lifelong dream he had of Rowen becoming a VOCALOID vocal ever since he created him when he was a middle school student. MUGEN will continue to manage projects related to the pair.[5]
Concept[]
Shiki Rowen is a virtual artist who sings with a synthetic voice and dances with 3DCG. He has released original and cover songs and music videos on video distribution sites, collaborated with commercial games, and published music and VR commercial books. He has also been featured as a local support character, performing in stuffed animal costumes, singing in TV commercials, and distributing live music at karaoke. In recent years, he has also been performing a wide range of activities, such as real-time 3D live performances using VR technology. He is a young teenager who absolutely loves potatoes. If you make him upset, it is highly advised to give him potatoes as a form of apology. Ironically, he dislikes every single vegetable other than potatoes.[6]
Etymology[]
The name Shiki (式) means "style" and "ceremony", while Rowen/Rouen means "wolf" (狼, Rou) and "fate, destiny" (縁, En). His original name, Kemonone Row, means "Beast" (獣, Kemono), "Sound" (音, Ne), and "Wolf" (ロウ, Row/Rou).
Appearance[]
Rowen is a kemono, which means "beast" in Japanese, and is the Japanese equivalent to what is known as a furry in the western world. He is a young wolf with light blue and white fur, blue eyes, long, spiky black hair tied in a low ponytail, and a black nose on his muzzle. He wears a gold amulet around his neck, and has a gold piercing on his left ear.
For his VOCALOID6 design, he wears a top that is blue on the upper half, and aqua on the lower half, and sports a long collar and white accent trim. He wears a black band around his neck, akin to a choker or collar. His jacket is primarily white with a long black collar and black shoulder flaps. The flaps feature 4 small yellow diamonds combined to form one large diamond on each flap. A small yellow rope holds his jacket closed and hooks underneath both flaps. The ends of his jacket, midsection, jacket sleeves, and inner sleeves are a glowing cyan. What appears to be black straps extend from the back of his jacket on both sides and snaps into place just below the shoulder flaps, and feature a silver button, and an aqua strip running down the center. His inner sleeves are black and feature an editor interface with red note bars. His fingerless gloves are now aqua with black trim. He wears black pants that have aqua bands around each leg above the knees, and small cyan lights over the knees and at the bottom of the legs. He wears silver and black shoes that have light bars running up the tongues. These bars are colored cyan, green, yellow, and red, and transition into each other in gradient fashion. The heels of his shoes feature two cyan light bars, and the soles of his shoes feature orangish-yellow lights. His low ponytail is held in place by a silver hair band with an aqua strip running around the ccenter. He also appears to wear an aqua ribbon in his hair as well. He also has a blue streak in his hair. He is featured with a wired microphone that is modern in appearance, and the stand is slightly altered for the detachable mic.
Relations[]
- Shiki Taigen - Great-grandfather
History[]
Shiki Rowen was originally created and released for UTAU in March 2010 as Kemonone Row. Since then, he would have multiple releases over the span of several years, including CV, VCV and CV-VC voicebanks. These voicebanks were discontinued on February 29, 2024.[7]
In March 2020, he received two DeepVocal voicebanks, both of which were ports of two of his UTAU VCV voicebanks. On January 20, 2021, he was updated to the DeepVocal2 engine. These too were discontinued on February 29, 2024.[7]
Marketing[]
Voicebanks[]
All of Shiki Rowen's voicebanks for UTAU, DeepVocal, and RVC have been discontinued as of February 29, 2024.
- Song
- Singing voicebanks for Shiki Rowen. (Expand to see cancelled and discontinued voicebanks.)
- Kemonone Row (UTAU), March 23, 2010 (Discontinued)
- Kemonone Row Act2 (UTAU),August 25, 2010 (Discontinued)
- Kemonone Row Append (UTAU), March 23, 2011 (Discontinued)
- Kemonone Row .Revo (UTAU), December 18, 2012 + (Discontinued)
- Power
- Light
- Deep
- Soft
- Whisper
- Adult
- Kemonone Row .Revo-Re:Chain- (UTAU), June 6, 2013 + (Discontinued)
- TranSinger
- Silencer
- Noiser
- Deeper
- Silencer2S
- TranSinger2S
- BlasterUNLIMITEDEDITION
- BlasterLIMITEDEDITION
- Kemonone Row .Revo-CVVC：SOVIDROCKS (UTAU), March 22, 2015 (Discontinued)
- Kemonone Row (DeepVocal), March 23, 2020 (Discontinued)
- TRANSINGER3:D
- SILENCER3:D
- Shiki Rowen (Synthesizer V Studio), cancelled
- Shiki Rowen (NNSVS), status unknown
- Shiki Rowen (RVC), June 14, 2023 (Discontinued)
- Shiki Rowen (VOCALOID6), April 24, 2024
- Talk
- Text-to-speech voicebanks for Shiki Rowen.
- Kemonone Row (SHABERU), November 16, 2013
- Kemonone Row (TALQu), March 22, 2021
- Kemonone Row (CoeFont CLOUD), status unknown
- Shiki Rowen (A.I.VOICE Junior), March 24, 2022
- Shiki Rowen (COEIROINK/VOICEVOX), March 6, 2023
- Shiki Rowen (RVC), June 14, 2023
Music featuring Shiki Rowen[]
"VOCALOID Shiki Rowen" on Niconico Video- "VOCALOID Shiki Rowen" on YouTube
- "VOCALOID Shiki Rowen" on bilibili
- "VOCALOID Shiki Rowen" on SoundCloud
- "VOCALOID 式狼縁" on Niconico Video
- "VOCALOID 式狼縁" on YouTube
- "VOCALOID 式狼縁" on bilibili
- "VOCALOID 式狼縁" on SoundCloud
- "VOCALOID 獣音ロウ" on Niconico Video
- "VOCALOID 獣音ロウ" on YouTube
- "VOCALOID 獣音ロウ" on bilibili
- "VOCALOID 獣音ロウ" on SoundCloud
Reputation[]
Status
| Reaction |
|
Responses to Shiki Rowen becoming a commercial voicebank for VOCALOID have been mixed. Many were happy to see that a furry vocal is becoming a VOCALOID, however many controversies abounded leading up to and following Rowen's announcement for the VOCALOID engine. The most notable of these was a faked demo of the song Lowfi HeartBit, discovered by cover artist Tomo,[8] in which MUGEN used Rowen's RVC voicebank in tandem with inference data from Yuma for Synthesizer V. The statement posted by MUGEN in the aftermath was poorly recieved by most, as there was evidence that pointed toward the incident not being the fault of a third party mixing engineer, as MUGEN stated. This controversy and many others soured the view of English-speaking VOCALOID fans, especially the views of furries in the community, who had been excited for a furry on the software. |
| Trivia |
|
| Achievements |
|
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://shiki-rowen-taigen.com/%e3%83%97%e3%83%ad%e3%83%95%e3%82%a3%e3%83%bc%e3%83%ab/
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://x.com/Rowen_ShikiG/status/1771429150324375958
- ↑ https://x.com/Rowen_ShikiG/status/1783088243581563128
- ↑ https://x.com/Homurano_Yuma/status/1783090484023595013
- ↑ https://x.com/Rowen_ShikiG/status/1762170915868316112
- ↑ http://www.kemononerow.com/about/
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 https://x.com/Rowen_ShikiG/status/1754795769226465756
- ↑ https://x.com/ci_tomo0o/status/1771750313633947656
External links[]
| Language | Description | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese | Shiki Rowen & Shiki Taigen Official Site | Link |
| Japanese | Kemonone Row Official Site | Link |
| Japanese | Shiki Rowen , The official Twitter for Shiki Rowen | Link |
| Japanese | Kemonone Row Nico Nico Pedia entry | Link |
| Japanese | Pixiv , art and media community | Link |
| Japanese | Pixiv , art and media community | Link |
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