Zahra Ardiany
7 July 2000
A Simple Geek^^
Jakarta, Indonesia
Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ) is a Japanese VOCALOID developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media, Inc., and was initially released in January 2009 for the VOCALOID2 engine. There is currently ongoing development for additional voice banks dubbed 'Append' as well as an upgrade to the VOCALOID3 engine. She was the third release for Crypton's VOCALOID Character Vocal Series, and her vocals are described as "cool, somewhat mysterious".
Her voice is provided by the Japanese female voice actress, Yū Asakawa (浅川 悠 / Asakawa Yū), who was recorded in Japanese and English for the voice bank.
| Biographical information | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Age | 20 |
| Height | 5'4" / 162cm |
| Weight | 99lbs / 45kg |
| Product information | |
| Company | Crypton Future Media |
| Distributor | Crypton Future Media |
| Voice provider | Yū Asakawa |
| Illustrator | KEI (Original\2009) |
| Reduced no. | CV03 |
| Affiliation | YAMAHA SEGA |
Etymology Concept
Her surname combines Meguri (巡, circulate or around) and Ne (音, sound), while the name Luka invokes the Japanese homonyms "nagare" (流, flow) and "ka" (歌, song) or "ka" (香, scent), thus making: "songs to all around the world as scent spreads."
Appearance
According to KEI, who was asked to illustrate her by Crypton, due to her bilingual software her design was made to be asymmetrical, so from different angles she would look different. Unlike previous mascots in the series, her costume is not based on a school uniform.
Her design incorporates woodwind and brass instruments. The gold curl design on her chest mimics brass instruments and a circulatory organ. The blue jewel near her throat represents moisture in the air and water drops.
Vocaloid fans tried to assign an item to Luka as they had done with past VOCALOIDs, sparking heated debate over the choice. Tako Luka marked the end of the "Item War" system where as items were assigned to VOCALOIDs based on Internet Memes. Despite the Internet Meme's popularity, she is often seen with a tuna fish. This is a result of comparing the Japanese word for "tuna" with her last name.
VOCALOID Releases
- "Japanese Vocaloids and voice providers [comparison]" by seorial (hosted) ft. VOCALOIDs
YouTube - "[Megurine Luka] [Once Upon a Dream - Sleeping Beauty] [English - Japanese Comparison]" by Mirukumon ft. Megurine Luka
YouTube - Megurine Luka has songs in the Nico Nico Douga Hall of Fame
- A tutorial for Luka can be found here
Despite the inclusion of English, Megurine Luka was not aimed at a world wide audience, instead focused primarily at Japanese producers.
- US Debut
At Miku's US debut other VOCALOIDs from the Character Vocal series also appeared. Megurine Luka was featured alongside Miku in the Los Angeles concert.[5]
- Megurine Luka 3D
A 3D data pack for the software Shade 12 Basic was announced as Megurine Luka 3D. The software pack contained data and a 3D model for the 3D animation "Corruption Garden" made using the software. The pack is now available in English.[6] A Blu-Ray featuring the PV was also put up for sale on the 8th of June 2011. The video was created by IKEDA. This is the only such pack for the 3D software package so far that features a VOCALOID vocalist. It includes four complete sets of clothing, pre-set poses and more.
- Figurines
Added by
Luka has several figurines based on her. Exclusive figurines were sold during the 2009 Treasure festa event for Megurine Luka. During the 2009 and 2010 seasons she appeared in the Good smile racing figurine sets. A special "Toeto" figurine was also made based on the PV of the same name.
- For more see Figurines
- Clothing
She has appeared on T-shirt designs, often to promote Luka herself or particular albums by Producers.
In 2011, Piapro held a contest with members to design Goth Lolita clothing for VOCALOIDs, to be produced by the company Putumayo. Amongst the winners were designs based on Luka's own attaire.[8]
ACOS have also produced an official cosplay outfit and wig.[9]
- LincEnglish
LincEnglish is currently collaborating to make use of Megurine Luka and Hatsune Miku's abilities to do English. Their voicebanks will be used to teach Japanese kids "English". The lessons are "coming [sic] soon" according to the advertisement.
- Calendar
Crypton Future Media VOCALOIDs have also appeared in 2013 calendars.
- 4th Anniversary
Crypton Future Media celebrated the Kagamine's 5th Anniversary, along with Megurine Luka's 4th, with a number of goodies.
- Manicure set
Luka appeared in a nail varnish set along with the other 5 Crypton vocalists. The colors within the set match the colors of the VOCALOID's own painted nails.
Additional information
Popularity
- Google Trends, "Megurine Luka"
| Megurine Luka Popularity | |
|---|---|
| Sales | |
In 2010, Luka was ranked as the 3rd most popular VOCALOID product they sold.[15]
In October 2013, Luka's Vocaloid2 software disappeared off the top 10 products charts as the Hatsune Miku V3 and its bundle package disrupted the hart rankings.[16] Luka had already fallen to 6th place during the 2013 period as a result of Kaito'sKaito V3 release, but this was the first time Luka had disappeared from the charts.
| |
| Reaction | |
| Luka was the first VOCALOID to impact Hatsune Miku's popularity. Only a few days after her release, many songs were produced. On the 70th Weekly VOCALOID Ranking (February 2nd, 2009), many of Luka's songs appeared in the Top 30, knocking the very popular "Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru" and songs produced by ryo (with the exception of "Melt") right out of the Top 30. "RIP=RELEASE" had taken the #1 spot, and had earned a total of 843,233 points, making it the song with the highest one-week score. | |
| Misc. | |
| An independent search on Nico Nico Douga revealed that most VOCALOIDs had less then 1,000 videos uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in 2011 between July 1st and December 15th. Luka, however, had managed to gain enough views not to fall into this category. Luka had the 4th highest number of uploads with 2103 videos to Nico Nico Douga. Luka, who had 3855998 views and 301640 mylists in total was the 5th most popular viewed VOCALOID on the site. Luka’s 1837.94/143.78 average views placed her as the bottom of the top 6 VOCALOIDs based on average view counts. However, when the lists of top 6 VOCALOIDs were sorted based on the mean number (a more accurate reflection of the VOCALOIDs popularity) Luka did not make the top six.[17] | |
Trivia
- While the software was in the alpha stage of development, Crypton were hoping for a voice that sounded sexy, however, due to the level of softness in the results the vocals were unable to achieve this.[18]
- Some call her "Ruka" or "Luca", however this is incorrect. Though the romanized version of the word could be either, the English version has been confirmed as "Luka" and since there is no dubbed version to content with, this remains the only official name in existence for the VOCALOID.
- Luka can be heard in the original musical score "Arisen Anew" from a Homestuck [10] album called AlterniaBound.[19]
- An old trick within the Western Vocaloid fandom is to have Luka's VOCALOID2 English voicebank and SONiKA sing together. If correctly done both voices will blend together. The advantage of this is that both VOCALOIDs effectively hide each others' flaws since both VOCALOIDs have similar vocal ranges.
- There has been some noticeable concerns with the information on her from the Mikunopolis website;
- On the Mikunopolis website Luka's profile contains the statement; "In the past, creating songs with English lyrics had always been somewhat awkward, but Luka is able to sing both in Japanese, English or a mix of the two - a worldwide virtual singer". While it is true it had always been awkward to use a Japanese VOCALOID for English, there had always existed native English capable VOCALOIDs so the English language had always been easy to access.
- As mentioned in "Usage for Music", she has a number of issues with her English voicebank that leave some English speakers questioning her English capabilities overall. So ironically while she had the best English level of any Japanese based VOCALOID at the time of her release, just how much lack of awkwardness there is to her vocal results is questionable.
- Lastly, she was aimed at the Japanese speaking market and was originally not intended to be a world wide release (hence the lack of an English interface).[20]
- Luka is a drummer, as seen in the openings of the ProjectDIVAs.
Notable for...
- First bilingual VOCALOID
- First Japanese/English bilingual VOCALOID
- First female bilingual VOCALOID
- First English voicebank produced by a Japanese company
- First English voicebank provided by a Japanese provider
- First newly released VOCALOID to impact Miku's rankings in the VOCALOID ranking charts
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