Megurine Luka

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

The Toeto figure

Added by Angel Emfrbl

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
Crypton's product list, 12/10/2011, Megurine Luka is in 3rd place; her usual spot on the rankings Added by Angel Emfrbl 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

Sakine Meito

Meito is the genderswap based on the official Vocaloid Meiko. He is referred to simply as Meito, but the surname "Sakine" is also commonly added.

Meito メイト
Biographical Information
Introduced	December 16, 2007(?)
Gender	Male
Age	undefined, usually 17 to early 20s
Height	Undefined
Weight	Undefined
Alias	Sakine Meito Meito Sakine (western order) 咲音メイト (さきおとメイト)
Technical Information
Series type	Fanmade Vocaloid;Vocaloid Genderswap
Series no.	Commonly seen as 00 00-00 00 VOCALOID 001 VOC@LOID CRV0
Chara item	Not determined
Voice	Meiko
Opt genre	Undefined
Additional Information
Creator	Unknown
Illustrator	Vocaloid fandom Kojimakako (aka. Pupelion) (current image)
Affiliation	Meiko (derived)

Design

Meito's common design is based heavily off of Meiko's, a Vocaloid series 1 developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media. There has been no defined design as it changes from artist to artist, but there are some consistencie, these being pants with a sleaveless croptop and a black choker. The most popular hairstyle for him is short with bangs (like Meiko), and the most common series number given to him is the red, black or yellow mark of "00" located on the left side of his torso, its significance is currently unknown, though it may likely be homage to Meiko's product code being CRV1 and Sakine Meiko's mark being 00 MEIKO. It is not often that his mark is located on his left arm, because it has been seen that both arms are blank in most of his incarnations.

Personality and traits

Meito has no defined personality, as he is an open source character. His height, weight, and optimum voice settings are undefined as well. However, parts of the fandom portray him as the obedient sibling to Meiko, or being a bit protective of Meiko. In the presence of other males, he's placid, level-headed and sharp, but loves music.

It appears to be common that he doesn't drink that much (or not at all) in comparison to Meiko. This is likely due to his fan-given age varying from 17 to early 20s.

Biography

2007 Early appearance

It is currently unclear who first came up with the idea of Meito; the earliest video to coin the name MEITO (メイト) was a Nico video called "Notice: Gender Reversal; male MEIKO, I drew it" (【性別反転注意！】男MEIKO【描いてみた】) by Fuku (フク), with the id (sm1784302, now undisclosed), it was uploaded December 16, 2007 and the description states it was inspired by the video (sm1745986), an upload that featured a female KAITO. The video is no longer available on Nico Nico Douga, and there are no known copies on other video sites, so the content of the video is unknown.

2007/2008 Later appearance

Source - Vocaloid Wiki

Meito is among the first fanmade Vocaloids who are classified as Pitchloids. This means songs and works are made out of pitch changes from existing songs and voices. While there were name mentions and ideas for the character, his existence did not gain momentum until after March 2008, by then his popularity had a slight increase among the fandom. It's unknown which artist influenced later Meito designs and the common consistency in attire which is based from Meiko, with the exception of using pants instead of the short skirt Meiko dons. The initial design of him wearing a vest or crop top emerged around March and May 2008, however, some early designs were completely original or often done to parody the idea of a male Meiko.

He is one of the Vocaloid derivatives that continues to be known among the fandom, however, he is not officially recognized by Crypton Future Media.

Hatsune Mikuo

Hatsune Mikuo is the popular genderswap based on official Vocaloid Hatsune Miku.

Hatsune Mikuo 初音ミクオ はつねみくお
Biographical Information
Introduced	June 7, 2008
Gender	Male
Age	16
Height	Undefined
Weight	Undefined
Alias	Mikuo Hatsune (western order)
Technical Information
Series type	Fanmade Vocaloid;Vocaloid Genderswap
Series no.	01
Chara item	Not determined, usually Negi (spring onion)
Voice	Hatsune Miku
Opt genre	Not defined, usually Pop
Additional Information
Creator	Vocaloid fandom
Illustrator	Current illustration by an unknown artist
Affiliation	Hatsune Miku (derived)

Design

Mikuo's design is often reminiscent to that of Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid 2 developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media. There has been no defined design as it changes from artist to artist, but it is common to see him wearing pants and a sleeved shirt. The most popular hairstyle for him is short with bangs, though a ponytail has often been seen. On his left upper arm is the red mark "01", which is Miku's series number.

Personality and traits

Mikuo has no defined personality, as he is an open source character. His height, weight, and optimum voice settings are undefined as well. This is because portrayals of him vary from artist to artist, he's commonly portrayed as tall and muscular or of small stature with a build similar to Miku.

Biography

Source: Vocaloid Wiki

Mikuo came to be as a result of extreme down pitching of Miku's songs, and possibly a desire to have Miku sound masculine. His visual characteristics followed soon after.

Mikuo's depiction varies; he's often portrayed as Miku's sibling, either as a twin or an older brother. And although he is one of the Vocaloid derivatives that continues to be popular, he is not officially recognized by Crypton Future Media.

Voice configuration

Having a history of being a mere Pitchloid, Mikuo was not easy to tune for Vocaloid; sometimes he still has hints of Miku's voice characteristics, or doesn't sound convincingly masculine. This limitation has since been overcome thanks to the efforts of many fans who wanted a proper configuration for Mikuo.

These configurations are also applicable to V3-- it is safe to ignore the Opening parameter. Additionally, the configuration can be applied to Hatsune Miku English; using it grants Mikuo the ability to sing in English.

Sakine Meiko

Sakine Meiko (咲音メイコ; Meiko Sakine) is an officially recognized derivative of Meiko. Her name of Sakine　咲音, literally means "Blooming Sound" and has the same pronunciation as 先音, "Preceding Sound," i.e., she precedes Hatsune Miku. Her family name is sometimes shared among her other fanmade "siblings", such as Meito in particular.

The term "Derivative" is used here to describe a fanmade Vocaloid character that is based on an already existing character.

She was conceived through the efforts of Producers working with Meiko's voice, When many producers wondered if MEIKO was an older-sounding vocal, or younger-sounding vocal. (They quickly set on KAITO's voice since he sounded older.) Because of this, Meiko had become forgotten because of Hatsune Miku's popularity, leaving her behind. Meiko in particular did not have the younger sounding voice of the released VOCALOID2 voicebanks released at the time and therefore was not as appealing as they were to the Vocaloid Otaku based fandom. Meiko Sakine was established byNanameue-P to push the limits of the Vocaloid software to make Meiko sound younger. Her official setting is "the Meiko who came into the music trend in the age of 16" (i.e., she is not a younger Meiko variation but Meiko when she was young) and Nanameue-P is "the producer who rediscovered Meiko in her youth". She was later made famous by the PV "Honey" featuring her and other derivatives such as Hachune Miku, Haku Yowaneand Neru Akita, as well as the UTAU Teto Kasane alongside official Crypton Vocaloids.

History

Marketing

Sakine Meiko is one of the Vocaloid derivatives that became officially recognized by Crypton Future Media, the publisher of the Character Vocal Series for VOCALOID2. The other derivatives bearing this distinction areMiku Hachune, Neru Akita, Haku Yowane, and Tako Luka.

Figurines

Official licensed Sakine Meiko figurines have been produced, such as Nendoroid Puchi and a scale model.

Video Games

In Project Diva (PD), Sakine Meiko is an available character in the PSP game, Hatsune Miku ~Project Diva~ and again as a playable character in its sequels. If the player does not choose her for a long time, she will get angry.

Voice Portrayals

Sakine Meiko and Meiko Nendroid Petit figurines

Added by Yuuhashorns

Unfortunately, Nanameue-P has not disclosed the voice configuration so far, though theoretically, she carries a younger voice (and perhaps higher-pitched voice as well) of Meiko.

Famous Songs

星間飛行 (Seikan Hikou)
	Featuring Sakine Meiko Author(s) Nanameue-P Category Cover song

デリケートに好きして (Delicate ni Suki Shite)
	Featuring Sakine Meiko Author(s) Nanameue-P Category Cover song

咲音メイコ (HONEY)
	Featuring Sakine Meiko Author(s) Nanameue-P Category Cover song

Trivia

• It is common to refer to Sakine Meiko as her namesake, or simply Sakine. The original Meiko is sometimes identified through this name as well, being the personification of Meiko when she was young.

• There is also another fanmade who's name is pronounced similar to Sakine Meiko, and belonging to the Hagane group as Sakerune Meiko. The only connection these two share is being derived from Meiko.

• Some fans think that Sakine Meiko is actually Meiko's younger sister.

• Her appearance in the Project Diva games are slightly different from Daigoman's design.