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superespresso · 15 days

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Leaving Your Mark On A Genre: The Lost Artisans of Vocaloid

If you've been around me for more than 5 seconds you're aware that I am an avid enjoyer of Project Diva games. Learning this week about every single producer who was associated with the music that has passed has made it extremely difficult to play. I keep missing buttons in every song I play because I'll suddenly remember I'm playing a song by wowaka, or while scrolling past samfree in the menu have a moment of sadness that doesn't clear up.

There's been a strange sense of melancholy playing certain songs. Even before this research project and learning about the people who had passed just watching the Viva Happy PV or Odds & Ends left me strangely.. empty feeling.

I didn't know about any of these producers passing on. I work in news media and frankly I don't go looking for news when off the clock because it's a job that sucks the soul out of you. When I'm home I'm content to enjoy things as they are. Imagine my surprise to see a tweet of unrelated context alluding to wowaka's passing. How insane it was to me to learn of this. Moments later after commenting such I'd learned of Samfree, and Powapowa-P. After giving it some time I decided to do my due diligence, especially since others in the same thread stated "They weren't aware of any others."

This is only 6 of 40 listed on the VocaDB under deceased. Please add to this if you have anything else to share about any of these producers or others you know of. I'd love to hear more. What was special about their music to you?

Perhaps others are like me and don't know of these passings. Maybe you've played a Vocaloid game, but the names are unfamiliar. Or, you just know the songs by cover-artists. I'd never done any digging on these people, but I've been melancholy. I wanted to know more about who they were.

As an aside before the cut-- this is expanded from an X thread I started. Less space on X to work with, and less comfort using Blue expansion. If you see anything blatantly copied from X, it's probably from here.

The 6 Big Names:

Powapowa-P.

Samfree.

Otsu-P.

Wowaka.

Brother-P.

SHIKI.

It feels incredibly impersonal to just list names. So for each one lets talk about what they did. I'm not going to go into detail about their passing, or their families. If you want to do that you're welcome to go search that. I want to celebrate their life and accomplishments. As stated above; any others whom I may have missed (I don't have the most vast knowledge about this subject) I humbly invite others to include. I welcome additions. It would please me to hear others celebrate the lives of the people who made the music I still enjoy from high-school.

PowaPowa-P (ぽわぽわP)/siinamota (椎名もた) or Mizoguchi Ryou (溝口遼)

In 2012 he joined GINGA; performed live performances and was extremely popular on a worldwide stage. He was beloved on Niconico for his compositions as well as the arrangements and lyrics in many songs self-produced. He was also talented with the piano, and utilized this skill for quite a few songs and albums Today on TikTok, Young Girl A is still getting a massive number of views and features in videos as backing. The song features strong themes of depression and unhappy mentality. It's themes are shared by "Alive" which ranked #1 in 30 different countries on Apple music.

He mostly used Miku & Rin for Vocalsynth, with many, many album releases-- including Best-Of tracks.

Some of his most notable works are:

Young Girl A

Alive

Sayonara Remember-san

Strobe Hello

Hello Strobe

Strobe Last

Strobe Light

Please Give Me a Red Pen

samfree or Sano Takayuki (佐野貴幸)

You know who samfree is if you've ever picked up a Vocaloid game. The picture may not be familiar. The name may not jar your memory, but the music will.

His songs were hits from conception. On this list he is one of the most well known just from his notoriety. He was more than just a Vocaloid composer. He was also an Utaite himself, being in "Nanario no Nico Nico Douga" and prompting a flood of response. He released 6 albums himself between 2008-2011.

His songs have been in more than just Vocaloid though, having credit in "The Sound of SEINS;GATE Complete" from March of 2016 as the arranger, "TOHO Eurobeat" Volumes 1, 3, and 4. As well as "The Best Of Non-Stop TOHO Eurobeat 2011" and "The Revival Mix 2" (TOHO Eurobeat) albums as a mix of an arranger and lyricist.

His significant works in the Vocaloid franchise include:

Luka Luka★Night Fever

Neko Neko★Super Fever Night

Megu Megu☆Fire Endless Night

miki miki★Romantic Night

Piko Piko☆Legend of the Night

Tako Luka★ Maguro Fever

Lily Lily ★ Burning Night

Many other "Night" Credits in the same series.

Missing

Promise

Bye-Bye Lover

Rainbow

Otsu-P (乙P)

Otsu-P released fewer songs than others on this list due to the year of their sudden passing being 2013. It's easy to tell from fan reactions still in circulation that they have no shortage of affection still. Their music lives on within compilations and re-releases, keeping his memory fresh.

Producers released the "Pandoras Box" album after their passing-- including songs that had final touches placed post-mortem so that those who enjoyed their work could enjoy everything they had to offer. There is very, very little about Otsu-P available. That's okay. If you have anything to share, or any kind of memory you'd like to include-- please do.

The works included on their most notable are:

chord line

Oman Ko

Innovation

Mythologist

Pandora's Box

Stick With You

wowaka (ヲワカ)/Genjitsutouhi-P (現実逃避P)

This is the hardest one to cover for me. It's very strange. For a while now SPiCA has made me very, very sad. I wasn't sure why. I didn't know about wowaka until this week. The song isn't meant to be sad at all. The musical undertone though leaves me feeling empty. Now I can't even play the song. It really did leave a deep mark. Even choosing a picture, I went through about 20 of them, just to find one where he looked content.

Wowaka heard about Vocaloid after hearing "Last Night, Good Night," enjoying and being shocked by the ability of the program-- as well as the ability of a single user to do so much production. Debuting in 2009 and exploding soon after, wowaka formed the band "hitorie" in 2011, establishing BALLOOM. Under the BALOOM umbrella, artists would be able to publish music worldwide.. from the internet. Following this "Rolling Girl" saw an international release.

In 2011 after this release, wowaka worked mostly with his band and label instead of the Vocaloid software. During this time he'd composed and worked on the lyrics for "And I'm Home," featured as the ending theme song of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The type to stay busy, he'd always had a project. Eventually he would be back with a bang in 2017, releasing the Vocaloid track: "Unknown Mother-Goose."

Not only did he get used to the software though, he was personal with the developers. Wowaka was friends with Hachi (Yonezu Kenshi) at one point describing their relationship as "close."

The associations list for wowaka are almost endless. From Toku, Oster Project and onward. If you look at any Project Diva game or best-of discography for Vocaloid you will see at least one wowaka song. If you play the games you know of his songs as almost always being the ones to get you stuck for a bit on the harder difficulties. They're so catchy that no one seems to mind.

Here's some of the ones picked from an extremely long list:

Rolling Girl

Two Faced Lovers

World's End Dancehall

SPiCA -nopq remix-

Romeo & Cinderella

Unhappy Refrain

Prism Cube

Reversible Doll

Brother-P (ブラザーP)

Unlike the others on this list; Brother-P was not a musician, and a bit more recent. His specialization was the animations associated with some of our favorite songs. It's likely you've seen at least one of them, with Sony having his work included in a DVD release for Vocaloid content.

A few of these Music Video compilations have been released over the years, with many making it to Youtube. With inclusion of 2DMV's, his work has been included in everything from DVD to Video Games. Modders especially have used his content in Megamix+ to bring life to songs.

Like wowaka, I've had a deep feeling of sadness when playing certain songs. Namely Viva Happy and Odds & Ends. Today actually, I had to pause playing Odds & Ends. (using the Brother-P MV actually.) Before I had learned of this information this had happened with me sitting at my desk feeling oddly empty. That's when I had started working on this, as I felt like I had to work on something important to me. It lead me to this information. I feel strange about it. Especially with how odd the timing is. But, It shows how deeply the PV's do make a difference.

Some of the ones I specifically want to pick out:

Change Me

Viva Happy

Mr.wonderboy

Odds & Ends (fanmade, but brilliant)

SHIKI

Already popular before working with Vocaloid2, SHIKI crossed over into composing and arrangement on the new platform with Harmonia in 2008. It only took two songs for him to grab attention. You'll find him on the 2010 Sony DVD ~memories~, as well as the September 2010 Exit Tunes Presents Vocaloanthems album.

SHIKI lead and worked with a Visual Rock group "GILDA" until his departure in 2016. Before this he worked with Be-Music Source files (BMS) form 2002 until his passing in 2021. His legacy includes tracks for DJMAX, Sega's maimai, and オンゲキ series, and Albums for any kind of enjoyment type. He really was prolific.

HIs credits also included Lapis, Air, Ruby, and Setsuna. Love went into his creations at every step and it showed.

Some of his memorable credits include:

Triangle☆Girl's Heart

Prism Door

Endless Dream

Blue Ray

MEMORIES

Saturation

So, with all due respect.. I did find the deceased page while re-checking things. I did look at it. It's much longer than I originally thought it would be. Again, I implore others to add to this. Pay respects to those they enjoy the works of. Include the artists they care about. Drama in Vocaloid has been happening for such a long time. Let's turn that around. Make it a more hospitable group to be a part of.

#coffeetalk #vocaloid #Music #Project Diva #hatsune miku #Momentarily Real

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