#vocaloid has always been a haven for creatives

[catcatb0y]

Honestly though saying (or implying) that vocaloid or vocal synths in general "devalues the human voice" is SUCH an incredibly shit take for SO many reasons.

Like yeah Saki Fujita getting so many other roles in voice acting because of her contribution to Hatsune Miku (the anime cameos and stuff are usually done with her original voice, them modified to be robotic) is a bit of an outlier when most other vocaloid and sythns don't have that influence.

You can even sort of wave off the dozens upon dozens of people who go for realistic tuning- like whenever a synth has any sort of clarity, there are like five people commenting about how real they sound. Clearly people do still care about human sounding vocals, because they go nuts over realistic vtuning.

There are many different aspects of vocaloid that use human voices, too- from Set It Off's duet "Why Do I?", human rap artists using Miku's vocals as background, and the entire CONCEPT of Project Sekai which releases AND COMMISSIONS songs for vocal synths and real people.

But the sheer number of vocaloid producers who use their own vocals as back up (MikitoP, PinoochioP, and I believe Kira off the top of my head), the number of producers who can sing and/or do self covers (again Kira, GIGA, Ayase, Teniwoha, syudou and so many more), and the amount of vocal producers who have gone forward with legit musical careers after working with vocaloid (Kenshi Yonezu, most notably, who did work for years under the alias Hachi)

I mean, hell. There are vocaloid producers who go on to become vocaloid vocals themselves- like nostraightanswer, the vocal provider for DEX, who has made both vocaloid and original songs. Some even duets.

That's not even including creators like JubyPhonic, Rachie, Will Stenson, Lollia, Octavia, Razzy and Co., and SO many other HUMAN cover artists who gained following or honed their skills on none other than vocaloid covers. (And that's just a handful of English Cover artists, not like Sati Akura a Russian cover artist or Ado who has commissioned songs from vocaloid artists)

It's also not including UTAUites who input their own voices to use for covers.

"Devalues the human voice" is such blatant bs. They ARE human voices. They are OUR voices. "You'd think by now that we would have learned, behind every piece if art is a human to be heard." (- CircusP, 'Better Off Worse')

[vanilla-blessing]

Exploring the Transforming Definition of Mahou Shoujo: Questionably Magical Idols

Magical girl idol reboots are a trend now for some unfathomable reason, and the reception this wave has had is kind of strange. There's a perception that magical girl anime are nearly dead except for Toei’s indomitable flagship Pretty Cure, but at the same time there's been a revival nearly every season of some variation of a magical girl idol series. We saw this last year with Show by Rock #, Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R, and Macross Delta; next year promises reboots of Symphogear, Kaito Tenshi Twin Angel, and Pripara. Except for Komugi-chan R and Twin Angel, none of these are what we think of as traditional magical girl anime, but on the other hand magical girls and idols have been inextricably tied together ever since idol anime started in the 80's, with magical girl series Creamy Mami and Pastel Yumi. Even today, these genres are linked, for better and worse. Kaito Tenshi Twin Angel (lit. Phantom Thief Angels Twin Angel) is a generally awful shonen ecchi anime about magical girls who are barely idols, and Pripara is a bizarre reboot for kids of the already kind of out there idol arcade game/anime franchise Pretty Rhythm. Both of these are getting rebooted next season and they can both be loosely described as idol magical girl anime.

Kaito Tenshi Twin Angel is a pretty unremarkable magical girl series that's a spinoff of a pachislot machine and frankly isn't worth anyone's time. The original anime adaptation was a two-episode OVA back in 2008 and that's where the franchise peaked. Twin Angel was actually sort of creative back then, and balanced magical fantasy with realistic elements, like magical girls being shot at with assault rifles during an illegal drug bust, a main character actually being hospitalized from her injuries, and a memorable villain who was legit terrifying at times. Topped off with arguably catchy pop songs, some really creative animation sequences, and a more mature tone, it was a solid example of a mid-tier magical girl anime. But then they kept making it.

The only reason I brought up this nothing series is because it's an example of a magical girl idol anime, only the idol part is almost never mentioned outside of the OP. It makes the viewer question why bother to include that detail at all, and I think the answer is it's just another bullet point on the magical girl for older males genre formula. It literally doesn't matter if they don't commit to it at all, but you still gotta have idols. At least Nurse Witch Komugi integrated it as a joke, sort of. Nowadays these kinds of anime just release idol-esque albums regardless so it'll be interesting to see if the director drops the idol part entirely for Twin Angel Break so he can spend more time on their awful costumes that somehow get worse every time I look at them. Who thought shoulder pads were a good idea? By definition Twin Angel is an idol anime, but it has no creative investment in that aspect in any way. Not every magical girl idol anime is that lazy, however.

Pripara is like some kind of VR Club Penguin only instead of penguins everyone is idols. The specifics are weird alternate reality dimensional nonsense but at Pripara's core it's a world where anyone at all can be an idol. Girls perform for each other and it's televised and streamed and the system is maintained by identical people in glasses and it's existed for 2222 years and was started by ancient Egyptians and you can't think about it too hard because that way lies madness.

Pripara's best quality is how it focuses on having unusual characters that stand out more than any other idol anime, which all lack variety in comparison to Pripara’s sheer multitude of interesting people. In Pripara, anyone and everyone can be an idol for any reason, from grade schoolers to mothers and grandmas, from a tone deaf vocaloid created from depression to girls with alternative body types that would be sidelined in a more generic idol show, there are absolutely no limits on who deserves to be in the spotlight. Idols in Pripara are raised by lions or are best friends with goats, or express themselves by performing elaborate satanic rituals or dressing like an enormous jellyfish. Even though Pripara is a haven for girls, it's acceptable that a member of the main cast is actually a boy; as long as everyone's cool with it, there's no problem. Pripara expands on the original's already broad interpretation of idol performance straight to infinity, with routines by Cosmic Mom idols, idols that only show up on Halloween, Feral idols that speak human as a second language, whatever you call that clown seizure the art teacher Ajimi does on stage, a full recreation of Shin Godzilla, or even an elaborate Pro Wrestling cage match where an idol beats up a Kraken with her bare hands. Pripara's relentless train of creative gimmicks puts any cast of idols that are merely human girls at a school to shame. Pripara is the flamboyant result of producing an idol anime without limits and it is definitely quite a spectacle.

Pripara embraces the most basic theme of magical girls, the idea of self-transformation. The clumsy and short main character Laala grows a full 2 feet when she enters Pripara, the standoffish and strict disciplinarian Mirei plays the character of a friendly and cheerful blonde, even timid newcomer Chiri becomes outrageously rude when she enters Pripara, to even her own embarrassment. Exploration of identity is just as important to Pripara as any given magical girl anime, maybe even more than usual. Characters struggle with their gender identity, wonder where they belong, and challenge preconceived notions of what they should be. Compared to how Twin Angel treats idols as a footnote, Pripara's magical girl integration is so ingrained that removing it would destroy everything the show stands for. At its core Pripara is about transformation upgrades and flashy performances, but also about balancing your life on and off the ‘stage’. These are qualities shared by almost every good magical girl anime since the 80's, and Pripara is one of the most positive and surprisingly inclusive iterations of those classic themes. Details on the upcoming reboot are slim, but it's virtually certain that Idol Time Pripara will do things that no idol anime has done before.

While it's true that traditional magical girl anime productions have slowed in recent years, magical girl-inspired and cross-genre magical girl anime continue to exist. Idol anime also show no signs of stopping, so as long as that connection stays as essential to Pripara, or as genre mandatory as Twin Angel, there's no reason why magical girls and idols won't continue to be as intertwined as they have always been.

- Magical Girl Consultant qb @queuebae