Module Prejoin - Day 2

[needles]

(Noelle made this banner btw ♥)

Welcome to Day 2 of Module's prejoin!

Obviously, we're all here because we love Vocaloid... But what has your Vocaloid journey been like? Did you plumb the depths of Nicovideo in 2008? Watch the Kagerou Project anime in 2014 and wonder about the original? Catch Miku live on Letterman in 2022? What producers or videos got you hooked?

I'd love to hear your story with Vocaloid and its derivatives, no matter if you're a fresh face or an old hat. How you got started and what you're doing now, even the future of what you want Vocaloid to go. For answering this discussion question you will be rewarded five random cards and ten crystals.

All prejoin games will end August 17, 2025 at 11:59 PM EDT.

Comments

[rainyskies13]

I first heard of Vocaloid in 2010 when I was a part of an online forum for kpop and anime song collabs! I was mostly doing kpop song covers, and then saw there was a section for Vocaloid and was curious, so I dove deep into NicoNico and all the wonderful songs vocaloid had to offer. Sone of my first Vocaloid song collabs were just be friends - dixie flatline, keeno - fix and glow, karakuri pierrot, Mr Music, Senbozakura, etc! THEY WERE SO GOOD AND ADDICTIVE!! I also loved watching all the Halyosy collabs/songs and music party on niconico every year. Halyosy's Blessings, Connecting, Painter, Shouter, Stepper are probably the most iconic classic and timeless vocaloid group songs for me and will stay a core memory :D Fast forward to now, I still (but very seldom) do vocaloid song covers now, but my husband loves producing music and using Vocaloid's banks and SynthV so I am still very much in the space, just on the other side now :) I considered making my own UTAU using my voice once, and the dream is to still be converted into one haha!

[aroseofmay]

Can't say I remember an exact year that I learned about Vocaloid, prob 2009 or around then? What I do remember is that Love is War was one of the first songs I listened to along with Alice Human Sacrifice.

Since then I've listened to many songs, from the most popular ones which were mostly added to Project Diva eventually to more niche ones (there's one right now that I remember listening to but I CAN'T FIND IT. Pray for me I will find it eventually)

Anywaaay, I love songs where KAITO gets the proper tuning that he deserves and I also love the Len & Rin story songs by Hitoshizuku x Yama! Also GUMI, GUMI is a queen at sounding realistic.

[scblakdrgon]

It's been so long that I don't really remember how I found vocaloids. I think it might have been on aarinfantasy since I was making banners there and probably where I first found vocaloids either browsing the site or browsing for images. I remember making some vocaloid banners then.

I still have those xD



Sometime during that, I started listening to vocaloid songs (Senbonzakura, Tsugai Kogarashi, Ifuudoudou, Aku no Musume, Aku no Meshitsukai) and also joined tones and collected vocaloid song decks there and found even more songs.

[camilovesyou]

I think what got me into Vocaloid was a cover of mothy's "Servant of Evil" over a decade ago, but the first time I enjoyed a Vocaloid song using the actual voice banks was probably dixie flatline's "Just Be Friends".

[auriianna]

Um... I didn't get too deep into it. But the song that started it all for me is...
Senbonzakura original and there is the Thousand Cherry Blossoms english version.

[algolian]

I first learned about vocaloid when I was in middle school! I was living in japan and my family had just given me my first device with internet access, so of course I spent a ton of time on youtube and nnd and forums. at that point in time IA had just been released and I stumbled across her demo song tori no uta - I fell in love with the character and concept and immediately wanted to know more. I became obsessed for a long time and used to have upwards of 2000 vocaloid songs I'd ripped from youtube saved to my little tablet. I must have been only 11 when this started? vocaloid really did raise me 😭 my tastes have evolved so much and I've loved seeing so many more voice banks release and rise to fame since I was a kid. I still have some of my OG favorites sitting in my google drive to listen to

[wanderlast]

honest to god i forgot the letterman thing until just this moment. the amount of tumblr memes that just flooded back in my memories... who in your otp is the letterman who is the miku...

Anyway, it's been so long that I'm... honestly not sure how I first found out about Vocaloid! I have very vague recollections of sharing a bunch of Vocaloid songs over PMs on a forum for a book series I used to frequent when I was younger - this was early 2008, a few months after Rin and Len came out. The first song I ever heard was Toraboruta-P's Kokoro, and specifically the Glider fan PV of it. Glider is still my favorite Vocaloid artist overall for this reason, haha. But it wasn't until I heard Aku no Meshitsukai (and Aku no Musume by association) that I really fell hard into the Vocaloid realm. I was absolutely entranced by the sheer amount of storytelling inherent in the medium all from an image on a software box.

Vocaloid has absolutely changed my life in numerous ways, probably more than I can count. It's partly what got me interested in learning Japanese, and partly what got me interested in my academic area of focus which has influenced a lot of my work. I've traveled halfway around the world for Miku twice and goddamn I am gonna do it again. I used to be a little embarrassed about how much I love these (air quotes) singing robots, but the older I get the more I realize how genuinely cool it is that there's so much human passion and love put into Vocaloid as a form of creative expression - how cool it is that people connect across the world and language barriers to write and collaborate on songs together.

This got so sappy lmao. Miku is everywhere. In conclusion, there is a very specific reason that it's easy to remember that my car had 39,000 miles on it when I bought it.

[twotwinks]

My best friend in middle school was into vocaloid before me. He used to give me one of his earbuds and show me all his favorite songs on his iPod during field trips. Senbonzakura was the first one I ever heard! I also very distinctly remember hearing Matryoshka and Juvenile for the first time that way. There was also this one song I loved that I've never been able to find since, it had Miku and Rin and Len and it was in Mandarin, I believe it was about spring snow or something? I remember searching through every song they had on vocaloid wiki at the time looking for it but could never find it. Anyway, that friend also taught me how to use youtube to mp3 converters, since this was the time before you could buy really any vocaloid songs on iTunes. I also got super into Kaito derivatives for a while, I followed the exploits of BloodyVocaloid and my favorites were Zeito and Nagaito. Oh, and utau, of course! Ryone Yami was always my favorite, it's a shame his creator has been the target of so much hate. Most of the covers I loved have disappeared as a result...but I still have a few saved on my ancient iPod!

[aratakis]

i think i first discovered vocaloid in either late 2008 or early 2009? i was a freshman in college for sure, because i remember sitting in the computer lab at school listening to vocaloid on niconico and youtube! i'm pretty sure i discovered it through touhou fandom songs. the cirno's perfect math class to triple baka pipeline. then i quickly found out more about vocaloid, and got into all the Classic songs and producers; i was a huge fan of supercell from the start (including their non-vocaloid music). i kept exploring and listening to different producers after that, and i've been listening to vocaloid a ton ever since.

vocaloid was something my partner and i bonded over before we started dating, too (i distinctly remember a party in 2019 where the two of us just sat in a corner on their laptop and swapped song recs). we had planned to go to hatsune miku expo in 2020--i bought tickets and everything--but it tragically got cancelled on account of the plague. but we got vocaloid concert redemption last year; i mentioned this on discord, but we went to see kikuo on our first date last august. we still want to go to a miku concert with the hologram and stuff, but we both love darker vocaloid songs so seeing kikuo for a first date was amazing!

[breadfully]

i think it was around 2008-2010 for me, because i distinctly remember listening to a lot of rockleetist's english covers of vocaloid songs like bpm, double lariat, melt etc -- not sure how i stumbled upon them, but i remember i recognised miku as the character holding a leek lol. lots of vocaloid songs during that time really made an impression on me, like rolling girl, no logic and campanella to name a few...

this was also around the time i watched macross frontier, and learning that megumi nakajima voiced both ranka and gumi, and how similar they looked, made me fond of gumi too!

so most of the vocaloid songs i know are from that time cos that's when i was really into it! and then i randomly got to know songs when they were covered by utaites, and now some of the vtubers i watch cover vocaloid songs and thats how i peripherally learn about more recent vocaloid songs haha. im also out of my rhythm game phase (thank u bang dream and llsif) if not i would like to think i'd enjoy playing project sekai now!

so... i count myself as a super casual ~ here for a good time and to look @ pretty art and find new songs to appreciate

[admiral]

I can't remember how/when I first discovered Vocaloid but it was sometime in the early days, so my idea of Vocaloid songs is stuck in like 2009. I'm loving listening to the new(er) songs being posted in the Discord though, this TCG has got me putting together a whole Vocaloid playlist and just listening to random new stuff on YouTube! I also played Project Sekai for a while so I discovered some new songs there I really like, and covers used in other rhythm games like Bang Dream and such.

I think my favorite classic Miku song is World is Mine, forever iconic etc. I also really love ECHO ft. Gumi, I've been relistening to it a lot lately and it's constantly stuck in my head.

[koinuko_colors]

I remember being a kid and Googling "what anime is Hatsune Miku from?" over and over again and being confused when I never got an answer, lol!! I've been listening to Vocaloid pretty steadily since 2008-ish, I would say. I very quickly figured out that, okay, these characters did not have an anime, and they were singing robots...? Took me quite a few more years from then on until I started paying attention to actual producers and understanding the fact that Hatsune Miku herself did not write all these songs. I got very very into UTAU quite early on as well and I loved Teto with all my heart - I still do!! I listen to newer songs too but I don't necessarily keep up with all the popular new releases. I do listen most of the time when producers I like come out with new songs, though.

[arcaea]

I cannot for the life of me remember what year I heard my first Vocaloid song, but its definitely a formative part of my childhood/teens, and probably one of my first entry points into Japanese media as a whole. I've spent long nights working on homework or studying with some Vocaloid music in the background, but usually they ended up being more distracting than anything.


The community behind Vocaloid is so unique and special. I've always been drawn to fandoms where fans make up the bulk of the content because I love seeing the different interpretations and stories that people come up with.

[overthedimension]

LISTEN. everyone gen z person had early-ish vocaloid exposure via nyan cat. we just didn't know it yet. generational heritage website.
VERY FUNNY THING THAT KAGEPRO WAS AN EXAMPLE. I AM IN LOVE WITH KAGEPRO. i stumbled across children record when i was ten, which is insane to think about. i've loved music my whole life, and immediately wanted to know more about who these characters were. [and, who this hatsune miku and ia guys were and what they were from.] i watched the anime and then got into the songs and light novels, which is funny due to the fact that is the complete opposite order you should experience kagepro in.
i love the art form of music in general and how vocaloid is a unique means of producing it!

[moes]

i think i got into vocaloid through project diva, actually?? back in high school. i then got into kagepro songs and watched the anime (which.........was. Something.)

in college, i got into this tcg called weiss schwartz and my first deck was the project diva f deck which had a lot of funny meme-y builds. talk to me about the time machine/sadistic music factory deck.

i also got to go to the miku expo concert in 2016, right in the front and it was so much fun. i kind of fell off for a while until i got heavily back in with prosekai and here i am. i occasionally do song covers of vocaloid songs (esp prosekai ones) and hope to still do more.

[sangonomiyas]

admittedly, i'm not really a fan fan of vocaloid as i mostly joined module because i liked the tcg ideas in general, and saw some project sekai decks would be allowed but otherwise i don't really know much! of course, i know queen miku because i like animangames so it was inevitable that i would learn about her - but i don't really listen to vocaloid music aside from what i know from project sekai, or whenever vtubers i watch/know of (or other entertainers of some sort) cover vocaloid songs and i learn of them that way!

all that said, i do like a lot of the songs i've heard or found thanks to project sekai and while most of the ones on my regular playlists are originals commissioned for the original groups from that game, theres some covers i really like too!! the game also helped introduce me to the other vocaloids who i've all grown fond of (or at least their project sekai versions/personalities) which is why i felt encouraged joining despite not knowing very much about the topic as a whole :')

[errorysm]

I actually discovered Vocaloid as a kid through Nightcore 😭. I was a self-proclaimed otaku and liked listening to a lot of covers of pop and rock songs mainly because there's an anime girl on the cover. I got recommended a Vocaloid song because of that. I forgot what it was that I watched but I kept going through songs and ranking videos until I found out about the "dark" and "adult" vocaloid stuff. Admittedly, I was a very edgy kid with unrestricted internet access, so the "wrongness" of that stuff drew me in. It was from that time that I discovered my goats, kikuo and mothy, whose songs honestly inspired me so much. I think I started branching out of that dark side of vocaloid around 2015-2016 and started exploring other vocaloid genres, which then got spread out to j-pop and j-rock in general.

[tempoet]

ok this isn't very exciting but once upon a time i just was doing a youtube deep dive when i was a kid and i found garden of evil and i enjoyed it very much. i've gotten into a lot of the canons that have sort of spun off from vocaloid, as well, like kagerou project! now, i'm not super into things in an up to date kind of way but i like watching pretty songs. the twins remain my faves, haha.

[needles]

In the age of dinosaurs people used to draw fanvids on Nicovideo to various songs... One common one was a redraw of a girl spinning a leek called Ievan Polka. The song was catchy, and it had a tone I'd never heard before -- there was a certain je ne sais quoi about the voice, if you get what I mean. I looked at the credits for it in my very minimal Japanese -- who was the singer? Hatsune... Miku? Never heard of her.

And the rest, as they say, is history.