MEIKO

Everybody loves MEIKO onee-chan ^_^ So do I! MEIKO is one of the earliest VOCALOID that was made by Crypton. The same company who created the ever popular Hatsune Miku VOCALOID that everyone's listening to. Ok, not everyone but a LOT of people.
So what prompted this post? Well... take a look at the picture below...

Oooh, all the VOCALOID plushie... they're all so cute! But look to the farthest right of the picture. IT'S MEIKO!!! IT'S A FREAKIN' MEIKO PLUSHIE!!! I knew I didn't get the Miku plushie for a reason. The Miku plushie had been in my online shopping cart for a while, but I've never gotten around to actually order it, even if it was one of the hottest items that was always sold out when it got restocked...

I saw the Kaito and the Kagamine twins plushie being made. I didn't even think that MEIKO was a possibility since she was ignored this whole time... But I kept my optimism up when I saw KAITO and Rin and Len being made, "maybe there's a chance MEIKO will be made too". And there she is in all her glory! The mature MEIKO making her presence in the recent Miyazawa Model Exhibition!

Well I can't really leave it at that though. I have to explain why MEIKO gets her own post here and why I'm a fan.

So who is MEIKO anyway? As I've said she was one of the earliest VOCALOIDs released on November 5, 2004. Her voice is based on a Japanese singer named Meiko Haigou. Unfortunately MEIKO, the Vocaloid, does not share the same popularity as Hatsune Miku, who is a Vocaloid ver. 2 program. MEIKO's voice tend to be more electronic than the other Vocaloids, but a lot of skilled programmers have created great music for MEIKO. In fact, MEIKO has a greater range of vocals than Miku and the later Vocaloids. Her songs range from jazz, R&B, rock, pop and even children's songs. I personally like her cool voice as expressed in the following song:

The above video and song was the one that exposed me to MEIKO and was the catalyst that made me delve deeper into the VOCALOID world, all thanks to Mr. Hatsune Tenrou... It was a very cool song paired with depictions of a very strong and tough MEIKO protecting the younger Vocaloids.

There are few versions of MEIKO, but I'll only talk about the two right now. One is the older version of MEIKO which is based on the box art of the software. She tends to have the cool adult voice. The other version, which was fanmade, is Sakine Meiko, who is supposed to be the 16-year-old version of MEIKO. Obviously she has a younger voice and used for more fun songs such as Honey:

Sure it's a cuter voice, but I can't help but find it a bit more electronic than Sore ga Bokura no Justice (the first posted song).

It was exactly two weeks ago that MEIKO celebrated her fifth birthday. This picture was so cute that I need to use it. A younger version of MEIKO? KAWAII! ^.^ I made a special post about her birthday on Figure.FM and highlighted some of my favourite MEIKO songs.

One of her newer songs that was created on her birthday is Sky Cutting Scissors as seen below:

You know you want your favourite singer to do her best, right? ^^ Which is why I'm quite choosy about MEIKO songs and I tend to not bother if the song is too electronic for my taste. That varies of course. So even if her voice still sound too electronic, but the song was well done, I'd still like the song.

One of these creators who composes MEIKO song is none other than Susumu Fujiwara, better known as the composer to most, if not all, of Satoshi Kon's movies. The last movie that he composed was Paprika and not many know this (neither did I when I first watched the movie) that he used MEIKO to sing for the opening song! Way to go MEIKO! High profile work ^_^

Paprika is already one of my favourite anime movies because of Megumi Hayashibara was the voice actress for the main character, great visuals, great story... and now with this recent revelation, great opening song! I did love that song even before knowing about this fact :)


And of course I'm looking forward to the Puchi Nendoroid Vocaloid version of MEIKO. She looks so cool! Some people on Figure.fm, DannyChoo.com and Twitter have probably seen my current avatar with this MEIKO ^^

This is the Sakine Meiko version. She has that *kira* pose from Macross Frontier's Ranka... Speaking of which:

Right now I'm not as avid in looking through her songs and videos on Nico Nico Douga as I used to, but I hope to continue this habit again. My time has become shorter and shorter these days... But she still has a fan in me, even if I don't keep up to date.

Last but not least... I can't leave a MEIKO post without showing you my favourite MEIKO song and video ever ^_^