History YMMV / Vocaloid

* OnceOriginalNowOverdone: The Vocaloid 2 era is widely considered to be the programs golden age, as a lot of popular and iconic songs were released during its lifespan. But going back to the songs from that era can be rather rough for those in the late 2010s and 2020s, as the voices themselves, without significant editing, can sound extremely flat and robotic compared to later versions of the program. The raise of AI replication software that can generate near pitch perfect human sounding, ''emotional'' voices can also make it hard to see the appeal of the era. One needs to keep in mind however that back then, such tech was ''genuinely'' cutting edge, as most vocal, text to speech programs were extremely robotic, speak and spell sounding voices. The fact that Vocaloids could even sing ''at all'' back then was very impressive, let alone sounding remotely human in the process. * OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight: Pretty much the basis for war between those who prefer KEI Garou, the original character designer for the Character Vocal Series Virtual Singers [[note]]Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin & Len, and Megurine Luka[[/note]], and [=iXima=], the most recent character designer for the Crypton Vocaloids including KAITO and MEIKO, who were not originally drawn by KEI. [=iXima=]'s redesigns are often criticized for missing the mark on what made KEI's original character designs stand the test of time, with many claiming that KEI should have been kept as Miku and company's character designer for this reason.

** Crypton Vocaloids VS Vocaloids from other companies. Crypton Vocaloids were some of the earliest made on top of being the creators of Miku herself, which often causes them to be some of the most well known among casual fans, to the point that [[PopCulturalOsmosis Vocaloid is just the ones produced by Crypton]]. Fans of Crypton Vocaloids also tend to be some of the most vocal when it comes criticizing new Vocaloids from other companies, either for being too similar sounding to Crypton Vocaloids or ''not sounding similar enough''. This has caused fans of Vocaloids from other companies to view them as a SpotlightStealingSquad undeserving of their fame; to the point some even question [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny how they got so popular in the first place]].

* OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight: Pretty much the basis for war between those who prefer KEI Garou, the original character designer for the Character Vocal Series Virtual Singers [[note]]Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin & Len, and Megurine Luka[[/note]], and [=iXima=], the most recent character designer for the Crypton Vocaloids including KAITO and MEIKO, who were not originally drawn by KEI. [=iXima=]'s redesigns are often criticized for missing the mark on what made KEI's original character designs stand the test of time, with many claiming that KEI should have been kept as Miku and company's character designer for this reason.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: The Vocaloid 2 era is widely considered to be the programs golden age, as a lot of popular and iconic songs were released during its lifespan. But going back to the songs from that era can be rather rough for those in the late 2010s and 2020s, as the voices themselves, without significant editing, can sound extremely flat and robotic compared to later versions of the program. The raise of AI replication software that can generate near pitch perfect human sounding, ''emotional'' voices can also make it hard to see the appeal of the era. One needs to keep in mind however that back then, such tech was ''genuinely'' cutting edge, as most vocal, text to speech programs were extremely robotic, speak and spell sounding voices. The fact that Vocaloids could even sing ''at all'' back then was very impressive, let alone sounding remotely human in the process.

* [[HoYay Ho Yay/Les Yay]]:

** [[ThoseTwoGuys Haku and Neru's]] appearances tend to run on LesYay. "Dark Woods Circus" for example.

-->'''Both:''' Until we can resonate with each other again\\

** The PV for Halyosy's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXLnKaiDeVw "Flyway"]] shows Len and Kaito gently holding each other while gazing lovingly into each other's eyes. Halyosy leaves it somewhat unclear if the meaning of the song is meant to be taken as romantic or platonic (the song itself is about coping with someone you care about leaving for an extended period), but the visuals are intimate enough that it's easy to draw certain conclusions... The lyrics make it even ''more'' interesting, if you know what they mean in English:

** Calling the characters "[[BrandNameTakeover Vocaloids]]" is not a wise move unless you want to annoy the fanbase. The characters are officially classified as "voicebanks" (or Virtual Singers), not "Vocaloids". "Vocaloid" is the software that runs the voicebanks, not the voicebanks themselves.

** VY1 and VY2 weren't given appearances to the voices ''specifically'' so people would focus on the music itself and let those editing them alter the voices however they like. This is did not people from making appearances for them to fit with the other Vocaloids. The same is also true of Leon and Lola; the ''[[OlderThanTheyThink very first]]'' Vocaloids.

* MisaimedFandom: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osLl7gkfUHU Nashimoto-We, Kill Me]]" makes fun of Nashimoto-P's misguided fans. Ironically, it has its own misaimed fandom that takes the song at face value instead of the satire it is.

** The PV for Halyosy's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXLnKaiDeVw "Flyway"]] shows Len and Kaito gently holding each other while gazing lovingly into each other's eyes. Halyosy leaves it somewhat unclear if the meaning of the song is meant to be taken as romantic or platonic (the song itself is about coping with someone you care about leaving for an extended period), but the visuals are intimate enough that it's easy to draw [[YaoiGuys certain conclusions...]] The lyrics make it even ''more'' interesting, if you know what they mean in English:

* HoYay[=/=]LesYay:

** "Romeo & Cinderella" by doriko has an eyecatch of Miku nightwear in bed, laying stomach down with her head on a pillow and an apple in her hand, with the arm of an offscreen person pressing down next to her. It's clearly meant to be sensual imagery, with the implication being that her partner is about to have sex with or cuddle her, but there isn't a body associated with that arm visible, the arm extends all the way from the top of the illustration, and there's a fair amount of empty space between Miku's body and the top. Whoever that is, the way the arm is positioned and the lack of a second arm visible implies that whichever offscreen person that arm belongs to is doing a ''handstand'' rather than mounting her.

* FetishRetardant: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6M2ppKwuZY "Nehanshika"]] features cleavage bearing Miku and [[ShirtlessScene shirtless]] Gakupo. Not nearly as hot as it sounds.

** The "Len dies" meme has crossed into this as well in recent years, due to the number of songs where said thing happens greatly decreasing over time and no longer being as relevant to Len as a character. Many people in the fandom consider that unfair to label him as "the one who always dying" when other Vocaloid such as Miku and Rin (espescially the later) also dies a lot.

** Mistaking Miku as the first Japanese Vocaloid could earn the ire of MEIKO fans, as the later was released first (2005) before Miku even exists (2007).

* IAmNotShazam: "Vocaloid" is not Hatsune Miku's name, nor does it refer only to her - a mistake caused by her FaceOfTheBand status that can be a BerserkButton for many fans.
* HypeBacklash: Fans of non-Miku Vocaloids tend to be a bit leery of Miku for being the [[FaceOfTheBand face of the Vocaloid brand]] and being promoted to hell and back at the expense of attention towards other Vocaloids, especially ones not by Crypton. The fact that a good chunk of Vocaloid contests and events partner mainly with Piapro (which, incidentally, uses the Cryptons) doesn't help.

* FaceOfTheBand:
** For most non-Vocaloid listeners, Vocaloid ''is'' Miku. And it's not for nothing, as she is the biggest [[CashCowFranchise cash cow character]] to be born out of the software, having several video games, various mobile apps, live concerts, [[UsefulNotes/MikuMikuDance software that was created to be focused on making music videos for her]], and tons of merch. She's no slouch when it comes to non-commercial things either, as she simultaneously has the 13th highest tag count on Pixiv at over ''500 thousand'', beating out the VOCALOID tag itself which is primarily filled with fan-art of her, along with having the highest fan-art count of any character on the website. She's also currently the only Vocaloid [[Music/HatsuneMiku to have a separate page]] on this very wiki.
** Luo Tianyi is this for the Chinese faction of Vocaloids, as the most famous Chinese Vocaloid of all of them and by far the most recognizable in that community.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Teto's little interlude in "Triple Baka", which happens out of nowhere and adds nothing to the song. It's cute though!

* TrueArtIsAngsty: Try to discuss it without mentioning that most of the songs that use Vocaloid have lots of [[NightmareFuel creepy]] and [[DespairEventHorizon angsty]] [[DrivenToSuicide premises]]. But for some reason, some of it remains popular in Japan (or [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff even Westerners]]): either they believe that TrueArtIsAngsty, certain songs were made [[CreatorBreakdown when the creators have breakdowns]], or they don't realize the actual meaning of the lyrics, as [[LyricalDissonance they're mostly veiled by happy or energetic melodies]], for those who don't understand Japanese.

* AmericansHateTingle: VOCALOID does not have the same craze-level following or cultural relevance in the West as it does in Japan. The Japanese music scene is comfortable with the idea of manufactured Idol Singers, but the American music scene is still dominated by discussions of 'authenticity' to the point where it's still somewhat controversial to use electronic instruments or Auto-Tune. Japan also has a robot-focused culture, viewing automata as objects imbued with life by human ingenuity, so a singing computer seems like a joyful, utopian idea. In the West, where robots and [=AIs=] are viewed as creepy and soulless creations of hubris, synthetic singers are NightmareFuel. Lastly, making convincing synthesised speech is easier in Japanese, with its low number of phonemes and syllable-based writing system. English has a lot more phonemes and spelling quirks, meaning that even [=VOCALOIDs=] designed for English speech seem to have thick, unidentifiable accents if they're even intelligible at all. This is even noticeable with English [=VOCALOIDs=] like CYBER DIVA and Sweet Ann who were designed specifically to have American accents. Hatsune Miku would [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff gain some traction in America]] (enough to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2014 and for her video games to get localized), but even so, her popularity in America is very niche compared to her near mainstream level of popularity in Japan.

* AccidentalNightmareFuel: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7a0hRXCuqg Vocalawson Desu]]. [[BrokenRecord Dear]] [[UnintentionalUncannyValley god]], Vocalawson Desu.
* {{Adorkable}}: Kaito is portrayed as a big doofy goof who can be somewhat childish, though the latter isn't always the case. There's an entire tag on Pixiv, "Bakaito" (a portmanteau of "stupid" and "Kaito") of him being a dork, awkward, or TheDitz. This is possibly acknowledged officially even, as he trips in ''Project Mirai'', as mentioned below. Heck, his first hit was him [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGLTccscwnM singing innocently about how much he loves ice cream]]! As well, ''VideoGame/ProjectSEKAI'' has acknowledged this about him, as his Vivid BAD SQUAD alternate version is a GeniusDitz.
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: All over the place, due to the [[BlankSlate nature]] of Voice Banks as BlankSlate.

** Many symbolism-heavy songs (like "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMDxKRx10mU Rolling Girl]]") are open to a wide array of interpretations.

* {{Anvilicious}}: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkbZhVRytzQ The New Millenium]]", and "The Near-Future City".

** Vocaloid fanfiction and fanart tends to use this trope, mainly because the fandom likes creating Opposite Sex Clones of the official characters. A favorite pairing is Len×Rin, an official pair of "mirrored images", which tends to overlap this with Brother–Sister Incest depending on how they're written. And even they have their own fanmade gender-swapped clones in "Lenka" and "Rinto", who don't look like just a second pair of the originals.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: A lot of the songs. [[AwesomeMusic/{{Vocaloid}} Listed here]].
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lunu6sE5Q4 Tower]] [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm8208347 of Sunz]]" has one from approximately 3:25 to 4:20.
** Miku fights a ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' rip-off in the "Kyoudai Shoujo" PV in ''Project Diva 2nd''. After it's defeated, she fights it again on the Moon. And then, they sing together and bow to the audience. [[MindScrew Yeah]].

** Robotic tuning versus Realistic tuning. Some find the robotic-sounding voices to be a part of what makes Vocaloid charming compared to real singers, while others find the robotic tuning to be offputting and prefer the characters to have more natural-sounding voices instead. This debate would especially heat up when Crypton left Vocaloid because [[CreativeDifferences the former wanted to keep the voices robotic, while the latter wanted to embrace more realistic sounding vocals]].

* CargoShip: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0yoz_4HRvg Kaito/Ice Cream.]]

* CompleteMonster: [[SnakesAreSinister The Snake of Clearing Eyes]], [[VillainProtagonist Rin]]/[[SerialKiller The Killer]] in "Fear Garden", and [[MonsterClown Pierrot]]. See [[Monster/{{Music}} here]] for details.

* DeathOfTheAuthor: The interpretive community-driven nature of Vocaloid practically invites this, with the fandom rule of thumb being that ''any'' information derived from "official" sources (such as statements from WordOfGod, official profiles, and officially licensed works such as ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva'') is no more or less valid than the interpretations/headcanons provided by the community. It helps that this is often encouraged by WordOfGod, especially by Crypton Future Media and Internet Co., Ltd.

** The "Len dies" meme has crossed into this as well in recent years, due to the number of songs where said thing happens greatly decreasing over time and no longer being as relevant to Len as a character.

* FandomEnragingMisconception: A few have come along over the years.

** Crediting a song to the voicebank who sang it instead of the producer who actually made it (like for example, crediting World is Mine to Hatsune Miku instead of Ryo and Supercell) is an easy way to get swiftly corrected by irate fans and to become regarded as a "noob" amongst the fandom.

** Aoki Lapis is generally seen as this (when the fans aren't bashing her design).

* ShipToShipCombat: Where do we start? This is present everywhere with every single ship since the early days of Vocaloid.

* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: Let's be honest, who's actually more fond of "Benzene" and "Nitrobenzene" than "Paradichlorobenzene" and "Anti-Chlorobenzene"?[[note]][[AdaptationDisplacement Some weren't even aware of those songs]] prior to "Paradichlorobenzene" to begin with.[[/note]]

** Surprisingly averted with Rin and Len's appends, as most of the fandom tends to love them.
** Overlaps into MemeticMutation with Kaito, whose covers of other songs typically have the lyrics changed to reflect... ice cream. In particular, songs once written to describe romantic love ("SPICE!", "Love is War", "Melt"...) are redone to reflect Kaito's equivalent love for "aisu"; taken to an extreme with a version of "For the Longest Time" with all the lyrics replaced by Engrish-y ice cream flavors.

* DeathOfTheAuthor: The interpretive community driven nature of Vocaloid practically invites this, with the fandom rule of thumb being that ''any'' information derived from "official" sources (such as statements from WordOfGod, official profiles or officially licensed works such as ''VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva'') is no more or less valid than the interpretations/headcanons provided by the community.

* AmericansHateTingle: VOCALOID does not have the same craze-level following or cultural relevance in the West as it does in Japan. The Japanese music scene is comfortable with the idea of manufactured Idol Singers, but the American music scene is still dominated by discussions of 'authenticity' to the point where it's still somewhat controversial to use electronic instruments or Auto-Tune. Japan also has a robot-focused culture, viewing automata as objects imbued with life by human ingenuity, so a singing computer seems like a joyful, utopian idea. In the West, where robots and [=AIs=] are viewed as creepy and soulless creations of hubris, synthetic singers are NightmareFuel. Lastly, making convincing synthesised speech is easier in Japanese, with its low number of phonemes and syllable-based writing system. English has a lot more phonemes and spelling quirks, meaning that even [=VOCALOIDs=] designed for English speech seem to have thick, unidentifiable accents if they're even intelligible at all. This is even noticeable with English [=VOCALOIDs=] like CYBER DIVA and Sweet Ann who were designed specifically to have American accents. While Hatsune Miku has managed to gain some traction in America (enough to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2014 and for her video games to get localized), her popularity in America is very niche compared to her near mainstream level of popularity in Japan.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** All over the place, due to the [[BlankSlate nature]] of Voice Banks as BlankSlate. Kaito, for example, has been interpreted as a [[TheCasanova suave ladies' man]], a [[TheDitz total goofball]], an AxCrazy {{Yandere}} and a powerful hero in various fanworks. This trope is taken up to eleven in the RhythmGame ''VideoGame/ProjectSekai: Colorful Stage'', in which the Crypton Virtual Singers' personalities vary heavily depending on which SEKAI [[note]]World born from the collective feelings of each [[OriginalGeneration main group]].[[/note]] they appear in.

** While GUMI is [[CrossdressingVoices intended to be a boy]] in "[[https://youtu.be/V8Ym3wzRU0A First Love Academy]]", which centers around a love triangle in which Len and GUMI fight for Rin's love, the fact that GUMI is officially a girl and her voice remains unchanged in spite of the GenderFlip means the triangle in the song can easily be interpreted as a BisexualLoveTriangle, with GUMI being a {{Bifauxnen}} instead of a guy.

** While GUMI is supposed to be a boy in "[[https://youtu.be/V8Ym3wzRU0A First Love Academy]]", which centers around a love triangle in which Len and GUMI fight for Rin's love, the fact that GUMI is officially a girl and her voice remains unchanged in spite of the GenderFlip, means the triangle in the song can easily be interpreted as a BisexualLoveTriangle, with GUMI being a {{Bifauxnen}} instead of a guy.