Minori Chihara – Contact.

Minori Chihara (Minorin) catapulted onto the stage of otaku limelight with her role in the whirlwind of Suzumiya Haruhi. Like her youthful colleague, Minorin has taken this opportunity to hone her fan base and her portfolio.

You can watch the promotional video for her first solo album, based on track 2, Shijin no Tabi, here.

With many other seiyuu pop solo works, what matters the most is not so much who’s on the cover, but who’s producing and writing the songs. Elements Garden is behind Contact…and that means the music can’t suck that bad, right?

Actually, yeah, it doesn’t. I’m not particularly partial to either Minorin or Elements Garden (although I like their track record), and even I thought this first CD is categorically inoffensive, pleasant at parts, and generally passable.

But on the flip side, it might be a bad matchup. Minorin does not sing like Nana Mizuki and her voice just doesn’t land in a very impressive range, and it lacks impact. Unlike, say, Chiaki Ishikawa, Minorin’s ballad voice is passible at best even if it operates at the same range. It just doesn’t have the same depth. The weak, if existent vibrato pushes it beyond “irritating” into “passible” but that’s not at all flattering.

I guess the best litmus test of this CD for you is Shijin no Tabi. If you like that song for the vocals, then you’ll like this CD. Unfortunately for me I liked the instrumentation more, and while admirable, Minorin doesn’t outperform herself anywhere else on that album, making Shijin no Tabi pretty much the best track on the CD.

To put things in perspective, heck, that’s more praise than I can say for the likes Nana Mizuki’s, Saeko Chiba’s, and a legion of others seiyuu solo first-albums. But I guess she’s still a youngin with a lot of promise. There’s enough talent to do better, so please learn to sing better for your fans, Minorin-san!

Uninstall is probably the best one I ran across.

I got a laugh out of this one. It reminded me back when people were doing a capella versions of eurobeat and DDR music. Hare Hare Yukai is no exception I suppose.

This one has Hatsune Miku harmonizing with another sound instrument running on classic Vocaloid, from Sousei no Aquarion. Or this song from Nausicaa.

Some people like this version of Tori no Uta, but I think it is seriously lacking.

Slightly less lacking is this version of Princess Mononoke theme. Or this other song from AIR.

There’s always dance-pop leek spinning. Which is probably the simplest way to use Hatsune Miku.

With Hatsune Miku, every computer-literate otaku geek is a dreamer. Or LOL.

What’s Hatsune Miku? It’s basically a synthetic instrument pack sort of thing running on the Vocaloid2 engine–a text-to-speech singing engine. In other words, it’s a software that outputs singing if you give it the notes and words. You can also fine tune it and such. It can even output in Engrish.

Just check out the links up there. And down here.

Reset.

Marisa steals the whatever. It’s a little weak, but yeah.

True My Heart. Beefed up version.

Something from Lucky Star.

One could buy into the marketing possibilities and hype about something like Hatsune Miku–and so far it’s living up to it to a degree. But will things turn out like this? Virtual idol and all that stuff. But then again, even Hatsune Miku is modeled after a real person.

Oh God not this song >_<. To get you in the mood for Eva revival?

LOL CLANNAD in 17 days.

The one to sing about.

Some Higurashi Nonsense.

This is just a fraction of what Hatsune Miku has out there–there’s a legion more on Niconico, and more and more appear by the moment. The original graphic of Hatsune Miku is sort of the new visual icon for this virtual singer slash amusing computer tool. Coincidentally the typical vocaloid sells for a few thousand copies (if it’s any good). Hatsune Miku has gone already way, way beyond that as a smashing success as far as a professional software tool goes.

Got a video you like? Please do share?