One Year Later – A Tribute To Wowaka-san
It’s been a whole year since the passing of Vocaloid producer and musician Wowaka. A person whose music touched the hearts of so many, who lives on through every bar of each of his songs. Still, the tributes have surfaced in soft trickles along social media platforms throughout the year, bringing people back to the realisation that these songs are what we have left to live by. By the time the clocks turned to April 5th this year, even more tributes flooded out, showing the world how grateful we are for Wowaka-san’s work.
Each and every piece tells a story, and speak of how much Wowaka-san’s songs meant to them as individuals. We thought that we would compile some of the latest tributes that we saw from the past day or so. Let us celebrate the beauty of his work, as well as the work of Wowaka and his bandmates as members of Hitorie, one more time.
I could have spent days adding all of the amazing tributes into one, huge article but I obviously cannot…. so if you’d be interested in seeing more that’s similar, you can check out the hashtags listed:
#wowaka一周忌
#wowaka
#wowakaさん
#wowakaさんありがとうございました
There are many artworks portraying Miku… since she was the voice he used to convey his songs:
@mandykurosaki created a beautiful piece, quoting the lyrics from Wowaka-san’s final Vocaloid song that we thought would never be, 「アンノウン・マザーグース」(Unknown Mother Goose).
How should I say, I suppose that time is something which passes us by in an instant…
I first heard one of Wowaka-san’s songs at Chokaigi, and it’s an amazing memory to hold.
Let’s sing Wowaka-san’s songs again this year!
I decided to add my illustration of Miku from last year to this tweet.”
(僕ノサイノウ / Boku no Sainou).
To show my gratitude, I drew something based on my favourite song, “Ura-omote Lovers!
Thank you so much for everything you’ve done!!”
The 「コンフリクト」 / “Conflict” modules for Miku and Luka were designed by “redjuice”, and they are both intended for use when playing “Ura-omote Lovers” in the Project Diva games. The outfit designs follow the simple palette of greys and white to reflect the cover art for all of Wowaka-san’s Vocaloid songs.
“Rolling girl” was also featured in the games, but uses a different style of module, under the name of 「回転少女」/ “Kaiten Shoujo – Rolling girl”, and it was designed by 南方研究所. Although different from the bandaged Miku we may primarily associate with the song, this module is of course beautiful in it’s own way. This classic video, where we see Miku playing the piano, resulting in that iconic angry outburst before she runs out of the classroom, has also been remastered for the new “Mega 39’s (Mega Mikkusu) game on the Switch, alongside Ura-omote Lovers and Worlds End Dancehall. However, it is now unlikely that any of his other songs will be entering the games franchise in the future.
Of course, there are also plenty of pieces which represent him, too:
Image: “Thank you Wowaka-san. Rest peacefully.”
Wowaka-san, we miss you.”
There have been many more tributes outside of 2 dimensional art though; from an “itasha” style car to people’s own covers of the producer’s work:
Some people have made use of Animal Crossing’s creative aspects to make things like these as well.
One year goes by quickly, doesn’t it…
I pray for you, who unfortunately no longer inhabits this world.”
I have what he left behind on my arm now… I think it ended up looking quite cute.”
eikyuufuhen (forever unchanging)
That’s what the pink coloured statice represents in the language of flowers.
Your heart and existence never changed, so thank you Wowaka-san”
The language of flowers has been used here to send a particularly meaningful message – that they believe that Wowaka-san was always kind-hearted, and a lovely person, and that this never changed through his whole life.
At Mikuexpo Europe’s concerts this year, we had the pleasure of seeing the simple yet poignant tribute to Wowaka-san. I myself burst into tears as soon as I heard it begin…
Even on NicoNicoDouga, people were flooding his songs with comments of the iconic lyrics once more:
Many fans of Wowaka-san will only be familiar with a couple of his most notable songs, but he did much more than that. He debuted his first song in 2009, called 「グレーゾーンにて」 (guree zoon ni te / In The Grey Zone). You can find this particular song (where everything started) on his NicoNicoDouga account here.
He not only produced the songs, but he created the stunning illustrations for them too, illustrations which are so brilliantly iconic for each and every piece of his Vocaloid music. You can view all of them on his Pixiv here.
The official Hitorie Twitter posted this beautiful photo too:
He created 12 Vocaloid songs altogether, but… he didn’t only work with Vocaloid software. As the vocalist for band ヒトリエ (Hitorie), he and his bandmates produced a fantastic repertoire of other songs, all of which also carry the poignancy of the ones using Hatsune Miku that we all know and love, but in a way which makes them stand out by themselves.
He even sang some of his own Vocaloid songs live while on tour. For example, here’s him singing Unhapoy Refrain:
He was also quite close to various other Vocaloid producers, including Hachi (Yonezu Kenshi), and was one of the founders of the record label “Balloon”.
I’ve wanted to buy Wowaka’s and Hitorie’s CDs for quite a while now, and I was intending to buy their newest compilation album being released on April 22nd this year. I want to buy them all one day, because I can’t find a song of theirs that I don’t love. Hearing about Wowaka-san’s passing created this huge knot on my own stomach, and I couldn’t understand why initially. I used to question others for crying when a singer passed away who they didn’t even know. But now I understand. I understand how important his songs are to so many people, how many people have been soothed by the painful truth in his lyrics. The lyrics which ran past you at a hundred miles an hour.
I remember that Wowaka-san’s songs were always notoriously difficult in rhythm games. We would play Groove Coaster at the arcade, and attempting Ura-Omote Lovers was always painful… purely because of how much it hurt your hands to play. One year ago, we went to the same arcade, and played all of the his songs that they had on the game… and cried. I tend to wonder about him sometimes, and about what sort of a person would be able to devise lyrics which are so poignant and which leave such a lasting mark on so many people.
We won’t forget Wowaka-san and his amazing work. I’m also sending my support to those who knew him far better than any bystander like myself, for the hurt which met them must continue to sting every day.
Thank you Wowaka-san. We will always miss you, but we will cherish your work forever.
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