Piapro TV #01 Roundup
Another day, another fun livestream to tune in to, and this time Hatsune Miku’s official Twitter account announced the beginning of what’s to be known as “piapro TV”! The first episode was broadcasted last Friday, June 18th at 19:00 (JST), on their YouTube channel, and featured a special guest… to find out more, scroll down for our roundup of what happened!
※The following transaltions and summaries are all unofficial
For this episode, we joined our two MCs in the studio (as well as a few accompanying Mikus), who would run us through the first broadcast.
The main topics for today were as follows:
- Reccommended songs from KARENT*
- Start-up Creative
- Creator Talk
*KARENT is known as “The World’s Largest VOCALOID Record Label”, which was created by Crypton Future Media. Find out more on their official website here!
1. Recommended songs from KARENT
This section will allow the team to show us a selection of songs from KARENT, which suit a particular theme! Today’s theme was to do with “a VOCALOID song you want to listen to in the Summer”, and the following songs were introduced:
センシティブサマー / SENSITIVE SUMMER feat. Hatsune Miku by the circle “ZLMS”
ジャズコーラスの夏闌 [reprise] / Jazz Chorus no Natsu Takenawa (Summer in full swing of a jazz chorus) by buzzG
夏が零れてゆく / Natsu ga Koborete Yuku (Summer is Spilling / Overflowing Summer) by かりく / kalic
夏に閉じ込められていたい / Natsu ni Tojikomerarete Itai (I Want to Be Trapped in Summer) by soh
Summer Love (2020 Mix) by Osanzi
Did any of your favourite songs get shown in the program? If not, what would be your go-to Summer VOCALOID song? Some people in the comments section mentioned the likes of Shoujo Rei (Ghost Girl) by MikitoP (a firm favourite of mine, actually!), from Y to Y by JimmyThumbP and Sekiranun Graffiti by ryo!
If I wasn’t going for a song from KARENT specifically though, my recommendations would be “Was the Summer You Dropped a Golden Summer, a Silver Summer, or Would You Prefer to Pick It Up With Me?” by cosMo or GIRLS INTER HIGH from MikitoP. Both have pretty fun summery vibes, with the latter being about an inter-high volleyball event! The PV is done in an early shoujo manga style, which is really cute too.
2. Start-up Creative
So this corner of the broadcast is going to be dedicated to – as the name suggests – being creative! They’ll be starting contests centered around anything from music creation, to art, to all manner of other creative activities!
For this episode’s Start-up Creative corner, our other two MCs (who’re also representatives of SONICWIRE – more information on that in a moment!) are asking us to create a brand new theme song for piapro TV!
If you have a mind for song composition featuring the piapro characters, this could be your chance to get yourself out there in front of over 30,000 viewers* of piapro TV. We should expect a proper contest page to be set up and advertised on the piapro blog soon enough, so keep your eyes out.
*As I was watching the broadcast, I remember the number of people “viewing” the broadcast on YouTube succeding 30,000 viewers as it got into full swing
SONICWIRE
As our representatives were introducing themselves, they also acknowledged that this is probably many people’s first times at hearing the name SONICWIRE! So they followed this up by explaining what it is exactly: SONICWIRE is a website which specialises in software to do with music and video production and manipulation – very useful for any (aspiring) VOCALOID producer! You can even buy VOCALOID packages from them officially, making them a big name in the industry.
If you’re interested in finding out more, head to their official website or social media below:
- SONICWIRE Official Website (JP /EN)
- SONICWIRE Official Twitter (JP)
- SONICWIRE Official Instagram (JP)
- SONICWIRE / Crypton Future Media Official YouTube channel
They have a whole range of VOCALOID packages, plugins, sample packs and software to help you enhance your work, so make sure to keep up to date with them for further news and information!
3. Creator’s Talk
The third and final part of the one-hour long livestream is the Creator’s Talk! As you may have guessed, this corner will feature a particular creator in the VOCALOID community for a small Q&A session. And for this episode, the special guest was none other than PinocchioP!
Note: Due to the fact that there is no archive available for this episode of piapro TV as of writing, certain small lines of the following translation may not have been able to be translated and included.
PinocchioP introduced himself as “someone who has been using the VOCALOID software since 2009. He then mentions at one point about being a fan of various comedians on YouTube, such as Kamaitachi (a Japanese comedy duo) and Eiko Kano.
Our MC had a list of 10 questions they wanted to ask PinocchioP in this section, starting with…
MC: I’d like to briefly hear about your first encounters with music, something which your name is synonymous with, so just what exactly inspired you start making music in the first place?
PinocchioP: The thing that got me into making music… It was a very slow process, but around elementary school (primary school), was when I first started getting interested in music. There’s this game series called “Monster Farm” (known as Monster Rancher in the West), and there are these “CDs” in it. It’s a game where, depending on the CD you have (also known as “disc stones”/”mystery discs” in-game), when the CD is read, a monster can be born. And until then, I’d never bought an actual CD or anything before, but I ended up collecting these ones, (in-game items) and whatnot. So after I started buying my own things (in real life), I thought, “hey, why don’t I try listening to some music too!”. So from then on, I started to have an interest in music.
The first CD I bought was one from the band Spitz called “Indigo Chiheisen”, and as I was reading the lyrics while listening to the songs, I started to learn to really enjoy music this way. Then I started to take an interest in the actual lyrics for the songs themselves, and from around elementary school age, I got hung up on the idea of creating an album myself. Even as I’m working on creating albums now, I’m creating them with all those same feelings from then still intact.
MC: It must have been so exciting, writing down and compiling all your notes when you were little and whatnot. Although this is the first time I’ve heard of a game like that (Monster Farm), but it’s true that there has been a lot of interesting content included in music since then, hasn’t there?
PinocchioP: That’s true. I’m pretty sure Japan had the most sales of CDs around the world at that time as well.
MC: So following on from that, how did you feel when you first started creating and posting music to NicoNicoDouga (the Japanese video platform, similar to YouTube)?
PinocchioP: Originally, I actually wanted to become a manga artist (laughs). I still draw and whatnot, but eventually I decided that it wasn’t the career path I wanted to go for. I got hit by a lot of setbacks and I just started thinking, “Ah man, this is pretty hard huh…”. And around that time I was making music as a kind of hobby. Then just as I was taking a bit of a break from stuff, this thing called “VOCALOID” started gaining popularity and I was just like “I really wanna upload something… ANYTHING to Nico Nico Douga right now”… so that’s how it all started. I started uploading my VOCALOID works to NND. I’m not great at drawing and making manga, so I found a way to incorporate drawing into my music to make it fun again.
I didn’t get a great reaction from people at first, but I carried on making and uploading music and started getting praised online by lots of people I’d never even met. And that just carried on happening, even to this day. (Looking at the comments I get on videos) kinda felt like I would be opening pandora’s box to a certain extent [in the beginning].
MC: On the theme of Hatsune Miku, we wanted to know if you had any creative activities you’d like to challenge yourself with in the future?
PinocchioP: Honestly, what with there being a kind of music that can only be created by a non-human thing called “VOCALOID” that can sing, I like to think that it’s interesting how the fact that it uses VOCALOID specifically gives the music meaning. I tend to do live performances and whatnot using it [VOCALOID] too, and although it often feels like I’m doing a live alongside the VOCALOID (characters), one day I’d actually like to appear in some sort of actual media with them. Say, like, if you were to appear with VOCALOID on something like a Kouhaku*-style live show, it’d be interesting to see what the public would think about it, as in, “this is a singing contest so does this [VOCALOID songs] even count?”.
* I believe he is referencing the popular TV show, Kouhaku Uta Gassen
Although they ran out of time to cover all 10 questions in the Q&A, our MC wanted to finish up by asking if PinocchioP had any announcements he’d like to make.
PinocchioP: Ah yes, my 5th album, entitled “Love” (ラヴ), will be released on 11th August 2021. It’ll be available country-wide, so I hope people will enjoy it. The special bonuses for the CD have already been announced, so please make sure to check them out!
As well as this, my new song “Non-breath oblige” is included in the album. The video for it has already been uploaded, so please feel free to take a look!
You can find more information about PinocchioP’s newest album “LOVE” (including the preorder bonuses) by visiting his official store on BOOTH here:
>>https://pinocchiop.booth.pm/items/2969400
Now as the show was slowly nearing its end, the MCs wanted to bring up a few other points of interest for viewers!
Miku Chronicle
We’ve covered Miku Chronicle recently ourselves, including the Hatsune Miku Software Package Illustration Contest, and details about a new “what if Miku had no-twintails” figure in the works (among other things), but now we know details of the dates and times of the full event:
As shown above, the details are as follows:
- Dates: July 22nd 2021 ~ August 22nd 2021
- Location: THE GRAND HALL (Shinagawa)
Summary: An event that’ll be focussing on the character known as “Hatsune Miku”, where you’ll be able to find out about her via the likes of AR technology, and get a hands-on experience with our revolving art exhibit!
It was announced that tickets for the event are now available to buy, so fans will need to check the official website (https://piapro.net/39chronicle/) if they want to get some!
Survey – Join in for prizes!
Next up, the MCs announced that they would be holding a survey for viewers to leave suggestions and feedback for piapro TV! You can access the survey here:
https://select-type.com/e/?id=oTr6sfU9FQI#page_mail
Fill in the survey, and 5 lucky viewers could win a set of Miku-themed merchandise! Good luck to everyone participating!
Translations for questions:
>>Please make sure to type your answers in the boxes provided, and click on the blue 「次へ」(next page) button when you’re ready to move on. You can click on the「戻る」(return to previous page) button if needed. Since the questions and episode itself are in Japanese, Japanese answers to questions will be expected, so please keep this in mind.
Q1. ニックネームを教えてください。/ Please type in your nickname (up to 3,000 characters)
Q2. メールアドレスを教えてください。/ Please type in your email address
Q3. 番組の評価を教えてください。/ How would you rate this episode of piapro TV? (please select one option from the following)
> とても良い / Very good
>良い / Good
>普通 / Average
>悪い / Bad
>とても悪い / Very bad
Q4. 番組内で面白かった点を教えてください。/ Please tell us what the highlight of the program was for you (up to 3,000 characters)
Q5. 改善したほうが良い点を教えてください。/ Please let us know which aspect of the program you think needs improvement (up to 3,000 characters)
Q6. 今後番組に呼んでほしいゲストを教えてください。/ Please tell us who you’d like to see appear as a guest on the show next time (up to 3,000 characters)
Q7. 番組で今後やってほしい企画があれば教えてください。/ Please let us know if there are any particular sections/corners you’d like to see in the program next time (up to 3,000 characters)
Q8. 番組へ向けて熱いメッセージがあればご記入ください。/ Please let us know if you have any messages for the show here (up to 3,000 characters)
Once you’ve finished with Q8, you can click on the blue「回答終了」(submit answers) button, and you’re done!
※Please note that the survey is only available from June 18th until June 25th 2021 at 18:00 JST
※Please make sure to submit only one entry per person
※The free gifts are scheduled to be shipped in early July sometime, and will most likely only be able to be shipped to residential addresses within Japan
And after all these announcements, piapro TV episode 1 came to a steady (and mildly amusing) end, as our MCs realised that they did in fact have slightly more time left than they initially realised. They did make sure to mention that fans can use the official hashtag #ピアプロTV to tweet their thoughts of the current, and future episodes though, so please keep this in mind for the next installment, which should be coming out in the middle of next month!
What do you think of the contents of the first episode? Any ideas for creators you’d like to see featured on the show? Remember that any ideas you have can go into the survey (shown in the above section) until June 25th!
Thanks for reading, and we looking forward to bringing you more summaries of piapro TV in the near future!
Links
Hatsune Miku / piapro characters
- Official YouTube channel (JP)
- Official Twitter (JP)
KARENT
- Official Website (JP / EN / CN)
SONICWIRE
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