Dubious Discourse

[Dubious Disc]

Yo. I'm Disc and this is my thought dump. いらっしゃいませーっ
I tried starting a blog a while back, but ultimately I didn't really like the format of it and I just gave up. So here's a different one. Honestly, I'll probably just end up rambling about Vocaloid and adjacent Japanese music, but whatever. My personality has pretty much been replaced by Vocaloid at this point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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So I've decided to try out profile theming for a bit, picking different images for my banner and sig to match my avi, but who knows if I'll actually be able to keep it up lol. There's a few songs I've been wanting to theme in particular, but eventually I might just end up getting lazy and going back to my default. Right now it's TAMAYA-themed, since that's my favorite song. It lives in a special place in my heart. I'm a big fan of Chinozo, if you couldn't tell.

Been listening to Chogakusei's EP that released last week. ...even though I only vibe with like half of the songs on it lol. I really love Chogakusei's covers, but I find it a little harder to like his original music, I really only like 6 or 7 out of the 20-ish songs. That said, those 6 or 7 are really good. I've been obsessed with Overlook in particular, it's just really catchy all around and keeps getting stuck in my head. (Fair warning, the MV contains a lot of animated blood. Both the song and video are references to The Shining, that's why it's like that.)

The other song that's been taking over my brain is Incubator, which is just a complete banger. That's all I can say about it. I was absolutely blown away the first time I heard it, I definitely wasn't expecting it to have so much energy. Since the lyrics aren't written anywhere I can only understand like half of what it's saying, but honestly I don't even care. I don't need to know what's going on, I only know that it's an absolute utter vibe. Every Surii/Chogakusei collab so far has been so amazing, I hope they continue.

ECHO is almost at 100 million views!! I'm excited c:

I ran out of things to say. gonna go listen to some inabakumori now

 

[Dubious Disc]

The eclipse was a letdown <3

I've been thinking about memories lately. It's weird, but sometimes good memories actually hurt me more than the bad ones - when I look back at bad memories, sure it hurts, but there's also a sense of relief and accomplishment, like "that was bad, but at least it's over now." But with good memories, there's a part of me that always feels pain when looking back at good things that happened, because those things are over and I can't go back and I can't experience them again. The actual thing that happened only lasts for a short while, and then for the rest of your life after that you can only look back at its shadow and imagine how you felt, playing it over and over and wishing you could be there again. Sometimes I wonder if it'd be better if the good thing hadn't even happened, just so I wouldn't have to keep replaying it and feeling bad that it's over.

It feels weird thinking about stuff from middle school and high school. It's as if my self from those days is an entirely different person. There are some memories that feel more like weird dreams than things that actually happened, to the point that I sometimes wonder if they really happened or if they were just something I imagined and thought about so much that they became real to me. Because they feel so different and disconnected from how I am now. Particularly good memories, where I remember feeling so happy that a part of me thinks "there's no way this could actually have happened. It's too good to be true." Obviously it did happen, but it just feels hard to believe.

I used to not dwell so much on my memories, but I guess since I haven't really been making any good memories lately, I just naturally end up looking to the past. Because I've been so unhappy lately, my mind has to look within itself for the evidence of past happiness instead. I wish it didn't, though. Remembering good things from the past just makes it harder to deal with the present.

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" is such an annoying quote.

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I've been listening to Sou this evening. He's probably my second favorite singer after Chogakusei, although their voices are so different that it doesn't really feel fair to compare them lol.

I respect the fact that Sou has collabed with all of my (current) top 3 favorite producers (Chinozo, Kairiki Bear, and Hiiragi Kirai) since their styles are so different from each other, particularly Chinozo and Hiiragi Kirai. It makes sense that Sou would work well with Chinozo's music, since he has a soft cute-sounding voice that matches the Chinozo vibe, but it was a pleasant surprise to find out that he had also done a song with Kairiki Bear, and it sounded just as good despite having a very different energy, much more troubled and negative. Sou's Hiiragi Kirai collab was an even bigger surprise - at first I had only heard the Vocaloid version, so I didn't know it was a collab at all, but I remember realizing "wait, this song has a Sou version?? How? There's no way that would work!" And yet somehow it did work. Even though his voice stays soft throughout most of the song, it carries a great deal of emotion, so it still has a lot of power despite not necessarily being loud or forceful.
The songs in question: Yosasou (Chinozo) // Sparkbug (Kairiki Bear) (this one is my favorite!) // Nero (Hiiragi Kirai) (cw: flashing lights)

I wish Sou would cover more Chinozo songs. Seriously, their sounds are such a perfect match.

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Might post some stuff in my art thread tomorrow or the day after, depends when I have time.

(insert some memorable ending sentence, cause I'm tired and can't think of anything)

 

[Dubious Disc]

It's been nearly a week since 2036 released and I've only just managed to get it out of my head. Every time Chinozo comes out with a new song it pretty much becomes the only thing I listen to for the next few days lol. Admittedly I don't click with 2036 as much as Chinozo's other songs, I don't find myself coming back to it as much as Furisode or Taxy, but still, it's catchy. twoooo thousan' thirty-siiiiix ♪
I also caught the premiere, for the first time! Funny how I hate waking up at 6 to get ready for class, but I'm totally fine waking up at 6 to watch the premiere of a song on YouTube lol.

Anyway!! I have bigger news. I have learned the TAMAYA character's name :)

So basically. I've noticed a lot of instances where Vocaloid songs that become popular end up getting manga or light novel adaptations, and there's an ongoing series of novels based on Chinozo's songs, starting with Goodbye Sengen. I don't really know what they're about, and at the moment I don't really care (it even kinda bothers me, because now I worry that I'm misinterpreting the songs or missing out on some extra meaning). But anyway, I was listening to TAMAYA recently and I noticed a lot of comments talking about the novel, and a few of them mentioned the characters' names, so I got curious. Just to make sure, I did some surface-level research on the novel itself, and what I found checks out, so...

His name is Yuki Ogawa! I can't be sure of the kanji, because I've seen it written like four different ways, but it's still Yuki. さすがにそのかわいい奴がかわいい名前ある ^__^

I learned a few other lore things that somehow make the MV make more and less sense at the same time, but I'm just focusing on the fact that I don't have to keep calling him "the guy from TAMAYA" lol. Surprisingly I wasn't able to find names for the characters from the other songs? idk maybe I didn't look hard enough. I already knew that the girl from Goodbye Sengen is called Rena, so I presume everyone does have names but I just couldn't find them. Whatever, Yuki is my favorite so I don't really need to know what anyone else is called. (I tell myself this so I won't waste time looking through more comments and summaries lol)

Whenever I see the name "Yuki" my mind immediately goes to Kaai Yuki (another one of my favorite Vocaloids), this is gonna take a while to get used to lol.

Less than a week until the new album! (it doesn't really matter since I can't buy it and I've already heard almost all the songs on it, but still. I'm allowed to be excited.)

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"will you please stop talking about Chinozo all the time" fine I'll talk about Chogakusei instead!
I think Chogakusei is in some sort of Hazbin Hotel arc, since his 3 latest covers have all been Hazbin songs. ignore the fact that two of them are actually the same song in different languages lol. the Japanese version of Poison is better btw Hazbin Hotel doesn't particularly interest me, I have no opinions on it either way, but it looks like the music is pretty good at least. So I don't mind. I actually hope he'll do a few more, it's a good change of pace from the usual Vocaloid covers.

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Can't believe there's only three weeks left in the semester. Probably because those three weeks are crammed full of deadlines and big projects .__. College kinda sucks lol.

 

[Dubious Disc]

On April 21st, 2024, Crusher's ECHO became the second Vocaloid song in history (and the first English Vocaloid song) to reach 100 million views! It took almost 10 years to reach this point... And I was there to see it happen :) As in, I was frantically reloading the page over and over to see the view count finally change lol
Honestly, this is really cool! ECHO was the first Vocaloid song I ever heard, it was a really big part of my middle school years (as it doubtless was for many others) and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. So it's exciting to see it finally reach this milestone.

I don't even remember when I first heard ECHO - I'm suspecting I might have been recommended it because I was watching a lot of Undertale content at the time, and if I recall correctly, there was a pretty popular animation that used ECHO as background music, so that might be how I found it. Either way, my edgy teen self really latched onto it, I remember listening to it for hours lol. That was the start of my very short English Vocaloid phase, during 2017 or thereabouts. I found a few other songs that I liked (Copycat, Last of Me, Karma, and MONSTER are the most iconic ones in my memory) and absolutely consumed them. Now I look back on all those songs very fondly, they always take me back when I listen to them. I think that only lasted a few months though, I kinda forgot about Vocaloid after that and I just started listening exclusively to Undertale remixes lol. ...and then six years later I stumbled upon Japanese Vocaloid and my entire taste in music was overthrown and rewritten. (That's where I am now. hello!)
All of this to say that I consider ECHO to be a very important part of my past! So yeah, I think it's awesome that ECHO of all songs has made history like this.

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Speaking of history-making Vocaloid music, Chinozo's new album is finally out c:

Overall, it's pretty good! It's got a lot of the songs I like. I was glad to see that one of the new songs had Kasane Teto, hopefully this means her appearance in follower of the crowd wasn't a one-off and we'll get to hear more of her in the future. Honestly though, my favorite of the new tracks is the alternate version of Goodbye Sengen - it was really cool to hear Chinozo's most iconic song revisited with the new Vocaloids that have joined the crew since then. It almost feels like we're hearing the song's character development lol.

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Miscellaneous rapid-fire about other new songs that released in the past week or so:

Spoiler

I'm the Rain by inabakumori - I will never say no to more rain-themed inabakumori songs c: It feels more energetic than the usual melancholy vibe you get from inabakumori, so that's a nice change. The animation in the MV is neat too.

Reversal by syudou - YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH! FREAKING LOVE IT! It's always good to hear some upbeat syudou. Even though I didn't initially know it was another Tsukimichi opening, I could immediately tell from the beginning, like "wait this is just like Gambling!" Gambling is my favorite syudou song by far, so it was awesome hearing a song that's basically a partner to it. Loved seeing all the references, both in the MV and the lyrics. The characters look really cool, Ryuuseee's art never misses.

Wink by Azari and Rosu - I'm disappointed that the video has a normal title instead of being blank or mysteriously short lol. But woooooow, what a good song. The vocals are crazy good, the high pitch is so eerie and it fits the song's unsettling vibe perfectly. Overall a certified spooky Azari banger as always.

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I'm glad the weather is finally getting better, hopefully once classes are done I'll be able to spend more time outside.