Dancing Samurai: Gackpoid

While browsing online hobby websites, came across this Figma figurine which I've seen numerous times at Sunshine Plaza or the Hobby shop at Cineleisure. It looked so cute, but I never really bothered to find out what anime character it was. Was quite tempted to even buy it without knowing what character it was supposed to be. Finally I checked out the name of the figurine and wiki-ed it. Len Kagamine. The cute yellow-haired boy wearing that pair of earphones. And he's not an anime character, he's actually a Vocaloid character.

And what is a vocaloid you may ask? According to Wikipedia, Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application software developed by Yamaha Corporation. The technology uses specially recorded vocals of voice actors and it enables users to synthesize singing by just typing in lyrics and melody. Wow how cool is that?!

Actually Len has a "twin sister" named Rin. Rin and Len were supposed to mean "Right" and "Left". Not too sure about electronically produced high-pitched japanese female voices, but I'm guessing Len's voice would be at least ok for me. Scrolled down to read on vocaloids in more detail.... and I realised there is a Gackt version vocaloid (at this point of time, I was like OMG, can't miss out on this one for nuts!) Kamui Gakupo 神威がくぽ is the vocaloid's stage name, and he is alternatively referred to as Gakupoid or Gackpoid. Popular manga author of "Berserk" was invited to design Gackpoid's character. I must say it ended up very nicely and appropriately done to fit both Vocaloid and Gackt's personality. He has long purple straight hair (some sort like Gackt's look in acting Uesugi Kenshin?) and carries a katana, which supposedly acts as a musical instrument. Refer to the pic below of Gackpoid on the official Vocaloid 2 website. Cool, very cool.... love the design!


The funny thing with these vocaloid characters, is that each is associated with a type of vegetable. As for Gackpoid, he is associated with a purple eggplant (I wonder which inspired which, the hair to the veg or the veg to the hair hehe =p)

Alot of times, doujins of vocaloid characters are drawn by fans. Even the music / songs fans have created using vocaloid, entirely belongs to the fans who did up the songs themselves! So imagine composing a song and getting Gackt's voice singing it..... o.O This whole thing really opens up alot of avenues and showcases so many wonderful music-making / fan-based drawing and media-creating.

Each vocaloid character have their own most famous songs, created by fans. And the most famous / popular song for Gackpoid is "Dancing Samurai". The tune is uber catchy, and the PVs created on Youtube are super silly and funny. Here's 2 different PV versions of the song "Dancing Samurai", the first one which is nicely created with some parodies and imitations of certain anime characters. (Can you spot them?) and the second one contains hilarious English translation of the song (makes the song alot cuter and funnier!)



I especially enjoy some original music created by talented people, which gave a whole new perspective on Gackt's voice to me. I like the way Gakupo's electronic voice was mixed with these electronic-romance sounding tunes! As compared to the real Gackt's voice, Gakupo sounded more soft and mellow. Kinda sound sweeter and less manly haha! (Don't know if Gackt would be happy to hear that.) Uploaded 3 Gackpoid songs I've found so far which I like very much and also the Dancing Samurai song. Enjoy~ :)

More pics of a fan-drawn Gakupo (*nose-bleeds from the ultra-low hipped pants*) and a Gakupo cosplayer:





















Need to update myself on the recent happenings of Gackt and his music soon..... Seems he had released some tribute album to the creater of Gundam (0079 - 0088) and the theme song to Kamen Rider "Journey through the decade". Oh and his face seemed to have grown alot rounder. o.O Maybe its his hairstyle....