fascinates: (kimi ni todoke | kazehaya////)
[personal profile] fascinates2012-01-15 11:14 pm

Producer Spotlight: TokuP

TokuP / とくP

mylist | community | website | Wikipedia entry.

This writeup took me a long time to write because of the very vast history and work-related information TokuP has. I mean, he has his own Wikipedia entry, for goodness' sake! Of course, there is probably no one in the Vocaloid fandom who does not know him. He is known for his highly popular song, SPiCa and other Vocaloid hits.

Born March 5, 1978, Toku or Yoshinori Abe is not only a Vocaloid producer but is also a professional arranger/composer/musician. He was first a member of the professional band "beatica" and was named arranger/manipulater/remixer in it. His producer name "Toku" also came from his nickname in this band. Before and while he was working on Vocaloid stuff, he was also doing pro works as an arranger and manipulator for artists like Angela Aki, Dir en grey, KinKi Kids, baroque, Superfly, Rie fu, Rag Fair, etc. He also arranged the opening song for Fate/Zero, "oath sign", sung by LiSa. He was also part of arranging the ending song of Ano Hana "secret base~kimi ga kureta mono(10 years after ver.)", under the name estlabo, a collaborative group composed of TokuP himself, wowaka, FullkawaP, and hachi. And he was also the composer for the opening song of the anime Freezing, "Color", which was sung by MARiA. You can see a list of his professional work here.

He started uploading his Vocaloid works in Nico Nico Douga in 2009, and was noticed for the impeccable quality of his songs. His first two songs are based from Beatica songs, and his first original "SPiCa" remains his most widely-acclaimed creation in the Vocaloid community. He is known for making electropop upbeat songs which, although appearing to have a common rhythm, has a multitude of sounds. His ballads are often dramatic but powerful. and Almost all of his songs have the characteristic "rising mood" wherein the song starts slow before slowly picking up pace towards a fantastically grand chorus that sets a high climax for his songs. He uses a lot of instruments, mostly distinct keyboards and guitars (esp. in the recent uploads).

TokuP is known as one of the first producers to have used GUMI after her release in 2009. However, he mostly uses Hatsune Miku for his works, tuning her solid with mid-range that slowly rises into a crescendo with a high pitch. He also uses Miku append in some of his works. Aside from Miku and GUMI, he has also used Miki and Kagamine Rin.

Despite having professional work (for other artists), TokuP still collaborates with other Vocaloid producers, like with estlabo and Vocaloid music label Balloom. Aside from his Vocaloid works, he also concentrates on his non-Vocaloid indie groups, namely GARNiDELiA with utaite MARiA, and Headphone Tokyo, where he is the composer, keyboardist, mixer and sound producer.

TokuP has released a number of doujn CDs including SPiCa, SPiCa ReACT, etc. He doesn't have a major release yet, but he has taken part in tons of compilation albums including EX:P2~Ex:Producers, DEBUTANTE VI, VOCALO SMILE/TEARS feat. Hatsune Miku, VOCALOID BEST from Nico Nico Douga, EXIT TUNES PRESENTS Vocalolegend, Hatsune Miku - Project DIVA - extend Complete Collection, etc.

sample songs
A. Vocaloid
blue bird (GUMI)
Butterfly (Hatsune Miku)
The Universe (miki)
Hands (Kagamine Rin)
Melting Summer (GUMI)
Arrow of Love (Hatsune Miku)

B. Non-Vocaloid
ORiON (GARNiDELiA)
GET OUT (GARNiDELiA x L.I.N.E.)
MACHINE DOLL (feat. Harada Hitomi)

nikki says
Like most of you, I also knew TokuP from his work SPiCa, which I think is already a Vocaloid classic. However, I didn't start liking him because of this song, but for his other two songs blue bird and Butterfly. I think he's a really talented person, especially after seeing him collaborate with MARiA for GARNiDELiA and see them perform live. I always thought he was a man of potential, but I didn't think he would be this accomplished until I read up about him. Seriously... He worked for 12012 albums!! That band's like...they used to be one of my favorites. Also, Angela Aki!! His list of works in his website is impressive (even though it's mostly arrangement/manipulation, working for that many artists...). But outside the being pro and stuff, I'm mostly amazed at how wonderfully he could juggle all of this work while still posting food pictures in his twitter. Having tons of wonderful accomplishments is pretty norm for talented people, but managing to do all of them so well without missing a beat, that IS saying something.
fascinates: (Default)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-12-11 02:25 am

Monthly Nico Nico Indies Ranking #19 - December 2011



This month's Indies Ranking still has a lot of songs from the previous ranking, but there is surprisingly a large number of new ones. There are instrumentals, V-kei material, and your usual dose of post rock.

Like with the Weekly Utaran, a mirror to the English Nico Nico Site is also provided for the Monthly Indies Ranking, so if you want to comment in English, feel free to view this one.

English nicovideo link
original nicovideo link

new upload ranking )

overall upload ranking )
fascinates: (marmalade boy | suddenly)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-10-24 10:18 pm

Monthly Nico Nico Indies Ranking #17 - September to October 2011



This is a combination of the rankings for September and October. As the NNI category is pretty slow with updates, there's still a lot of old stuff in this ranking. However, there are also a lot of new ones worth watching, although you may have already encountered them somewhere if you follow some VocaloP/utaite's original stuff. Apologies for the lateness, I didn't realize it was already uploaded OTL.

original nicovideo link

new upload ranking )

overall upload ranking )
fascinates: (hakuouki | saitou 2828)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-09-07 11:29 pm

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking # 205 (August 29 - September 5, 2011)



This week is Miku's birthday week, so you'll be expecting a lot of new Miku songs to honor her anniversary. You can find songs uploaded for her birthday under this tag.

Since it's Miku, the most popular Vocaloid, you might be expecting that this is a Miku-fied week. I am also surprised that it's not at all like that! Rin/Len has quite a few songs this week, both new and old from last ranking. Luka has some, too! And our top three this week aren't even Miku songs! Ok, I'll stop acting all suspenseful and get on with it ^^;.


↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

top 30 under the cut )
fascinates: (madoka magica | homura moment)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-08-30 11:01 am

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking # 204 (August 22-28, 2011)



Since I'm on vacation today, I'm posting the Vocaran while we wait for Utaran :D. I looooooove this week so much because there are a lot of new, amazing releases from famous producers and new ones that have so much potential (I swear, I will stop using 'so much' so much). Because of the awesome new stuff, there are only a few left from last week's ranking, some of them pulled down as a consequence. Still, there are some surprising returns (Matryoshka, what!) and rises. I hope this week will also be an interesting listen for you guys, too, so let's get started.

↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

top 30 under the cut )
fascinates: (toshokan sensou | pfffft)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-08-14 11:13 pm

Monthly Nico Nico Indies Ranking - August 2011



You might remember that I did a sort of intro post (plus a previous ranking writeup) for Nico Nico Indies Ranking. This is the ranking for this month. As I said, NNI is much more slow-moving compared to utattemita and Vocaloid, so you might still encounter songs here which appeared in the previous ranking. In order to keep your interests piqued, I'll copy my intro discussion on the artist from last ranking as they appear here. :)

original nicovideo link

new upload ranking )

overall ranking )
fascinates: (kuroshitsuji | alois nice playthings!)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-08-09 11:28 pm

Nico Nico Monthly Indies Ranking - July 2011

Since I dropped the monthly Vocaloid ranking, I decided to replace it this time with the Monthly Nico Nico Indies Ranking.



Nico Nico Indies is a small part of the Nico Nico Douga site where people post their original works. The concept that is different from Vocaloid/Utattemita/Ensoushitemita is that the works here are all original and are usually instrumental or sung by people. Of course, while there are many unfamiliar names here, there are VocaloidPs and utaites that participate in this area, too, especially when they collaborate to sing original songs. Oftentimes, original songs from NNI appear also in utattemita, so you might recognize some of them. NNI is also a very slow-moving category, so there are only a few views/participants than what you might be used to.

I'm glad this ranking is just monthly because gathering information on the artists is a bit difficult, especially since I am also a bit new in this area. Since this writeup is to introduce people to NNI, I tried my best to be as descriptive as possible. If you are a fan of anyone mentioned in this ranking please feel free to chip in other information you can share re: the artist!

Since it has almost the same format, this ranking will be arranged just like the utattemita ranking, minus the colorful letters :). This might be a bit tl;dr than most of my rankings, so please be warned! Also, as I said before, this is a slow-moving category, so you will encounter songs here which you might have already heard months ago :).

original nicovideo link

new upload ranking )

overall ranking )
fascinates: (unknown | roses)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-04-03 04:00 am

Nico Nico Indies Original Album "&".

This "album" is a collaboration among Vocaloid producers, utaite, illustrators, and other artists, but it's not really an album. Actually, it's a series of songs uploaded in Nico Nico as a "set". If you know about the previous season albums "Utaite Tsunagu Album" which has included Clear, Wotamin, Re:A and others in the past, "&" is very much like them.

The theme is "relationships, ties and connections with all things". Each song is a collaboration of a VocaloidP, a singer, and an artist who did the PV. All songs are original and they are not covers of existing songs.

Here's the list of the songs, collab team and a short description on each song. The whole set is in this mylist. When you listen to one song, it automatically forwards to the next track, but in case it doesn't work, just check the mylist :).

track list )
fascinates: (durarara | punch of love)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-03-08 03:26 pm

Weekly Vocaran #179 (02/28-03/07, 2011)

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking #179 (February 28 - March 07, 2011)

Not that many new songs this week and most of the rankings are just movements of those from the previous ranking. However, I hope you won't skip this one because despite the few new stuff, most of the songs are from Ps you don't hear from often or you might have never even heard of before.

↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

top 30 under the cut )
fascinates: (unknown | music is my life)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-01-26 05:10 pm

Vocaloid Midyear Special Ranking 2010 2nd Part (GUMI Compilation)

The first half of 2010 SP ranking (GUMI part) can be found here. For an intro on the SP ranking, please refer to the Miku compilation!

This compilation has even less songs at 80, but I'm sure they're all worth your listen!

Since all of them are GUMI songs, I'll just type the song, composer, and additional Vocaloids used if there are any.

original nicovideo link

list under the cut! )
fascinates: (unknown | pink)
[personal profile] fascinates2011-01-09 07:50 pm

Nico Nico Kouhaku 2010-2011

Nico Nico Kouhaku was a live concert streamed in Nico Nico Douga last December 31. Singers included Sekihan, Saiya, Kouhei, Dasoku, Ten, Nero, Noir, Nomiya Ayumi, Puriko, Pokota, Mi-chan, Yamadan, Yuge and Rapbit. Vocaloid producers included HachioujiP, TokuP, T-Pocket and DeadballP. Dancers included Tadanon, Takuma, Mirii, Nyanko, etc.

Someone uploaded parts of the Kouhaku in NND, although I don't know how legit it is and if it will be deleted soon. Anyway, for those who missed it:

Part 1 - Sawagi part 1a

Part 2 - Sawagi part 1b and part 2

Part 3 - Utatte/Odotte part 1 and Sawagi part 3

Part 4 - Utattemita

Part 5 - Golden Bomber
fascinates: (Default)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-07-18 09:47 pm

Vocaloid Midyear Special Ranking 2010 (Hatsune Miku compilation)

This is my first time actually waiting for and transcribing the midyear Vocaloid Ranking, so I'm a bit excited despite the work before me XD.

This ranking considered Hatsune Miku songs uploaded from 12AM of December 15, 2009 up 11:59PM of June 14, 2010. The formula of computing for the ranks is not included in the blurb, but I think it's almost the same as the weekly Vocaloid ranking formula. The video included the top 80 songs, but the mylist link has 478 songs OTL. There's no way I CAN type up all of them so I'll just include here the top 100. There's still the Kagamine, KAITO, Luka and GUMI rankings, so please look forward to them :). Please take this as an opportunity to listen to Hatsune Miku songs considered as the best this half of 2010 :).

So far, this and the annual rankings are the only ones I type in reverse order (from 100-1) so that it'd be more exciting :). If you want me to do the midyear/annual rankings in the traditional way (the 1-xx order), just tell me :).

nicovideo link part 1
nicovideo link part 2

100 to 1 under the cut. )

I have a feeling that I don't want to tag this....
fascinates: (vocaloid | miku default)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-07-06 10:42 am

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking #144 (June 28 - July 05, 2010)

While I posted the Weekly Utaran late, I'm posting this a little early, since I cannot be online for long hours. I am really sorry about this. Anyway, this week's ranking is a lot more coherent compared to the previous, although there are still some stray old stuff returning here and there. Wowaka's bandwagon trinity is also back XD;. But don't worry, there are a lot of lovely songs uploaded this week, plus GUMI's redeemed from last week's confusion.

↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

top 30 under the cut )
fascinates: (vocaloid | rin default)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-06-15 09:50 pm

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking # 141 (June 07-14, 2010)

This is a good week for uploads and pull-ups. We get Rin, GUMI and Miku in the top 10, a couple of Hayabusa dedications and some oldies surprisingly returning to the top 30. Of course, there's also wowaka's classic works haunting us XD.


↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

top 30 under the cut )
fascinates: (vocaloid | gumi default)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-06-01 09:14 pm

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking # 139 (May 24-31, 2010)

↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

top 30 under the cut )
fascinates: (vocaloid | kaito default)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-05-25 10:08 pm

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking #138 (May 17-24, 2010)

Another predictable ranking this week (especially with the top 3 for me), but there are a lot of good songs this week. There is also quite a lot of Luka, which is a nice surprise. And a Kaito! There are still a lot of Miku songs, especially since there's Append, but compared to previous rankings this week's is a little balanced in terms of Vocaloids used.

↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

1-30 under the cut )
fascinates: (vocaloid | luka black and white)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-05-18 10:22 pm

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking #137 (May 10-17, 2010)

For some reason, I think this week's ranking doesn't feature a lot of new uploads. In fact, most of the entries are old songs rearranged into the rankings. There were a lot that fell, but there were some who held on strongly, probably affected by album release or a cover from the utattemita category.


↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

Songs are arranged from 1-30.

1-30 under the cut )



some announcements
• I noticed that there were a few from dreamwidth and LJ who subscribed to [community profile] ofurotaimu. Thanks for watching! I hope the posts are useful :).
• I realized that I had this community in the open posting option, which shouldn't be...since I'm the only one posting here anyway ^^;. I've closed posting for this community, I'm sorry about that! If you have anything to post about or are willing to contribute to the comm (you must be a DW user, though), feel free to contact me :).
fascinates: (vocaloid | len rockstar)
[personal profile] fascinates2010-05-11 02:06 pm

Weekly Vocaloid Ranking 135 (April 26-May 3, 2010)

This is a bit early since I'm abusing the time I have while I'm on a sick leave from work :).


↑# - the song moved up from a previous top 30 rank
↓# - song moved down from a previous top 30 rank
- song is a re-entry to the top 30 rankings

original nicovideo link

The songs are arranged from 1-30, please be reminded :).

1-30 under the cut! )