Review: 匿名M (Anonymous M)

By Haruka Ito

(5.0)

English subtitle available on official music video on YouTube.

The term 'vocaloid' is an abbreviation of two English words: 'vocal' and 'android'. As can be inferred from its name, this is a voice synthesizing software which is used as a vocal of a song. It is so popular in Japan that it has even established a song genre. The technology of vocaloid provides a solution for creators who eager to create musical pieces but are not up for singing. In fact, it is said that there are 50k of vocaloid creators, and over 0.2 million of songs sung by vocaloid. Furthermore, the technology is still developing today. The vocaloid is getting sound more and more like real human being singing, and there are many voice types of vocaloid developed.

Examples of vocaloid songs (click to open the link): o 千本桜 (Sembon-zakura) o 砂の惑星 (Planet of Sand) o 六兆年と一夜物語

(Six Trillion Years and Overnight)

In this review, I will analyze and evaluate one of the latest vocaloid song, Anonymous M by PinocchioP. This song is unique; unlike ordinary songs, its lyrics is in the form of “human interviewing vocaloid”. ‘Anonymous M’ is how the vocaloid interviewee called. The vocaloid used in this piece is ‘Miku Hatsune’, but the interviewee says “please don’t identify me”, so let’s not talk about who Anonymous M is…

In the lyrics, M repeatedly says “I’m not human”. She does not have any favorite foo d, hobbies, or she does not age either. Because she is not human. She keeps answ ering the interviewer, “I’m just a music software, pretending to be human”. Since sh e is a vocaloid, she does not have any emotions in the way she sings, but these lyri cs sound very sorrow and ironic to me. Also, there is another interesting dialogue:

M: Interviewer: M:

Human, thank you for everything, thank you for all of your w orks! Thanks to all of you, I can continue singing…! That’s very touching. Well, someone’s just making me say all of this.

This is ironic, but very to the point. What she sings or says are all programmed, non e is truly from herself. She is ‘controlled’ by human in some way, so that she is alwa ys passive and inferior to human.

So far, we have looked at Anonymous M’s words. Now, look at how the human interviewer is reacting to M’s responses to his questions.

Interviewer: M: Interviewer:

Anything on your mind recently?

I have a lot of hair and it’s annoying. Also, I’m not good at pronunciation, so whenever people call me a “Diva”, I feel a little pressure.

I see, amount of hair.

In this scene, it is obvious that her biggest concern is pronunciation, but the interviewer completely ignores it. Also, in the end, he says goodbye even though M is still singing. This interviewer’s attitude shows represents how humans’ interest towards the content of vocaloid gets lost over time.

Finally, let me introduce this song’s music video on YouTube. The music video is consistently animated and is great in a visualization of the message behind this song. The most memorable fact in this video would be hidden towards the end. In the video, M is often depicted to be in a devastated urban city. However, in 2:13 where M sings “I used to be empty, but now I’m filled with memories”, the background changes to plain desert for a bit, and goes back to the devastated city again. This implies that human developed the content of vocaloid, which flourished as if a desert turns into an urban city; but, “some start singing by themselves, switch characters, lose interest, so on.”, as M says, and she will be abandoned eventually.

At a first listen, it sounds pop and rhythmical, and somewhat funny, as it contains many black jokes. However, looking deep into the lyrics and the video, it makes us realize not only the beauty of the culture of vocaloid, but also the emotion or rights of android as well. Furthermore, although this piece has Japanese-only lyrics, there are numerous responses from oversea listeners, which indicates how moving and nuanced the song is. I would definitely give this impressive work full stars, and I hope this review helps you to enjoy Anonymous M even more!