Board 8 > Raetsel continues listening to music, V2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Christmas Song (Leona): High 8. It's very, very close to greatness... would probably hit harder on a day when I'm more emotional than I am right now.

Pretender (Izuru): Not bad. I do like him, though this song isn't really my style... 6-ish.

Hibiki Ao (first two songs): Cute, in the 5 to 6 range, but not super memorable--the first one wasn't what I was expecting, but still didn't really click. Still enjoy hearing more from her though, so I'm looking forward to going through the rest.



Chapter 9 continues to be mean. I haven't completely given up yet, but it's slow going...
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the virtuareal remix album got a digital release now

also all three albums got posted on the official youtube channel now

might as well share the better and more notable ones

https://youtu.be/-kxmdfv9Rk8
https://youtu.be/P5gy_NtM29E
https://youtu.be/s5CIOSF0WcM
https://youtu.be/ENcyamH6L_g

https://youtu.be/DqhTyPfB3e8

Hibiki 3: 8.6. It's really good, but I don't quite want to go all the way up to 9... yet anyway.

Hibiki 4: The backing music gives me a mild headache and nothing about this track worked for me. 2, and that may be overvaluing it due to bias in her favor.

Hibiki 5: Well I like Hibiki, music from the 60s, and Michael Jackson. This is kinda peak levels of pandering and I love it. 9.

...I doubt you intentionally placed the Jackson 5 cover as the fifth song link, but I appreciate the coincidence.



I think I'll go to the VGM topic, I'm way behind there as well & want to save some Hibiki for later.
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Dave Rodgers - Space Boy

https://youtu.be/h5W0Tn-X73I

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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

...I doubt you intentionally placed the Jackson 5 cover as the fifth song link, but I appreciate the coincidence.

uh

well you're not totally wrong about it being the 5th, but still wrong. that was in the cover list, it appears you skipped straight to it at some point, unless you started there

UF8 posted...

uh

well you're not totally wrong about it being the 5th, but still wrong. that was in the cover list, it appears you skipped straight to it at some point, unless you started there

Yeah, I was trying to rush to catch-up since I hadn't done anything in days and didn't notice there were two sets of links in that post. -.-'

Far as I can tell, I did the correct first two songs in post #101 and accidentally skipped to cover list songs 3 through 5; I'll have to double check that tomorrow though.
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Space Boy: Kinda cheesy and goofy, but I like cheesy and goofy and this is catchier than I expected. Leaning towards a 7.5; definitely wouldn't mind having it on certain playlists where I want background music while working and don't want anything that demands much attention.



Okay, let's re-look at Hibiki's songs:

The first posted song, I'm not sure what the title actually is (I thought it sounded like she said the song was called Miami, but I probably misheard). Either way, I know I listened to that one correctly--I was surprised by the deeper voice and what not, so definitely remember that one.

Second song (Electronic Symphony), I have no conscious memory of and my only comment was that it was not memorable--it feels....standard anime pop intro-ish. It's not bad, but even listening to it again, I have a hard time remembering it.

Then last night, I started from the bottom of the page and scrolled up to what I thought was the first link... but it was the first link of the cover set of posted links; I counted down to the third song from there. Really liked the fireworks song (Cover #3), strongly disliked the ninja-bang-bang or whatever song (Cover #4), and the Jackson 5 song was the only one I went into enough comments that one could even tell which song I was listening to.



Going back up to the third song from the original list...

: Cute, but not super amazingly cute. 5.34; I don't usually use that extra decimal point, but it felt relevant here.

Chuchuchu Darling, Original: Not much left to say about this song; probably somewhere around a 9 these days?

Merchandise Song: Cute and to the point, though even I have a hard time giving a great score to it... low 6, probably?

Late (Demo Version): Hey, I remember this song! Kinda. I wonder what score I gave the full version? Leaning towards, say, 5.5 for this one.



More later.

Celeste Update: Haven't had too much time to poke at it over the last few days, but I'm finally at the last room of Chapter 9. Trying to stay optimistic about clearing it, though it's so... so long...
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(the crowdfunding song): 3-ish. Rather repetitive and annoying, unfortunately.

: 6.3; I really liked the quiet and subdued intro, so I was a bit disappointed when it quickly transitioned into a more typical pop song.

Tuna vessel Aozora-maru: ...What?

Aozora Stage (Demo ver): Well that added a bit more context to the last video. It's not one of my favorites, but it's cute enough. 5.55.



I should try to get through more of the backlog, but I think I'll listen to some stuff on Spotify for the rest of the night... want to try to listen to a few songs from different genres for a bit.
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more context on tuna awaits next time

too bad there are no captions on the last 4 there

Unrelated to anything, but the version of The Mighty Echo posted in the actual ranking topic allowed you to ask for YouTube's auto generated captions. Most of the time, it just said "music" for the song, but occasionally it would try to guess what the lyrics were.

Actual Lyric: Steer here, into the sparks, into the stars and the mighty echo love

Generated Caption: "Judas party to the salsa buddy".

And that is simply magnificent.

Also! I finally got through Stage 9 in Celeste! I did cheat a little bit... at one point, I checked a guide to see how much was left to do in the room. It was long and I was at what I thought was a halfway point, but wanted to see if it was a lot longer than I was expecting or anything... turned out I was actually at the last little stretch. Which removed most of the stress and made things easier.

...but as someone who almost never finishes anything and died 4,791 times in Stage 9 alone, it's still an accomplishment for me.



: 8. It's a bit softer and mellow than her songs usually are. Not quite a lounge song, but close-ish?

013: 7. It's nice. I like the beeping-ness of the backing music and it's kinda interesting that the song is so relatively simple that Google Translate handles it rather well:

The reality intersects
The story of me and you who are in the real world
Only feel me now

The significance of my existence is that everyone has a program that you can love in your story

Considering the gibberish you usually get, that's strangely coherent.

Ao no Aojiru: 3. It's...uhhh...good to know she was popular enough to endorse a product, I guess?

Tuna Boat Full Version: 1. Sorry, but the humor doesn't quite work for me. Such is the risk with joke songs; they tend to get 1 or 10s with little middle ground.

...I think Hammerman only got an 8 or 9, didn't it? If I didn't give it a 10, I should have.

: 6-ish? It's very cute and it's neat how she performs the song in Japanese and English, but it's not one of my favorites.

Virtual Insanity: Hey, Jamiroquai! I know that name; one of their other songs (Canned Heat) popped up at my first solo ranking... don't think it did too well, but I do remember it which means I probably ranked it too low (if I haven't listened to a song in over a year and still instantly recall the artist name and my thoughts on the song, it must have been pretty decent).

This song... I don't think it fits her voice well, to be a bit blunt about it. It's an interesting attempt, but like the English version of Chuchuchu, I'm not sure when I'd ever really listen to it. Probably scores somewhere in the 3 to 4 range.
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Weird Al - Polkamon

https://youtu.be/kGWENfKpsWo

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Polkamon: 0.5; It gets half a point for mentioning Ponyta, but it still falls into the abyss of joke nominations I didn't find funny.

And back to Ao

Alice in Ruinland: I dunno. I like that she tried a darker song, but I don't think it really fits her voice or design... it's very hard to take these lyrics seriously when the singer is wearing a bunny hat. </.<

Future Base: I think I'll go with 7.5 here. Just generally above average in all aspects.

The next to last song of the cover section, I think it said Balloon or something?: 4.6. Not as fond of her voice on this one; it feels a bit too high-pitched and kind of annoying. Not to a point that I strongly dislike it or anything, but...ehhh..

The last song of the covers, with the duet and what not: 4. The video is very cute, but the song is...alright. A bit too long though, I wanted to stop the song at the three minute mark.

I'll listen to the last song on that page, Violetta, again tomorrow... good voice, but I got distracted by something while listening to it and don't want to listen to it a second time right now -nor- give it a score based only on the part I heard. And I need to go deal with the backlog at the VGM topic anyway, so yeah, will take care of Violetta tomorrow.
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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

Polkamon: 0.5; It gets half a point for mentioning Ponyta, but it still falls into the abyss of joke nominations I didn't find funny.

.............I wasn't joking.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiCWbfjf8Tw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wxraH7RXh0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzKL5pg1jFg

Johnny Eagle posted...

.............I wasn't joking.

Poor word choice on my part. I apologize.



Violetta: 7. Nice voice.

Heart Beat Remix: Slightly better than the original, unsure if I prefer it enough to give it a higher score though.

Vanta feat. Remix: 2.5; the original is an 8, but somehow, all the changes here just rub me the wrong way.

feat. somunia Remix: 6? Love the intro, the rest of the song is good enough.

You & Me (Remix): 9.6. I was not expecting a return of this song, nor for it to have been such a drastic improvement. Softening the vocals helped a lot and the backing music is a tremendous improvement; the instrumental just past the three minute mark is one of the highlights of the topic.

Literature and Forests Rain feat. : 8.

Ceaselessly
The sky cry, people die
Just a little, without words
Know the meaning of existence

You okay, Virtual Cat?



Bump of Chicken Song (Fighter): Wait, why do I know that band's name? *checks* Oh, FF Type 0... that was certainly a thing, alright.

Let's go with an 8.2 for the song. Nice singer, good lyrics.



Hated by Life: 7; she puts a good amount of emotion into the lyrics.

Kizuna: 5.6; it was nice seeing Fukuyamaster again, but the rest of the song didn't do much for me.
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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

Hated by Life: 7; she puts a good amount of emotion into the lyrics.

good to see you overcame all the hurdles and caught up again. anyway, i mainly picked that since it was an USAGI Production remix, essentially grouping it with the virtuareal stuff. I was mainy curious how you felt about the composition i guess, but i guess the answer is fairly nautral relative to the original. which i guess is fair considering all the other ones i've shared

Fluttershy_Pony posted...

Kizuna: 5.6; it was nice seeing Fukuyamaster again, but the rest of the song didn't do much for me.

two bits of trivia on that, it's the first time i've seen him use that particular model save for one time a fair while before his formal "3d debut" which was like half a year ago. i think the stream he tested it in was deleted after that even, so it's surprising it's been used again. Also, upd8 is really imploding now and there's a lot of change going on with a couple of people having suddenly formally announced their retirement, but fukuyamaster is one of the ones who is currently safe-ish. He's gone back to posting anime covers on a roughly daily basis lately, actually. None of them tend to be full versions of songs though which is why i haven't shared them.

also he did a guerilla stream last night to vent his frustration by setting a bunch of trees on fire in minecraft for an hour. that was a thing

okay i was thinking i might just leave it there, but there was one song i was considering sharing anyway

it was a cover from one of my favourite vtubers period, who i hadn't had the chance to share prior since they had factually never once attempted to sing in any of their videos or streams. the vtuber in question's actually a professional writer who i doubted had any singing skills to speak of

it went up a couple of hours ago now, and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8x_H4SmMu0

also here's some other thing that's trending now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCeb04sgqnU

Marunouchi Sadistic: 6.5. Nice voice, cute avatar.

SALLA's Song: 5. It's fine? I don't have any complaints, but can't find anything I really liked about it either.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sb0-ufdJTA

Sonamoo - Deja Vu

https://youtu.be/TRY0Dk9avck

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Stand Up (Leslie Cheung cover): 9; I'd never heard this song, nor the Rick Springfield original--this is fun. I love the video and just how much fun he seems to be having with it. The air guitar, the repeated double thumbs up, it's just so enjoyable to watch and listen to.

Rick Spingfield's is less fun.



Deja Vu: I think I'd go with a six here. It's interesting, since it's not a genre I have much experience with--can't say I've listened to too many Korean girl groups or hip-hop in general.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwq0SMEnZeE Kizakura Hikari - Sister
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmcbvtKpPZc Rime - Akuma no Odorikata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3hDpKzNWhc Kaf - Stratostella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfNtQptTXoI EMMA HAZY MINAMI - Yoake to Hotaru
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGA4daxRYMI ViANKiE - First Love

a portion of the stuff that came out in the last week i liked

that first person is someone in a new group that randomly hit my recommendations a couple of days ago, known as Shuffle. They don't seem terribly likely to go anywhere judging from their subscriber counts and i'm not even sure how they reached my recs, but they seem to have decent singers at least.

by the way, since i neglected to mention it, i found ViANKiE in a song contest that's been going on for this thing called Tokyo V Project. A few others like Ruri were also involved in it and really stood out, but I'm quickly realising that ViANKiE was the big revelation to come out of it

Tagging this finally

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiWOSnK4reo just remembered this

it's definitely not good but

Sister: 5-ish. Her voice is nice, but I didn't connect with the song. Spent way too long trying to find lyrics to it... usually Vocaloid songs popular enough to get covers have translations somewhere, but I didn't have any luck here. Eventually found Japanese lyrics to run through auto-translate, but the results weren't coherent or funny so that didn't help.

...on the other hand, I probably should give this song a bit of a bonus because I spent the past 45 minutes trying to learn about it and I don't usually put that much effort into learning about average songs. Let's move it up to a 6 then.



Akuma no Odorikata: 7. It brings some of the darkness I was looking for without going too overboard with it and I've mentioned having a bias towards songs dealing with the devil before (see: Satan's a Woman from the main ranking), so this song has got quite a bit going for it.

Yoake to Hotaru: 7.5-ish. It's a great song choice for her and does a fantastic job showing off her voice, but I prefer the original... it kinda hurts her score and I might be more favorable to it in the future, after I get tired of listening to the original and want a different spin on it.

First Love: 8.5. It's quite nice, but I can't find anything I really want to say about it.

Magical Doll (Acoustic): 7.5; objective quality never means much to me. It's cute, it's fun, it's a dramatic improvement on the original (my view may be skewed because I heard this first, but the original feels like it's fast-forward and would only get around a 3), and it features some singers I like. It's not super top tier amazing or anything, but it made me smile through the entire thing.
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ah, guess i can move onto the second batch of songs now (i had a lot more than 5/6 before)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qn-WVDO0PE EMMA HAZY MINAMI - Gekkou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8yBbwRurAE Kano - Kono sekai o aishitai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FM-PFSHRHE Hareru Hanamaru - Kono sekai o aishitai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_CqXKWHO1Y Hoshino Mea - Tsubomi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcGhtS13eLs Kaf - Amekigoe Zankyou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x1Hx7Wfweg Else - Kimi no Tonari ni Itai Kara

Gekkou: 8. It's another song where I feel like I should be giving it a higher score than I am. It does everything well and hits all the right notes; her voice is great, she performs it better than the original singer, the lyrics are basically what I was looking for--"Time merely sharpens the pain", says one fan translation of the lyrics which... okay, not honestly my favorite lyric, but it's at least in the genre of lyrics I wanted--but I still don't want to go higher than an 8 right now. I do not have an explanation or guess as to why.



Kono sekai o aishitai (both versions you linked, and also Hua Chenyu's original version): 8.976.

(This part was written before I noticed you linked the second cover yourself)

Odd score, but it feels right. I was going to say "somewhere between 8 and 9", but that didn't feel right... the standard 8.9 also felt wrong.

Trying to find lyrics to the song led me to another cover, which... is basically the same in quality as my ears are concerned?

(The second cover would be linked here, were it not already linked by you above.)

</.<

Kano has a better illustration, Hareru has a translation attached to the video, and both singers are pretty much tied.

And the original singer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_T9cGCfsuA

Is...also quite good? It has a better translation of the lyrics (which I suppose is to be expected. Chinese to English is more direct than Chinese to Japanese to English) and I'd love to do a more in-depth look at the differences between them, but it's past 1 AM and I'd have to copy the translations by hand... and it'd be tough on the phone. Switching to the video, pause, switch to Notepad, type up the lyric, switch to the second video, pause, switch to notepad, type up the alternative version of the lyric...

It would be quite interesting, but I think it's a bit too much effort for right now.

I think I'd give Hua the slight edge, let's actually give his version the full 9 points. I think he packs more emotion into the song and it stands out a bit more.

The girls stand tied at the previously mentioned odd score of 8.976; I've been here a while now and I'm no closer to placing either of them above the other.



Is late, will return to other songs tomorrow. I usually like to try to take a break after giving a song a 9 or higher anyway, since whatever song is stuck following it usually doesn't compare favorably, so coming back after a rest can't hurt anything.
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well i'm glad you came to a similar conclusion to me. i included both since i couldn't really decide which one to go with

oh yeah, also reminder that you skipped over stratostella

Tsubomi: 6.5. It's a good attempt--I usually like these slow, emotional Japanese songs... I know it's not from a VN, but this feels a bit like "sad VN song" and those tend to do decently with me. I think. That one Clannad song did at any rate.

I think I just never really connected to the lyrics or choice of imagery, which limited it to a "several steps above average, but not like, a really large number of steps" level.

(I have nothing of value to say of the original.)



Amekigoe Zankyou: Somewhere between 4 & 6, and I can't narrow it down any further than that. I think it might be one of those songs where it's a bit too on point--I love rain, I like Kaf, I like the type of atmosphere the song is going for--but it never really works for me. Happens to a lot of songs that seem like things I'm supposed to love.

Part of me wants to give it a 4; if I didn't really like it, the score probably should be below average. But then it offers a lot for me to think about in terms of why I didn't like it and it's likely to be something I remember, so it should be slightly above average. So... somehow it's both? Which would make ranking it difficult, but this isn't actually a ranking, so I don't have to be overly concerned by it.

(The original again doesn't fare any notably better or worse.)



Kimi to...I forget the rest of the song title, but it's that cover by Else, you know the one: Between 5 & 6. I know it isn't, but it feels like the intro to some anime. Somehow it just reminds me of CLANNAD After Story's intro--try mashing them up:

https://tubedubber.com/?q=RateoYRQ6jQ:_x1Hx7Wfweg:0:100:0:7:1

...well not quite a perfect match, but this song makes me pictures like those in that intro. Which isn't bad (I can't remember anything about the show outside of the ending, but I watched the entire thing, so it probably wasn't bad), but "inspires vague flashbacks to the intro of an anime I watched once a long time ago" isn't exactly an earth-shattering ranking either.

Impression may be skewed by the first song got me thinking of SAD VN SONGS, which put me in a Clannad sort of mood anyway.



Stratostella: I think I'll go with a 5. A lot of other people managed to emotionally connect with it, but I don't really feel anything? To this or the Miku version. It's just kinda there.
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for what it's worth, i also have mixed feelings on amekigoe. it was mostly the fact that her take was considerably less lifeless than other ones i checked (by the way, there was also another recent one i considered) that drove me to include it. on the other hand, it was also... the song just didn't seem to work with her, even with the emotion she put into it. the pitch change just doesn't seem to no matter who sings it, which is a shame.

speaking of comparing to other takes, i almost didn't include the Else one either. Unfortunately if you compare it to the original... it's not actually a very favourable comparison as it turns out, even though it's the least underwhelming cover i've heard from her in months

stratostella is also kind of just there yeah

this was the set i was least engaged with personally, which is why i didn't save it for later

NOW moving onto set 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF6ySdNimks Tenjin Kotone - Lost One's Weeping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzwYKoKN_KE Amane Kanata - Ghost Rule
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLak0dxBKpM Hoshimachi Suisei - Tenkyuu, Suisei wa Yoru wo Mataide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u77uOEMnsoQ Kanade Izuru - It's My Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9ozRj62Lis Komori Chiyu - Kono Piano de Omae wo 8759632145kai Bunnaguru

this one's an interesting set, and we finally get onto a portion of the main reason i decided to collect a bunch of recent songs

Hololive recently did a huge concert that they'd been working towards for months. They streamed it on niconico with an effectively $80 admission fee just to watch it on there... and i personally did indeed pay for it. And it was really good.

The Suisei song in this was in the lineup. Unfortunately, i was unable to find a video of the live performance of it, since evidently nobody actually archived any of that event besides some other song people cared way too much about. She technically had her 3D model debut at that concert with that song so it would've been really nice for it to have been clipped. Alas... Either way, it was a song i was honestly unaware of, so it was a bit of a surprise when i found out it was an original song of hers, on her channel from before she joined hololive.

also look out for the quality captions on the kotone cover, and kanata's and izuru's covers are definitely also highlights of the last few weeks as far as hololive goes, even though they weren't in the concert. Especially the izuru one. (also, kanata is a new hololive member). much like amekigoe I'm not really inherently big on the songs kotone and kanata covered, but these are probably the best covers to date of them period, which is pretty impressive really. Also, kotone was the other one who recently covered amekigoe, so i wanted to include at least one thing from her since i cut that. as for izuru... well, needless to say, his is automatically the best vtuber cover of the song he picked. i'd be amazed if there was another one.

lastly, I was very surprised to find out that this numbers song isn't commonly covered. And even more surprised though that this cover is actually good, since the person who did it wasn't anywhere near my radar, as far as noted virtual singers go. The group she's a part of didn't seem the type to have quality singers or the means to actually edit a song well to put it bluntly as the piano she's supposedly hitting people with 8,759,632,145 times

anyway that's enough premature opinions from me

Tenjin Kotone - Lost One's Weeping: There were quite a few songs where my first impressions were left rather blank, typically having no score and a statement that I was going to put off writing anything for as long as possible. This would be one of those songs.

(Actually one funny thing did happen. While playing the song, another tab I had opened suddenly started playing audio from an ad. Said ad opened with a woman whispering what are you doing? and the effect was rather chilling--like picture listening to a song like this one and some strange voice starts whispering in your ear.

...Then the ad kept playing and ruined the moment, but that point where I thought the whispering was part of the song was something.)

...though I suppose I don't have the luxury of putting this off for a couple months while doing the rest of the ranking, since there's...ya know...not a ranking going on here? So we might as well get the write-up out of the way now, I suppose. Thoughts in no particular order:

1: I don't think you linked any other covers of this yet, though I was at least passingly familiar with the original version of the song. I don't usually look for Vocaloid songs, but I tend to like them and don't really avoid them... so sometimes you hit songs as famous as this one, where I'm already aware of it. (This doesn't have any real impact on anything, but I thought it was mildly interesting that my reaction was "oh, it's this song" when it started playing.)

2: Saying that, I think I prefer the original. Particularly the type of distortion applied to the Vocaloid's voice around this point:

https://youtu.be/8oBV3jPTW4s?t=110

Not super amazing or anything, but I like the effect.

3: I'm not usually into songs (or media in general) that rely heavily on a school setting. There are exceptions, like with everything else, but a song like this one is going to be a hard sale.

(Before you try bringing up Houkago no Dance Floor, that song wasn't really about school. Certainly not to the extent of "hey, let's have a serious conversation about the stress caused by the Japanese school system!" like this track at any rate.)

4: Having said that, I can somewhat appreciate the quality of the song. It's got a harder rock song than most other songs posted this topic which helps it stand out, they spent a surprising amount of time/effort on the lyrics attached to the video, and I think I generally like it? Honestly leaning towards a 7 for the score even with the factors working against it.

...eh, fine, I'll go up to an 8 for now.



Amane Kanata - Ghost Rule: 6.

I'm just a wandering spirit, dead and gone
A blank void, empty as can be

Well this is another song with lyrics right in that general sort of vibe I'm looking for.



Hoshimachi Suisei - Tenkyuu, Suisei wa Yoru wo Mataide: I absolutely love the opening this song. The first 15 seconds is an easy 10--that part is heavily reminding me of something, but I can't quite place it right now. The rest of the song is nice too...about a 6.8?

Kanade Izuru - It's My Life: 3; even with the song title, I was not prepared for an acoustic cover of a Bon Jovi song. It's interesting and unexpected, but I'm not really a fan of it.

Komori Chiyu - Kono Piano de Omae wo 8759632145kai Bunnaguru: Probably a 6, though it's odd enough that it could rise considerably if I was in the right mood for it.
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yeah honestly even though i don't personally see it much myself, lost one's weeping was weirdly also a song that i also immediately recocognised, largely because of the the video's odd recognisability, even though the song isn't really to me. maybe i've seen more covers than i realise or something, and they all often use the actual visuals, idk.

i have a 3ds theme of ghost rule so i also knew that one fairly well. not sure why i bothered when i'm not that big on the song. it should be noted that the more thoroughly edited parts of her cover that sound like she's in a tunnel or something... those are actually a lot closer to her standard voice, and i was very surprised that she made that voice work here. I didn't really go into the cover with terribly high expectations. Also, compared to other covers, you know those kind of cool echo effects they have like 41 seconds in and some other parts? yeah, none of the other ones had that which is why it stood out basically by default

i really like izuru's accent

anyway

batch 4, the penultimate one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3_HGGTQbyY Tsukitou Runa - Fanza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfOsjDhX8Vk Sasaguma Kuran/Inami Huyuka - Snow Song Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnTxa-frws8 Paw Guimauve - Hello, Mr. Chocolate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz_2aSrmeAI Saki Todoki - Indoor Kei Nara Track Maker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfoVaI38Ows Enma Ruri - Kuishinbo Hacker

Tsukitou Runa is some rando who abruptly showed up in my recommendations who i can't really find any affiliations or actual info on. Anyway, there are a lot of covers of this honeyworks song out there and I'm not going to say that her one sets the world alight compared to them or even the original, especially not video-wise. But I will say that she does at least seem to suit the song more than a lot of others imo with her more youthful tone.

The next two videos are from members of this cute little group called the Cyber Girls Quartet. And yes, one of them is blatantly voiced by a guy. But he's still a cute. Anyway they are a bit of a guilty pleasure and i felt i had to include some stuff from them since they posted a few covers lately. And also yes I also know I am including a christmas song you didn't care for before, but the alternative was a cover of the kemono friends opening so

Saki Todoki, with this cover of this Track Maker song, was the actual one that first hit my recommendations from that Shuffle group i mentioned before.

Lastly, Ruri. She has a new model now. It's not as cute, but it's difficult to compare to the highly expressive REALITY avatar she was borrowing till now. And it's still cute in its own way. Anyway, she and somebody else both randomly covered this song recently and hers was the better one so I figured why not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq6DpcJLeJU

Tsukitou Runa - Fanza: 5-ish. It's fine, but I don't think it compares too favorably with the original and I'm not too crazy about it either (though the honeyworks one is catchier than I'd like to admit and would probably benefit at a full ranking where it had more time to get randomly stuck in my head.)

Sasaguma Kuran/Inami Huyuka - Snow Song Show: I don't know. As someone who strongly supports people being who or whatever they want, I really want to support them. I'm just not entirely sure how much I enjoyed the song itself and how many personal bias points I want to throw at them right now. At a ranking, I think it'd fall somewhere in the 7s... I can easily see myself refusing to eliminate the song until we got at least that far.

Paw Guimauve - Hello, Mr. Chocolate: It's cute and does a lot of things I like (the instruments are kinda beepy and artificial, some synthesized voice distortions)... probably in the 7s too.

Saki Todoki - Indoor Kei Nara Track Maker: 4-ish. I don't like the part starting around the 1:30 mark, but the rest of the song is decent.

Enma Ruri - Kuishinbo Hacker: 4? I don't really get this song... assuming there's anything to get besides "food, food, food, food, food" in the first place.

Honjitsu wa Diamond: Definitely new to me. I only
finished the first three Yakuza games and I don't think I've seen too many Yakuza 6 songs nominated in other topics, especially the karakoke songs. It's interesting; sounds happy and upbeat with a comical video, but the lyrics...are not to put it mildly. Somewhere between 6.8 & 7.1--it's a narrow range, but it's how I'm feeling at the moment.
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yes the song is food basically lol

she wants a parfait

anyway i'm not on my laptop so i don't have access to the last songs so here's some other stuff since i just happened to be listening to these

https://youtu.be/UhtPsjE21SY
https://youtu.be/HCEIuHUd_fk
https://youtu.be/fXvPeELGwvU
https://youtu.be/8zbO3ftH3ls
https://youtu.be/LS61xdsolis
https://youtu.be/eBQK4AvGKO0
https://youtu.be/9goDQp5fLf0

Snow Falling: 3. It's not a bad song, but not really my sort of thing. It feels very...old-fashioned and traditional and kinda puts me to sleep. I'm sure it's very high quality to those who like this sort of song though.

(Kaf Version): I was wondering if you were going to post this one. It popped up in my suggested video list the day it was uploaded, though I didn't listen to it at the time...

Good song, I think the lyrics and atmosphere work for Kaf. Somewhere between 6.5 and 7.1.



Re:Re Cover: 6; it's fine, but I didn't have any real reaction to the singer, lyrics, or background music. Just a general "this is fine" response.

(AZKi): I was pretty excited to see her again, but as usual, none of her other songs compare to Fake.Fake.Fake (which is still an easy 10)... I suppose I need to learn to stop comparing her other works to my favorite song of hers, but I'm finding it hard not to. Probably around a 6?

0: I kinda wish I had a bit more context for this song. She's got a cute character model, cute voice, cute video, but then the first line contains the word "doomsday" and the song title was something like Powerless God at Midnight which leads me to suspect this song probably isn't as cute as it looks? But then I can't find anyone talking about it, so... eh I dunno, let's put it around a 7 for now.

Colors: 6.5. Can't find anything I really want to say here.

Baton Rail: 7 ; can't find anything I want to say here either, but I did prefer over the previous song.
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oh, about the third to last song

that's kano. her non-vtuber form, specifically. they made a model for her amusingly. It's the first song on her next album which is kind of a collaboration with MONACA member Hidekazu Tanaka. Naturally, he composed this one too

there's a discord fan server for her and the rest of the hanayori group now and they've been talking about it a bunch

unfortunate that noted 7th place ranking person Lee Shion got no reaction, but oh well. Id probably score it the same, comparing it to Ordinary. Oh yeah, also did you notice Baton Rail was actually from the cute bear guitarist vivi? I was surprised she got an actual music video

anyway, here's the last batch of songs from last month now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOfAzSIPkk Mitsuki Neu - Hanasaka Step
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvfWB9YIPx8 VGaming - V Happiness!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwFOQC9-mj8 Virtual Cat - Revision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EuXKQSTysg Virtual Cat - Odekete Cat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ct9lb2zgZ4 AZKi - Reflection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI861CIVGgo Aki Rosenthal - Sha-Le-Ys

jelly girl back. this song is ok (:

this vgaming song isn't new i only just found out about it

virtual cat. he's done a cool song this month too but i'll get to that next time

the prior azki song. honestly i'm not even sure how many are left from her album now, if any

aki sang this song at the big concert and i was also surprised it was an original one on her channel. It was amazing live

oh, and how could i forget. here's the song from the live that actually was clipped
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkl0P57BvHY Hololive Gamers - Shin Takarajima

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHTexbiJgVk KMNZ Liz - Tantakatantan Tantanmen

only just got around to checking this after noticing it with neu's song when that went up. this botchibox arrange album seems guaranteed to be worthwhile honestly based off the two of them. not to mention, everyone else on it is also pretty interesting.

anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiY6dP4djQA AZKi - Kotonoha

speaking of worthwhile albums, AZKi's one seems to still have no shortage of songs. this one has a very different feeling to her other stuff and i'm okay with it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6w0Pi_h4So Monokaki Aer - Karakuri Pierrot

oh yeah, since i didn't do it earlier, i might as well. Aer has a surprisingly good singing voice, but she's in a similar boat to ichika in that I like her standard voice a little more, so here's a sample of what is her more standard content, from back when she still got translated videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE1azAwfZOM
Nowadays it's more like she gives brief descriptions on various novel series with the odd stream to talk about merch being sold at conventions, and she's more active on pixiv fanbox posting stuff like blog posts written like chapters in an autobiography and voice clips, but essentially it's still generally this kind of stuff. also yes i donate to her fanbox

oh yeah, lastly, i guess i mentioned another virtual cat thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBANEFIL5OY - Virtual Cat - Reiwa Equinox

now i'm definitely out of stuff, at least for now

Mitsuki Neu - Hanasaka Step: Pretty neat and I'm not sure which I like better between it and the original. 7.7 sounds right for this.



VGaming - V Happiness: A song so obscure one of the top results for it is this topic. That's weird. Also, this group has a lot of members, which I think hurts the song a bit--I rather like the group parts and the opening, but I'm not a fan of most of the solos... especially the first singer, I think it's safe to say that I'm not a fan of hers at all.

I do particularly like the guy who starts singing around 2:45. His flow kinda reminds me of Poemcore Tokyo and I wouldn't mind more of him specifically; (and really all four of the second group of four singers are better than anyone from the first four)

...no clue how I'd score this one. His specific section is an "8+" with the plus to probably be substituted with a number at some point after I decided how many tenths of a point to award (or possibly just kept as "8+" because my numbering scale includes words and symbols whenever I feel like it), but that first singer is probably a 2, and the rest of the song rather ping-pongs between the two extremes. Let's say..."at least a 6" as anything I type this much about and has a section I particularly like isn't going to fall below that line and leave it at that for now.

Also, yes, I think I do recognize a few of the artists involved. I know I've seen whoever Demon Horn Girl is before and...at least one other person. I just have nothing in particular to say about them, much like I didn't have any real reaction to Lee Shion from the last batch of songs.



Virtual Cat - Odekete Cat: 9...2; let's not try to decipher why this particular score has a triple decimal point, that path lies madness. Song feels like sitting in a cafe on a rainy day inside the Matrix, just sitting there drinking your beverage of choice and watching the rain, while occasionally seeing the lines of code reflected in the water because you are:

A.One of the few who know the truth

B.Drugged out of your mind

C.Completely insane

D.Reality is breaking

E.All of the above.

Been a while since a song gave me a good fantasy sequence like that.



Virtual Cat - Revision: I can't help but wonder if this song would have fared better if I hadn't accidentally clicked the other song first... like it wasn't really going to live up to it... 5.6-ish, maybe?

Eh, I'll try to circle back to it after catching up on everything else if I think about it, give it another try later. Right now, it's late and I need to catch up a bit over at the VGM topic, that backlog is starting to stack up a bit.

...Also that one Virtual Cat song made me want to log into my fox account, so here I am posting with this account for one second before switching back to the usual one because rating VGM under a third username would be incredibly rude. </.<
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Fluttershy_Fox posted...

Also, yes, I think I do recognize a few of the artists involved. I know I've seen whoever Demon Horn Girl is before and...at least one other person. I just have nothing in particular to say about them, much like I didn't have any real reaction to Lee Shion from the last batch of songs.

considering i don't think i shared any of them prior, that's unexpected.

vgaming is a group i have very barebones knowledge on past one of the members (yanmi, the second one in the first group)

i've been wanting to address that for a while and still haven't...

well

sure, i threw together a bunch of groups i hadn't checked worth of songs together (half of them are vgaming, but there were a few others too), but i didn't expect this many

chances are i will post more, but it's going to take me a little while to get through all of these and whittle them down to a reasonable number

UF8 posted...

considering i don't think i shared any of them prior, that's unexpected.

Well it's possible I'm misremembering things... dragon horns and that hat seem familiar and hard to forget, but I poked through the rest of the songs on her channel
and none of them were things I heard before... (there was a V Gamer cover of some Sakura Wars song and I may have heard another version of that specific song, but not theirs).

But then I have occasionally poked around searching for VTuber related things (like when I wanted to track down the girl from the Fake.Fake.Fake video, which led me to her doing a duet with someone, which IIRC led to that other person doing a duet with someone) so it's possible I did run into her on an unrelated search.



AZKi - Reflection: 8.something, I'm thinking 8.2 at the moment but might be slightly undervaluing it. A notable improvement from last song. I like the choice of instruments, I feel like the song suits her voice more than some of her other tracks (it could just be me, but her voice sounds more pleasing here), and I think I'd like the lyrics--the auto-translation is mostly gibberish (as is to be expected), but there's bits about praying for lost time where I get the feeling that it's probably right up my alley.

Aki Rosenthal - Sha-Le-Ys: I dunno. I like the story here--with her being from another world and singing a song from her home. It's got a very JRPG feel to it, for obvious reasons. It feels fairly traditional, but that works for the setting and the story... probably around a high 6 or a low 7?

Hololive Gamers - Shin Takarajima: 6. It's fine? Better than the original, but nothing about the song really grabbed me. It was just consistently nice in all regards; the concert seemed nice, they had nice models, the group performance was nice, the song choice was...alright?

KMNZ Liz - Tantakatantan Tantanmen: 7. Good song choice; I kinda wish I could play this song on Audiosurf, it seems like it would give a neat stage.

AZKi - Kotonoha: 5.3. "Okay with it" sounds about right.



And I'll have to stop here for the night, unfortunately.
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agree on azki remarks and scoring

the shin takarajima cover was honestly just there for me and i wish it wasn't the only thing people cared enough about to archive

and well, I'm pleasantly surprised and a little relieved you didn't mind the aki song. i had another song i was prepared to post if you didn't like it... but since that didn't happen... meh, I'll post it anyway.

https://youtu.be/q_7NRBaGiV0
she's the most underappreciated member of hololive outside of holostars, and when she got demonetised a little while back she did this

BONUS: also, here's the iconic song amane kanata from earlier used to introduce herself
https://youtu.be/jFCD9KB-COQ

Monokaki Aer - Karakuri Pierrot: Hey, I remember that song title.

*after going back and listening to the YuNi & Ao duet*

Well, I definitely undervalued that one at the time... let's retroactively raise the duet to an 8 and give the 6 to this one. It's not bad, but as of this particular listen, I prefer both YuNi and Hibiki Ao's voices with this song--and yes I know I said I didn't want YuNi involved at all last time, I don't know why I like her more today than I did a few months ago.

April Fools Video: She does have a cute speaking voice, but I'm finding it tough to find much to say about it.



Virtual Cat - Reiwa Equinox: 8. <3 Virtual Cat.

Monetization Song: 4.5; kinda funny in some places, but eh...

Souran Bushi: 2.



Hey, it's early enough I can get a decent amount of catch-up on the VGM list.
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Fluttershy_Pony posted...

Well, I definitely undervalued that one at the time... let's retroactively raise the duet to an 8 and give the 6 to this one. It's not bad, but as of this particular listen, I prefer both YuNi and Hibiki Ao's voices with this song--and yes I know I said I didn't want YuNi involved at all last time, I don't know why I like her more today than I did a few months ago.

i don't know why either but i can relate. at the time i originally heard the duet cover, i'd only listened to one other thing from yuni (a collab cover with osanai mei where she came i across as tryhard compared to mei). really, i guess you could say i was averse to the idea of dedicated virtual singers then. anyway yeah when i first heard that cover i really didn't care for yuni's side and now i guess i'm more on board with it since i get what her... i guess her voice's gimmick is meant to be more now. it's one of those things that you can really only notice if you're evaluating her voice on its own merits though. ao just stands out more there.

also, it's unfortunate mei doesn't do anything like she used to. the virtual cat collab might as well be her swan song. funny that by contrast, virtual cat's done so much since then that even you've become a fan. and so have i