Rejected Diva (歌姫失格)

The Plot

In Rejected Diva, Miku announces her retirement and holds auditions for who will succeed her. After rejecting every applicant for various reasons, she decides that she can't be replaced and continues to be Hatsune Miku.

The Myth, The Legend, The Anonymous M

Now then, humans--Please present your appeals.
"I will sing with all my heart." You have emotions. Disqualified.

This song feels like the natural progression from PinocchioP's previous song Anonymous M. There, Miku expressed how she was merely a vessel onto which artists can project their feelings since she isn't human. Here, she carries the same sentiment and rejects all her prospective successors because of their humanity. By the end, she learns it's because of her artificial existence that she's the only one who can be "Hatsune Miku". She isn't alive, therefore, she can never die. It's because of her that singing vocal synthesis is as popular as it is today. She transcends the fast pace of the Internet and the cycle of trends to remain an icon.

For those unfamiliar with singing vocal synthesizers, they are NOT the same as AI-generated music. These voice banks are made with the vocalists' permission. Once in the hands of the musician, they must be tuned, mixed, and timed with the instrumental to create a song. This process takes about as much time as producing a song with human vocalists. (source: me who has worked with vocal synthesizers since 2011). Which leads me to the next point: we must embrace the things that makes us human since "happiness is not made of zeroes and ones." In this time where generated AI "art" is on the rise, this is reminder for all of us to hang onto what makes art meaningful: the human behind the work. Miku's popularity represents the time and effort that vocal synth artists have been working with for the past two decades.

The Number One?

"I'm confident I'll surpass you and become even bigger."
I am beyond trends. Disqualified.

While Teto's appearance for this one line does feel out of left field, it does bring up an interesting point about Miku's popularity. Miku and Vocaloid as a whole were (and arguably still are) the first singing vocal synthesis voice bank and program that come to mind when asked about the subject. However, Teto has gained quite a fanbase in recent years due to her addition as a Synthesizer V voice bank. Her story of being merely an April Fool's prank at first then becoming an actual commercially available voice bank also helped matters. Everyone loves a good underdog story. But even with that in mind, many other vocal synthesis programs and characters have emerged since Miku's initial release and have become popular in their own right. It's not just Miku anymore. We have Kasane Teto and UTAU; KAFU and CeVIO; Yi Xi and Synthesizer V; and so on and so forth. Miku certainly isn't overshadowed by any means, but there are others out there. I can't speak for PinocchioP about this, but it makes me wonder if he's bitter about the fact that Miku isn't number one anymore? Or at least isn't the only one?