Miura's art for Gackpoid

In July 2008 was released Gackpoid (がくっぽいど), a voice pack for the singing voice synthesizer software Vocaloid (ボーカロイド), created by Yamaha. Gackpoid is one of many third party extensions created for Vocaloid over the years. The most famous voice and virtual singer associated with Vocaloid is Hatsune Miku, which you may have heard of. 

Anyway, Gackpoid was developed by a Japanese company called "Internet Corporation" (株式会社インターネット), and what interests us about it is that its mascot was created by Kentarou Miura.

The voice from Gackpoid was sampled from that of Japanese singer Gackt. He's not very well-known in the West, but in Japan he's a household name with 48 singles and 19 albums released as of 2022. Many of his songs have topped the local charts over the years, and besides that he's been in over two dozen movies and TV dramas (plus a bunch of other things as you can imagine). He also happens to be a big fan of Berserk, and so when they made Gackpoid, he suggested to ask Miura if he could create the associated character.

ASKING MIURA

Specifically, this old article details how Gackpoid was originally supposed to come out in June, but was delayed because Gackt was dissatisfied with the artwork. He proposed the company to contact Miura in part because he knew he was a fan of Nico Nico Douga (ニコニコ動画, meaning "smiling videos"), the video sharing website that was the primary venue for sharing Vocaloid creations at the time. Internet Corporation had a relationship with Dwango, the company being Nico Nico Douga, as they produced a dedicated software named Niconico Movie Maker. Thus they were able to contact Miura directly through the website by using its internal broadcasting system (which interrupts the video currently playing).

Despite his busy schedule and the fact they only had two weeks to get the illustrations done before the software would be released, this caught Miura's eye and the Young Animal editorial department contacted the company to ask them to submit a detailed proposal. After receiving it, he asked to meet them and Noboru Murakami, president of Internet Co., went to YA's offices. Miura had actually drawn a first sketch already and told them he would do it, as he was fond of the concept of Nico Nico Douga (where amateur creators can show off their work and receive feedback).

In keeping with the spirit of the platform where users post their work for free and allow for them to be remixed, Miura insisted to provide the illustrations free of charge and to allow the character to be reused by fans for non-commercial and personal use.

DESIGNING "CAMUI GACKPO"

From then on, he started sending daily sketches by fax (a pre-internet technology that allowed people to send copies of A4 sheets of paper over phone lines), iterating over the design. Those were in turn e-mailed to Gackt (at his request), who was filming a movie in Hollywood at the time. Gackt had wanted a samurai-like character for the mascot, and his instructions were to "not be too conscious of my image". He wanted it to be from Miura's perspective, only asking that his eyes were carried over.

The resulting mascot is called Camui Gackpo (神威がくぽ), named after Gackt's own alias (神威楽斗). The sketches included in this post show how the character design evolved. Miura wanted to mix in "cyber" elements so that the character would be recognizable as a Vocaloid. But to give an appropriate samurai vibe, he'd have to wear traditional Japanese clothing, and making those futuristic would detract from the design. That's why the military uniforms from the early concepts were discarded.

Instead, Miura made the body itself cybernetic and kept the clothes traditional (with the shoulderpad resembling traditional samurai armor). However, to properly show off the cyber body, a kimono wouldn't do as it would cover it up too much, so Miura opted to just give him a jinbaori (a surcoat worn by high-ranking samurai). On its back, you can see an ornemental version of the kanji 楽 (GAKU), which means music. Of note is that Miura was also careful to produce a design that would be easy for fans to copy by themselves.

THE MUSICAL SWORD

Camui Gackpo has a weapon-like instrument called 楽刀・美振 (がくとう・みぶり). The producer wanted the character to use an instrument, so Miura had the idea to create one that would resemble a katana, as would befit a samurai. Its name, pronounced GAKUTOU MIBURI, consists of a few puns that I will now endeavor to explain. 楽刀 (GAKUTOU) is first and foremost a pun on Gackt's name in Japanese (ガクト, pronounced GAKUTO). Its literal meaning is "musical sword".

美振 (MIBURI) is a made-up word that means something like "beautiful swing". More importantly, it's a reference to the Miburi (ミブリ), a wearable electronic musical instrument commercialized by Yamaha's experimental division in 1995. The performer creates music through gestures, dance and gymnastics-like movements. It's composed of a vest with sensors built into the shoulders, elbows and arms, plus two handheld controllers with eight keys each that play notes depending on how you grip them. Needless to say, it's an obscure instrument that few notable musicians have ever used. Who is the most prominent one, that also used it the most? Susumu Hirasawa. Here he is performing Sim City 2 live with it.

The result is an instrument that looks like a sword but is only used to play music with friends, helping them feel the beat when swinging it down on them. You'll notice that the Gakutou's handle also has keys on it.

RECEPTION & LATER VERSIONS

Gackpoid was released for Vocaloid 2 on July 31, 2008, and was one of few male voices available for it at the time. Like most Vocaloid voice banks outside of the top 3 most popular, it does not seem to have gained much traction upon its release. To boost its use, Nico Nico Douga organized a contest the following year to promote the creation of original songs. It was teased by Gackt himself on June 10, 2009 during a Nico Nico Douga live stream, then announced officially on June 12.

Real effort was put into it: the winner was awarded 300,000 yen while the nine other finalists got 100,000 yen each, but more importantly Gackt promised that he would personally cover at least one of the winning songs. Submissions were accepted until the end of August. Among the ten finalists, Episode.0 by mathru/Kanimiso-P was designated the winner. True to his word, two years later, on July 13, 2011, Gackt released Episode.0 as his 39th single. He covered the title song as well as Paranoid Doll, by natsu-P, which had been another finalist in the contest. Miura provided two new illustrations for the occasion, one depicting Gackpo, the other Gackt.

On July 13, 2012, a new version of Gackpoid was released for Vocaloid 3. It was a package containing three different vocal tones: Native (standard voice), Power and Whisper. They each feature a different version of Camui Gackpo illustrated by Miura. Following the release of Vocaloid 4, another update to Gackpoid was released on April 30, 2015. It used the same illustrations. Gackpoid V3 and V4 are still compatible with the current Vocaloid 5 software, released in 2018.