Barely one week after the release of Lily on August 25th, Yamaha quietly heralded the advent of VY1 Mizki on September 1st.

I'm not even caught up with all the popular Vocaloid songs since I kinda ceased visiting Niconico on a regular basis in late 2008, so it'll be a long time (at least 2011) before I get more familiar with the new Vocaloids. But here's my first impressions on the two new additions, based on the packaging and the demo songs.

Lily has a rather eye-catching appearance, but only at the first glance. The yellow and black colouring coincides with the Kagamine twins too much to make an impact, and the design of her clothes and accessories seems generic. In short, the art for Lily is a bit too typical to really stand out, especially considering all the moe characters out there.

The voice of Lily is supplied by yuri, the female singer of m.o.v.e. I don't usually listen to J-pop and have never seen the Initial D anime, but I have heard m.o.v.e's Romancing Train from Final Fantasy: Unlimited (where else?) and a couple songs performed at Animelo, so I have a good grasp of what yuri is capable of.

Unfortunately, yuri's powerful vocal doesn't translate well to Lily, as demonstrated in the sample tune Gamble Rumble which I had heard the Animelo live version. That, and Lily's voice is too similar with that of Luka's and Len's. As a result, I think it'd be difficult for Lily to find her own music style. To quote the comment I sent to Neko-tan, "Lily的聲音好微妙啊... 除了外觀以外紅不太起來的感覺" (It's really hard to describe Lily's voice... Feels like only the look might sell.)

On the other hand, VY1 Mizki has no character persona and Yamaha purposely hid the identity of the person that lent her voice to VY1 Mizki. The absence of any kind of background setting for VY1 Mizki is meant for the users to illustrate their own images to fit the music they create. This is a rather bold move for a product that comes after an established line of character series, especially when character sells better than anything in the land of the rising sun.

The deluxe package is peach coloured with a traditional folding fan, while the standard package is peach coloured with a traditional ornate hairpin. Both items are adorned with flowering dogwood (ハナミズキ, hence the code name Mizki). It's no wonder a good number of the designs out there are girls in pink/peach coloured kimono. I wouldn't be surprised if a few designs stick around and become the unofficial official characters like the plethora of current Vocaloid subspecies.

It's obvious that Yamaha wants people to focus on the voice of VY1 Mizki, and rightly so. VY1 Mizki sounds a lot more natural than the other Vocaloids, though it may seem to resemble Luka and possibly Miku Append at times. It's hard to say how far VY1 Mizki will go, but it definitely has a lot of potential. I can see it getting mixed into the "family" like Gakupo once the character identity crisis gets resolved somewhat, and I look forward to seeing more Vocaloid drama involving VY1 Mizki as well.

Looks like Yamaha will be releasing another Vocaloid in the VY series within the year, this time hopefully a long awaited male voice. Gakupo is good, but it just can't match KAITO in terms of vocal range and depth. Though, I'm sure KAITO will always be everybody's favourite Bakaito even if the next VY rivals KAITO's capacity. XD