Megurine Luka

Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ) was the third Japanese Vocaloid2 in the Vocaloid2 Character Vocal Series created by Crypton Future Media, released on January 30, 2009. Her name combines the kanji of her surname Meguri (巡, circulate or around) and Ne (音, sound); with the last name Luka which invokes the homonymous Japanese words of "nagare" (流, flow) and "ka" (歌, song) or "ka" (香, scent); thus forming the name meaning "songs to all around the world as scent spreads". Her voice is provided by Yuu Asakawa (浅川悠 Asakawa Yuu).

Megurine Luka (Megurine Ruka 巡音ルカ)

Character Overview

Megurine Luka, different from it's previous Vocaloids, is designed to be a 3GB vocal database with a "Japanese/English bilingual" feature. Her name is chosen to express it's hope that she will transcend borders and cultural barriers. She was designed by the illustrator, KEI - who also designed Hatsune Miku,Kagamine Lin and Kagamine Ren. However, unlike the previous designs, Megurine Luka is not designed with a costume based on school uniform.

Megurine Luka's "Signature Item" Arguements"

Before TakoLuka came to creation

On January 8 2009, weeks before her debut, there was a big debate going on about what signature item should Megurine Luka hold, which became a heat topic on Japanese VOCALOID threads, NicoNicoDouga, Piapro, and even pixiv itself. Eventually, one of pixiv's artist Sanpachi, as well as a user member at Piapro, proposed that "if she has multiple arms, she will be able to hold on anything you ask for!" and submitted a TakoLuka, a derivated character of Luka. Since then the arguement stopped indefinitely.

Thus TakoLuka was born

Impact on pixiv

As of May 2011, There are about 28000 illustrations of Megurine Luka available on search in pixiv. She is depicted to have a sexier approach than the previous Vocaloids, as her age is older and has the body of an adult. Because of that, she is very well recieved amongst the Japanese art community.

Many illustrations that have been posted in pixiv are sold in self-published doujins in Comiket. Similarly with Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin/Len, pixiv also sold their own published VOCALOID illustration books under the name "Time Go Round, pixiv Megurine Luka Illustrations".

Cultural Impact

As soon as she made her debut, many songs were produced using Luka's voicebank. On the 70th Weekly Vocaloid Ranking (which is published on February 2, 2009), many of Luka's songs appeared in the Top 30 list, knocking the very popular "Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru" and songs produced by ryo (with the exception of "Melt") right out of the list. "RIP=RELEASE" had taken the #1 spot, and had earned a total of 843,233 points, making it the song with the highest one-week score.

In the Western fandom, her popularity is arguably the most popular amongst western vocaloid fans, beating possibly even Hatsune Miku. Since she is Japanese/English billigual, although her English voicebank is flawed to a certain degree many found her to be easy to work with, and until today she is still considered to be better than most of the English based Vocaloids released before; although in the end it depends on how the program itself is used.

US Debut

She is set alongside Miku to be debuted in the upcoming Los Angeles concert. Although it is still unknown whether she will recieve the same treatment as Hatsune Miku in the English software release. However it is possible to fully use her English voicebank in the Japanese release itself.

Trivia

According to KEI, who was asked to illustrate her by Crypton, due to her bilingual software, her design was made to be asymmetrical, so from different angles she would look different.

Her design incorporates woodwind and brass instruments. The gold curl design on her chest mimics brass instruments and a circulatory organ. The jewel on her throat represents moisture in the air and water drops.

While the software was in the alpha stage of development, Crypton were hoping for a voice that sounded sexy, however, due to the level of softness in the results the vocals were unable to sound sexy.

Since the trial version had enough vocal capabilities to function as a normal Vocaloid, hackers were reported to have found out how to turned off the limit of 30 days for her 30 day trial versions.

Some preferred to call her with the Japanese native pronounciation of her name "Ruka". Although the romanized version of the word could be either, the English version has been confirmed as "Luka" and since there is no dubbed version to content with, this name remains the only official name in existence for the Vocaloid.

Other information

Age : 20

Height : 162CM

Weight : 45KG

Genre preferred : Latin-Jazz, Techno based pop, House to Electronica based Dance.

Tempo preferred : Songs in 65 - 145 BPM (Beats per Minute)

Voice Tone : D3 - D5

Notable for being

First billingual Vocaloid
First English voicebank produced by a Japanese company
First English voicebank provided by a Japanese provider
First newly released Vocaloid to impact Miku's rankings in the Vocaloid ranking charts.