A fun cousin of vocaloid.
Every couple months I find myself back in the cycle of watching
~20 some odd otomads, and while not vocaloid strictly I would say
it still falls within the same broader "niconico culture". At least
enough to warrent placing it here.
For those unfamiliar otomad(音mad), or YTPMV, are videos in which songs
(usually game OSTs) are 'covered' through
using various samples from otaku culture, japanese commercials,
or just various parts of otaku net culture in general. These
are done usually done without any BGM, meaning all of the sound
is being made through these samples.
Despite being from the same general userbase, there is some cross
polination from what I've seen between these two sub cultures.
Notably it's not uncommon for an otomad to pull in some utau
here and there, and there exists a plethora of koronba songs
(which use utau themselves) that have been covered in otomads.
I also think that if you enjoy vocaloid outside of just the
faces of the voice sets, as in the effort put in to make
something tuning and the fun visual aspects. I think its
safe to say one would enjoy the occasional otomad here and there.
I mentioned a bit about the use of otaku culture and Japanese
TV commercials as sources, however within otaku culture there
seems to more then a little bias torwards which original mediums
are used. Long stays appear to be Kill Me Baby and yuyushiki. It
is common for a video to have a "common origin", trying to make
use of mostly a single anime or game samples for the majority
of the samples used. Similarly, you will find creators reusing
or having specific samples that are reused from video to video.
As far as I can tell, these _seemed_ to evolve independently
from the now classical youtube videos that would do a lot
of the same (often for more humerous effects). I would be
very interested in figuring the exact amounts of cross
pollination that happened between these groups.
I find myself growing more fond of these fun and catchy
videos every time I find myself going back to them. It's
quite fun to watch the videos to see where the samples
originate as well as spotting common reoccurances between
videos.